JOSEPH GAYLORD

JOSEPH GAYLORD. GOP consultant Joseph Gaylord, who is generally credited with engineering the Republicans’ Contract With America in 1994, is also partly to blame for then-Speaker Newt Gingrich running afoul of the House Ethics Committee. In the mid-1990s, Gaylord famously ran Gingrich's office – which was a direct violation of House rules, since he was actually employed by Gingrich’s politial action committee (GOPAC) at the time. (House members and are barred from using funds received from a political committee to defray the costs of their congressional activities.)
Gaylord’s work earned Gingrich the following December 1995 admonishment from the House Ethics Committee:
“In reference to the complaint filed by Representative George Miller on February 13, 1995, the Committee has found that your use of Mr. Joseph Gaylord was in violation of House Rule 45, which prohibits the use of unofficial resources for official purposes. Specifically the Committee found that Mr. Gaylord's activities during the transition of interviewing prospective staff violate our rules and that his regular, routine presence in congressional offices, while in and of itself not a violation of House rules, creates the appearance of the improper commingling of political and official resources. Such activities, if they are continuing, should cease immediately. The Committee will take no further action.”