Unpopular Decision Quotes
The Smithsonian in 1888 had started a “Department of Living Animals” and had 172 at the time whereas earlier all animals were stuffed. At the time no one was quite sure whether or not there would be any public interest in a zoo. This initial request for $200,000 to buy property on which to place the zoo was turned down as historically zoos were created by royalty and the very rich and didn’t seem democratic to many members of the House. Others however, saw the role of democracy as bringing to ordinary people what had historically been available only to royalty and the wealthy. See {629321} . The Speaker was not an enthusiast for the zoo and the House had voted it down in the previous session, but there had been a surge in popular opinion and Congressmen had been extensively lobbied by advcates for the upper and working classes. The Speaker was a realist as the quotation indicates, but he was not as tactful as later speakers were.
Dean was the counsel to President Nixon and was the point man in getting the nomination confirmed. There was some evidence that Rehnquist might have lied earlier in his career, that several senators wanted to inquire about. Nixon, Dean and the White House Staff pushed the nomination through on a partisan vote without any inquiry into the matter.
The House was theoretically controlled by the speaker and his Republican Party. So Boehner did what House speakers have always done when there was a President of the other Party The speaker then negotiated a wonderful budget with President Barak Obama, but he had many extreme Republican Tea Party Conservatives who would not support the compromise. The speaker could have passed the bill anyway with the votes of the Democrats and the more rational and centrist Republicans, but he chose not do do so and renegged on his fairly public agreement with the President rather than have a large part of his caucus repudiate him. Ironically, the dissidents turned on him anyway, and he lost many of his followers. So he resigned as the speaker and also from the House itself
President John Adams, in the last days of his office made a series of Federal appointments. His opponent, upon taking office, was on the horns of a dilemma.
There were substantial financial incentives in the terms of the Union for the leading nobles and members of Parliament.
