May 9, 2006

The House Historian's "District Office"

by Cliopatria

KC Johnson is professor of history at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, and a contributor to the HNN group blog Cliopatria. His most recent book is Congress and the Cold War.

Today's Roll Call has a troubling article on the struggles of the newly created House Historian's Office. As some Cliopatria readers might recall, last year Speaker Hastert selected a distinguished historian, Robert Remini, to become the new House historian. The Roll Call story suggests that the Remini appointment isn't working out. (In the interests of disclosure, neither I nor anyone I knew applied for the House Historian's job.)

The House has tough competition on the Historical Office front: the Senate Historical Office, headed by veterans Richard Baker and Don Ritchie, is a scholar's dream. I can't recall a single instance during the writing of the three books I've done on Congress where the Senate Historical Office hasn't been able to provide whatever (usually arcane) information I needed, and almost always on the spot. It simply would not be possible to work on the history of the Cold War Congress without the office's ambitious oral and photo history programs, as well as its compilations of dozens of volumes of executive sessions of the Foreign Relations Committee and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. And, of course, any historian or political scientist working on Congress knows that whenever we're in Washington, we can always drop by and see Ritchie or Baker if there's anything on the ground that we need. Perhaps there's a better example of an office devoted to institutional or public history around, but if there is, I haven't encountered it.

The House has chosen a different model. Deputy House Historian Fred Beuttler told Roll Call that Remini, whose salary is $109,646, works out of what could be termed"a district office in some ways,” in his Illinois hometown. Remini commutes to Washington only a couple of days a month.

Remini is 84 years old; his wife is ill; and he has committed to write the official history of the University of Illinois at Chicago. So he obviously has personal reasons for wanting to stay in Illinois. But none of the 435 members of the House base their activities from their"district office," and a large part of the function of a House or Senate historian is visibility in the Capitol and personal accessibility to scholars and journalists. I recently gave a talk in the Russell Senate Office Building, sponsored by the Senate Library, on Congress and the Cold War. Several members from the Senate Historical Office attended; so too did a number of House staffers and even one House member (Washington congressman Rick Larsen). The absence of representatives from the House Historian's Office was notable (I assume Remini was in Illinois); and I doubt that I'm the only congressional scholar who has had this experience.

Deputy Historian Beuttler, meanwhile, lacks academic training in congressional history, or even political history or a relevant political science field, he told Roll Call that"when [Remini] retires, I’ll apply for the position." Beuttler seems to have some good ideas on where he wants to take the office--conducting members' oral histories, for instance--but it seems to me very hard to imagine a House historian, in effect, learning the subject on the job.

Raymond Smock, the former House historian who was fired by Newt Gingrich in 1995, told Roll Call that “the idea to have a House Historian who lives in Illinois and flies into the Capitol a couple of days a month is just not going to work." I agree. The House deserves--and needs--more than a historian whose own deputy describes him as working from a"district office." But if no one appropriate can be found, Hastert would be better off saving taxpayers the office's $450,000 expense.

More Comments:

Tim Matthewson - 5/12/2006

Agencies of the Federal Government have teams of fomer State Department employees who bowdlerize the documents released by other goverhment agencies to be sure that government secrets and other sensitive information is not released by those other govvernment agencies. Until this practice is eliminated, all of the discussion of Remini, Hastert and the House would seem to be problematical.

Robert KC Johnson - 5/10/2006

As the Roll Call article states, Remini had essentially completed the book before becoming House historian. Remini is clearly a distinguished scholar. But I don't see how you can have a House historian who's only on the job two days a month.

Charles Hendricks - 5/10/2006

Robert Remini has now been historian of the House of Representatives for twelve months, and he has already published a history of that body, which was issued this month by Smithsonian Books, in association with HarperCollins. Remini's new book is entitled The House: The History of the House of Representitives. I have not yet seen it, but I believe that comments on Dr. Remini's performance of his public responsibilities should be informed by an appraisal of all of his work as House historian, most certainly to include his latest book. I was disappointed to see no mention of this book in Professor Johnson's comments.

Stanley Lawrence Falk - 5/10/2006

Ray Smock was doing a fine job before Gingrich killed the program. Why not rehire him?

Kevin R Kosar - 5/10/2006

No doubt the Roll Call article will raise a number of questions, such as:

1. The Roll Call article reports that Remini is "already committed to write the official history of the University of Illinois at Chicago and is under contract with HarperCollins to write a short, narrative history of the United States." In light of these commitments and his other obligations-- has Remini the time to carry out the duties of the job of House historian?

2. Is Remini working full-time on House historian duties? If not, should he continue to draw what amounts to a nice time salary ($109,000+)?

3. Both Remini and Beuttler both come from the same university (U of Illinois-Chicago)in Speaker Hastert's home state. Neither, however, have made their scholarly careers as scholars of Congress, let alone the House. Remini is a superb biographer but his interests seem centered on great men in antebellum America (see his estemed tomes on Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay). Beuttler, meanwhile, was an assistant to Remini at U of Illinois and has diverse scholarly skills that seem to be mostly in Chicago history and theology (see http://www.fredbeuttler.com/FWB-cv.htm). Are either of these scholars the best qualified to serve as the House's historian and deputy historian?

4. Why have a House historian separate from the Office of History and Preservation?

Robert KC Johnson - 5/9/2006

I agree with Ralph. The odd thing is that Hastert--who was a HS history teacher--really does seem to want a history office, in theory, but he's sure had an odd way of showing it.

Oscar Chamberlain - 5/9/2006

This all assumes that the Republican leadership wants a functioning office.

Ralph E. Luker - 5/9/2006

It seems to me that this was predictable, even when Remini was newly appointed. How Hastert and others responsible for the appointment thought that an octagenarian, who had no intention of moving to the District, however distinguished, could adequately do the job is just beyond me.