Hyde says no 'retreat' from pro-life platform

This story, republished from our archives, first ran April 30, 1996.

Rep. Henry J. Hyde said Monday he does not intend to soften the anti-abortion plank should he be named to chair the Republican Party's platform committee.

In a brief telephone interview, Hyde, a Wood Dale Republican who first gained national notoriety in Congress for his amendments to restrict federal funding of most abortions, said he has not been formally asked to chair the platform committee before the August nominating convention.

But reports are growing in the nation's capital that Hyde is the platform committee chairman choice of apparent Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole and his campaign advisers.

Should he be asked to chair the committee, Hyde said, "I don't intend to weaken the pro-life position the party's had for the past four elections. My posture is not one of retreat."

Hyde played a pivotal, influential role as a member of the platform committee prior to the 1992 convention in Houston, but said Monday he did not presume to be able to unilaterally impose his will on committee members should he again have a role this summer.

Reports circulating in Washington suggested a GOP platform committee chairman, vice-chairman and a diverse group of five co-chairs could be named this week by the Dole camp and party officials. Speculation centers on Hyde as chairman and Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt as vice chairman.

Mary Mead Crawford, a Republican National Committee press secretary, said the platform committee's leadership likely would be announced within the next two weeks.

The move to name Hyde as platform committee chairman would seem to make sense because the 22-year congressman helped bolster Dole's standing with anti-abortion activists and other conservatives by making campaign trips on his behalf in Iowa and South Carolina, a state that provided a turning-point victory for the Senate Majority Leader from Kansas.

Republican congressional operatives said they were bewildered by reports that Hyde would abandon his deeply held beliefs and chair the committee in order to remove anti-abortion language that has remained a divisive part of the GOP platform for years.

Maintaining the same abortion language that has existed might serve to solidify support for Dole from anti-abortion activists and supporters of conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan.

Ed Murnane, an Arlington Heights resident who directs Dole's Illinois campaign and served in former President Bush's White House, said a Hyde appointment makes sense because the congressman is "an icon in the pro-life movement.

"I'm not a bit surprised," Murnane said of mounting speculation Hyde would chair the committee.

Even before Hyde was named House Judiciary Committee Chairman when the GOP won a majority in 1994, Murnane noted, he was a frequent guest on national news shows because he is known as a thoughtful conservative.

"He would do a great job pulling all of the different factions of the party together and developing a platform," Murnane said.