Gingrich is by far worse than the rest of these leaders and it’s not close. The damage he did went well beyond the others in a unique way.
Most leaders listed here were partisans, either for a party or a region. Cannon and McConnell was/is aggressive partisans. They pushed and in some cases broke norms to achieve partisan ends.
Cannon’s tenure saw almost no rules changes that enhanced his power, for example. He simply pushed norms established by Speakers Randall, Carlisle, and Reed much further and ultimately farther than his caucus was willing to tolerate.
McConnell is similar in that he didn’t reinvent the wheel procedurally. His tactics have broadly followed Reid, Frist, Lott, etc, just to a more extreme degree. He had his conference’s support to block Garland. Extensions, even big ones of existing tactics is historically common.
Gingrich, on the other hand, was institutionally damaging on another level. He cut staff, hollowed out the committee system, eliminated the DC committee, cut legislative agencies, and reduced House capacity, on top of pushing partisan warfare to new levels.
Gingrich stands out as an institutionally damaging leader, not just a partisan leader seeking wins.
Partisans want to win and they’ll break norms to do it. This is procedurally and historically common. It has happened pretty much every decade of congressional history.
Gingrich was more than a partisan. He gutted the institution’s capability to serve as an effective representative branch.
