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Rep. Dick Gephardt's press secretary Eric Smith told NewsMax today that the congressman's controversial comments about the Supreme Court were being misinterpreted. The congressman said he would use executive orders to overcome Supreme Court decisions he didn't like, not overturn them, the spokesman emphasized. "He's standing by it." Smith said, "Dick Gephardt knows the law, and he knows he can't overturn" the court's decisions. "He's simply expressing his commitment to diversity" and to using every tool available to promote "affirmative action." Asked if Gephardt, D-Mo., would find it acceptable if President Bush boasted he would use executive orders to overcome...

PONTEFICATIONS “WHEN I’M PRESIDENT, WE’LL HAVE EXECUTIVE ORDERS to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow….” Thus spoke Rep. Dick Gephardt (D.-Missouri), former Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, often called one of the Democrats’ most moderate candidates for President in 2004. Gephardt spoke Sunday in Chicago, where he had come to address Project PUSH and the Rainbow Coalition and their leader Rev. Jesse Jackson. Gephardt’s bizarre statement came during a verbal shoving match as he and the eight others contending for his party’s mantle strove to outdo one another in promises to uphold the reverse racism...

TALLAHASSEE · Claude Kirk wants his money back. Florida's former Republican governor says Democrat Dick Gephardt had no business soliciting him for a donation to Gephardt's presidential campaign. "How the hell did I get on their list?" asked Kirk, 77, who figures he has lost $1.60 in facsimile costs for both the unwanted invitation that showed up on his fax machine and his subsequent complaints about it. Gephardt, a congressman from Missouri and former House minority leader, already has traveled to Florida for fund-raising this year. He will return March 19 for an evening reception at Miami's swank Mandarin Oriental...

Rep. Gephardt, D-St. Louis County, warned Missouri Republicans over the weekend that scuttling the primary would disenfranchise soldiers - an important and politically sensitive voting bloc

SIOUX CITY, Iowa, March 9 — Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri came here today for a thoughtful Sunday morning living room conversation with Iowa Democrats about the issues of his emerging presidential campaign: education, health care and pension. But for 25 minutes, Mr. Gephardt was badgered about his support for President Bush's Iraq policy in a tense session that finally ended when the local Democratic chairman said Mr. Gephardt was running behind schedule. In an instant, Mr. Gephardt was out of the room headed to his next stop. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts came to Iowa on Saturday to...

Does anybody really care, Dickie?

ST. LOUIS (Reuters) - Democrat Richard Gephardt formally launched his 2004 presidential campaign on Wednesday, blasting the Bush administration's economic policies and promising to lead a crusade to "put hard-working Americans first." In the packed gymnasium of his former elementary school in south St. Louis, the Missouri congressman stressed his working-class Midwestern roots and said the nation could not afford four more years of President Bush. "I'm going to fight for you, and I'm going to win," Gephardt told a crowd jammed with family, friends and longtime supporters. "I'm running for president because I'm tired of leadership that's left us...

<p>Insurance broker Tom Martin and retired union bookkeeper Patricia Pijut don't agree on much. He's a staunch Republican and she's a loyal Democrat.</p> <p>But in the latest Zogby poll for the Post-Dispatch, both were among the two-thirds of the 603 Missourians surveyed who hold the same position on the Confederate flag.</p>

In Iowa, 3 Democratic hopefuls hit the ground running Candidates attack Bush's tax plan while meeting party faithful 01/19/2003 Associated Press DES MOINES, Iowa - Attacking President Bush's tax-cutting efforts, two Democratic contenders for the White House in 2004 called for repealing the $1.35 trillion plan Congress passed two years ago. A third advocated a freeze in the phased-in reductions. Courting party activists a year before the opening of the presidential nominating season, Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts said Democrats must present a clear alternative to Mr. Bush...

Black judge's renomination urged 01/11/2003 Associated Press WASHINGTON - Two Missouri Democrats are asking President Bush to renominate the black judge who was the key witness for the opposition during Attorney General John Ashcroft's confirmation hearings. Reps. Dick Gephardt and William Lacy Clay asked the president to appoint Missouri Supreme Court Judge Ronnie White to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which will have a vacancy in April. Judge White, nominated in 1997, was the first district court nominee turned down on the floor in four decades. Mr. Ashcroft, then a Missouri senator seeking re-election, called Judge White...

