page_title: Dick Gephardt
section_title: House leadership
hierarchical_section_title: Dick Gephardt / Political career / House leadership
caption_attribution_description: MATTHEW SHEPARD CANDLELIGHT VIGIL at the US Capitol West Lawn in Washington DC on Wednesday night, 14 October 1998 by Elvert Barnes Protest Photography Senator DICK GEPHARDT CNN article at www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1998/10/19/gay.politics.html Watch SUCH IS LIFE video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-QdqE4l-VY MATTHEW SHEPARD FOUNDATION at www.matthewshepard.org/ Elvert Barnes PROTEST PHOTOGRAPHY at elvertbarnes.com/protestphotog1998
context_page_description: Richard Andrew Gephardt is an American politician who served as a United States Representative from Missouri from 1977 to 2005. A member of the Democratic Party, he was House Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995 and Minority Leader from 1995 to 2003. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 1988 and 2004. Gephardt was mentioned as a possible vice presidential nominee in 1988, 1992, 2000, 2004, and 2008.
  Since his retirement from politics, Gephardt has become a significant lobbyist. He founded a Washington-based public affairs firm, Gephardt Government Affairs, and an Atlanta-based labor consultancy, the Gephardt Group, as well as consulting for DLA Piper, FTI Consulting and Goldman Sachs. He is also a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One.
context_section_description: In part due to the visibility gained from his 1988 presidential bid, Gephardt was elected majority leader by his House colleagues in June 1989, making him the second-ranking Democrat in the House, behind then-Speaker Tom Foley. Gephardt served in that position until January 1995.
  After Foley was unseated in the Republican landslide of 1994 that gave the Republicans a 52-seat majority, Gephardt became the leader of the House Democrats, as minority leader, initially opposite Newt Gingrich and then, from 1999 onward, Dennis Hastert. When Gingrich faced a coup within his own party in 1997, Gephardt could have become Speaker if there had been a floor vote and he gained the support of Republican members dissatisfied with Gingrich, but Gingrich refused to resign and no vote occurred. In the 1996, 1998, and 2000 elections, Gephardt led the Democrats to gains in the House, although they did not retake the majority until 2006, after Gephardt had left Congress.
  Gephardt became a prolific financial supporter of Democrats around the country in the early 1990s, assembling a team of top fundraising staff who helped him support hundreds of candidates for local and federal office. Although Gephardt worked hard for many of President Bill Clinton's programs, he and his union supporters strongly opposed NAFTA and other "free trade" programs, so Clinton relied on Republican support to pass those initiatives. During the impeachment proceedings of President Clinton, Gephardt led a walkout in the House after a censure motion was ruled irrelevant to the impeachment debate.
  In 2000, Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore named Gephardt to his short list of possible vice presidential candidates. The other names on the short list were Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, North Carolina Senator John Edwards, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, and New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen. Gore eventually selected Lieberman.
  In the 2002 Congressional midterm elections, Gephardt campaigned on the economy and Social Security, but the continuing resonance of the September 11 attacks, the momentum for military action against Iraq, and President George W. Bush's popularity lead to Republican gains, with the Democrats losing four House seats. Harold Ford of Tennessee called the results an "absolute blowout" and called upon Gephardt to step down, saying that it was time for "new ideas and new faces". Due to his previous success, it has been said that Gephardt would have been easily returned as Minority Leader if he had decided to stay on. However, Gephardt, who was planning to run for president in 2004, did not run for reelection as House Minority Leader, stepping down in January 2003. His leadership position was contested by the centrist Martin Frost, the outgoing Democratic Caucus Chair, and the liberal Nancy Pelosi, the Minority Whip, who was elected as Gephardt's successor. No longer having Congressional leadership duties freed Gephardt up to concentrate on a 2004 presidential bid.
caption: Gephardt speaking at a vigil for Matthew Shepard in 1998
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