Democracy for Vancouver

So I’ll let others do it for me. First, Henry Hyde himself, to Salon in 1998:

The statute of limitations has long since passed on my youthful indiscretions. Suffice it to say Cherie Snodgrass and I were good friends a long, long time ago. After Mr. Snodgrass confronted my wife, the friendship ended…

According to Cherie Snodgrass (now Hancock), Hyde:

called her “my heathen,” because she wasn’t as pious as he was, and at parties would jokingly pray, “Dear God, make me pure, but not now, later.”

Hyde, in his Landon Lecture, Kansas State University, Dec. 1, 1999:

That America might become — indeed, may be becoming — a “permissive cornucopia” in which “I did it my way” is the new national anthem is another reason to think very seriously about the intersection of culture and politics.

Reporter Dennis Bernstein on Hyde’s involvement in the Savings & Loan debacle:

Henry Hyde was one of twelve directors of the Clyde Federal Savings & Loan of North Riverside Illinois which failed to the tune of 68 million dollars in 1990. In 1993 federal banking investigators filed a $17 million suit against the firms directors, including Hyde, citing … mismanagement, gross negligence, breach of fiduciary duties, and breach of contract. Ultimately all directors except for Hyde contributed to an $850,000 settlement of the case in 1997. Hyde never paid a penny. He denied responsibility, saying he had relied on the judgment of professionals.
…
Timothy J. Anderson, an independent banking consultant in the Chicago area … said Hyde was definitely in the loop at Clyde, and led the charge for the bank’s demise. He said, “Clyde’s board relied on Hyde for guidance, not just as a lawyer and the future head of Judiciary, but as a former member of the House banking Committee, with considerable expertise. It was Hyde … who got them to invest millions of dollars into a Dallas office project that could not go forward. Hyde was the ringleader,” Anderson said. He was the board member who was controlling management. Hyde was the man in the middle. For his part, Hyde … took the extreme measure of hiring a well known private investigator, Ernie Rizzo, and launched an undercover investigation designed to discredit Anderson.

Finally, the text of the odious Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from being spent on abortion with very limited exceptions, and which has hurt who knows how many thousands of women, both at home and serving the U.S. abroad:

None of the funds appropriated under this Act shall be expended for any abortion except when it is made known to the federal entity or official to which funds are appropriated under this Act that such procedure is necessary to save the life of the mother or that the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest.

And the result of Hyde’s cruelty for one family:

Jane Doe learned in July 2002, when she was five months pregnant, that her fetus had anencephaly, a neural defect that results in stillbirths in about two-thirds of cases and is invariably fatal to infants soon after birth.

When the Navy denied funding for an abortion, she sued, claiming a constitutional right to be treated equally with military women whose childbirths were paid for by the government. A federal judge ordered payment for the abortion and the government complied but appealed, seeking reimbursement.

The appeals court said the rationale accepted by the Supreme Court for the Hyde Amendment — to promote the government’s legitimate interest in “protecting potential life” — applies equally to the restrictions on military funding. That is true even when the fetus has no chance for survival, the court said.