Gephardt says Bush is on 'the wrong path' He says he looks forward to challenging him in presidential race 01/05/2003 Associated Press WASHINGTON - Democratic Rep. Dick Gephardt, who is taking a first step toward a White House bid in 2004, said Saturday that President Bush is offering poor leadership at a crucial time in the nation's history. "On nearly every issue of importance to the country - national security, the economy, health care, education, energy policy - President Bush is leading the country either down the wrong path or not leading at all," Mr. Gephardt said in a...

This week Bill took his villain of the week segment one step further and named the top 10 villains of 2002. 1) James Ziglar and Blake Brown both of the INS — Brown, a former Seattle Chief in the INS, overruled the Border Patrol to allow John Lee Malvo, one of the alleged Beltway snipers, to enter the country. Former head of the INS Ziglar ran the agency poorly. 2) FBI Chief Robert Mueller — For his treatment of whistle blower agent Coleen Rowley. 3) The Vatican Curia — For their handling of the Catholic Church sex scandal. 4)...

Filed at 5:46 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rep. Nancy Pelosi will try to unify fellow House Democrats with an inclusive style and a willingness to confront Republicans on the issues, her supporters say. Opponents say the party needs a new and more moderate generation of leadership. Pelosi, 62, from San Francisco, is on the brink of becoming the first woman to serve as a leader of either party in the House or Senate, provided she prevails over a late and decidedly long-shot challenge from Rep. Harold Ford of Tennessee. She is trying to move up from Democratic whip, the...

The election of 2002 was a curious affair. It was a contest between two sets of candidates, none of whom appeared on any ballot, anywhere. Yet in that contest, the lead race was the overwhelming defeat of former President William J. Clinton by President George W. Bush. In the other national race, sort of a “Vice Presidential” one, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani handily defeated the tag-team of Senators Hillary Clinton and Tom Daschle. Before we get into that, some words are in order about the candidates who were on the ballot, and who won or lost public office because the...

Hey Kentucky and Indiana FReepers! BIG FReep needed on Tuesday Oct. 29th from 7:30-9:30AM at the UAW union hall 6707 Grade Ln. Louisville, KY against Jack Conway ('RAT candidate running against Rep. Anne Northup). House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt will make a campaign stop there to support Conway. Our wanna-be "Mayor for Life" Jerry Abramson will be there as well to stump for the Con-man. We need dedicated FReepers to come out and show 'em where we stand!!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the House of Representatives said on Wednesday they decided to shelve tax break legislation for investors, citing Senate inaction and disagreement among themselves over items to bring to a vote ahead of the congressional elections. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert of Illinois said Republicans at a meeting on Wednesday decided it was better to wait until after the Nov. 5, congressional election to deal with the tax bill some Republicans were pushing to help investors and individual retirement account holders weather the current market slump. "There is just not total agreement on it," Hastert...

House Minority Leader, Richard Gephardt, left, D-Mo., and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., stand by a pledge card which both had just signed, pledging not to let Social Security be privatized, during a news conference in the Capitol, Wed., Oct. 9, 2002, in Washington. Gephardt and Daschle also used the news conference to demand the swift departure of Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Harvey Pitt. (AP Photo/Ken Lambert)

<p>WASHINGTON - Seven of the 12 lawmakers who represent Massachusetts in Congress say they will vote against a proposed resolution authorizing President Bush to use force against Iraq, mainly because the measure would allow the United States to launch a unilateral, preemptive attack.</p>

It's not pretty in the Democratic Party. We rolled you audio of Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) flipping out on House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, because Gephardt stood with President Bush in the Rose Garden to support the joint resolution against Saddam Hussein al-Takriti in Iraq. The Boston Globe angrily criticized Gephardt for "standing beside a president who is aggressively raising money to block the Democrats of winning a majority in the House." You people look like the biggest bunch of class clowns that this nation has ever produced. You only have one guy - a guy with no melanin, standing...

(September 28, 2002 11:24 a.m. EDT) - I am waiting for Britney Spears to speak out before making up my own mind on an invasion of Iraq, but that does not mean I am failing to pay attention to Barbra Streisand, or to such other Hollywood celebrities as Steven Spielberg or Tom Cruise. One cannot be too careful about such things. According to cnn.com, Streisand has sent a letter to Richard Gephardt, Democratic leader in the House, advising that Democrats go all out to defeat President Bush in the Iraq debate. Gephardt was no doubt in a hopeless quandary before...