Newt Gingrich Bankrupts Vermont College Republicans
From the Burlington Free Press:
Burlington Free Press.com | Top Stories: UVM's Republican club folds: By Tim Johnson: There was a certain irony in the recent demise of the College Republicans at the University of Vermont. What ultimately proved to be the club's undoing was an appearance on campus by a national Republican heavyweight: Newt Gingrich.
When the club invited Gingrich to speak at Ira Allen Chapel on Oct. 6, 2005, he settled for an undisclosed honorarium that was apparently higher than the College Republicans could afford. They took out a $7,000 loan from the Student Government Association to help pay the bill, but more than a year later, when the loan still wasn't fully repaid after several ultimatums, the Student Government Association decertified them. In other words, the College Republicans were removed last month from UVM's long list of "recognized," or subsidized, student clubs.
That left the College Democrats and the International Socialist Organization as two of the more prominent political organizations for students, and it left political conservatives with virtually no formal organizational outlet on campus.... One point everyone agrees on is that there was nothing ideological about shutting down the Republican club. It was strictly a money thing.
The fee for Gingrich, a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was never revealed -- the College Republicans said from the beginning that his contract was confidential, and Gingrich, through his press spokesman, will not say how much it was -- but an educated guess is possible. In 2005-06, the College Republicans budgeted $25,000 for speakers, according to Maggie Doran, who works in the Student Government Association's front office. Gingrich, who rose to national prominence in Congress during the 1990s, was the only speaker the club brought in during that academic year. The UVM President's Office contributed $2,000 toward Gingrich's fee, as did the Student Life Office. The sum of all those funds, plus the $7,000 from the loan, comes to $38,000...
