Figure in Gingrich Probe to Run New Lawmaker’s Office

WASHINGTON —  Steven Jost is not exactly a household name, unless one is standing in Democratic gossip circles discussing the fate of House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

It was Jost who ran two Georgia congressional campaigns against Gingrich. It was Jost who investigated and then drafted the ethics charges filed against the Republican leader.

And it was Jost’s relentless pursuit of the case that ultimately led to Gingrich’s recent admission that he broke House rules by giving the Ethics Committee false information about a college course he taught, which was funded by a nonprofit group.

Now, as the controversy over Gingrich’s ethical lapses continues, Jost, a 42-year-old former political consultant, will be watching from a new vantage point: chief of staff for freshman Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Anaheim).

Once the accuser, Jost now stands on the side of the accused as Sanchez braces to defend her election victory against voter fraud charges brought by former Rep. Robert K. Dornan, who has asked the House to call for a new election in the 46th Congressional District in central Orange County.

Sanchez is pleased that Jost will be guiding her through the battles ahead, although she acknowledges that “if there was any one negative,” it was his activism in the Gingrich controversy.

“New kid in town. I didn’t want to obviously align myself or send a message to Newt that I didn’t want to work with him,” Sanchez said. “I certainly hope that the speaker does not view me as trying to be an antagonist because [Jost] is my chief of staff.”

Jost’s past colleagues say the new congresswoman has placed herself in capable hands.

“Dornan has obviously met his match with Ms. Sanchez. With Jost, Bob just might as well hang it up now. He’s beat. He’s dead red meat,” said former Rep. Ben Jones, a former client of Jost’s who officially filed the ethics complaint while challenging Gingrich in the 1994 election.

On the day Sanchez took the oath of office, Jost leaned against a desk, arms folded, legs crossed, and kept an eye on his new boss, who was greeting visitors, all the while trying to remain in the background.

Why did Jost leave the political consulting business and return to the job of congressional staffer? “Because this is a good cause,” he said.

Political activism naturally runs through the veins of countless politicians, staffers and lobbyists on Capitol Hill. Dornan’s last chief of staff, Paul T. Mero, for example, penned an anti-gay “congressional brief” for conservatives entitled, “How Congress Supports and Funds Organized Homosexuality.”

It is doubtful, however, that many staffers arrive on the job with a resume that includes something along the lines of: “Chief Muckraker against the House Speaker.”

Jost won’t talk about that. He says he comes from the “old school” that holds to the tenet that staffers should remain anonymous and never overshadow their bosses.

“He knows what the process is. You keep your eye on the ball and forget all the peripheral stuff,” said Mike Fraioli, Jost’s former partner in the political consulting firm that specialized in fund-raising. “It’s not about Steve Jost. Loretta Sanchez won the congressional race. He’s smart enough not to make it about Steve Jost.”

When Sanchez and her advisors went looking for a chief of staff, they searched for someone--preferably a Californian--who knew the shortcuts, the secrets and the subtleties of running a congressional operation. They also sought someone who had experience in establishing a freshman’s office, but not with so many years on Capitol Hill that the staffer had become stale in the bureaucracy and run out of fresh ideas.

Enter Jost, whose name and reputation for political astuteness reached the search committee by word of mouth.

Were Democrats to clone the “look” of their congressional staffers, Jost might be the prototype: studious-looking with glasses, blond hair turning white, mustache and goatee. On a day when Congress was not in session--usually “dress-down” days on the Hill--Jost showed up for work in a plaid button-down shirt with green khakis.

He grew up in Modesto, and finished Cal State University at Stanislaus with a degree in political science.

In 1983, Jost joined the congressional staff of then-freshman Rep. Richard H. Lehman, a moderate Democrat from Fresno. Other career stops included the congressional office of former Rep. Beryl Anthony Jr. (D-Ark.) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, where he did fund-raising for the party.

During the first half of the 1990s, Jost and Fraioli set up their own consulting shop that focused on campaign fund-raising through direct mail and telemarketing. One of Jost’s clients in 1990 was Atlanta lawyer David Worley, who was challenging Gingrich’s reelection.

In the course of the campaign, Worley and Jost stumbled onto a letter by Gingrich’s fund-raising group, GOPAC, which seemed to be skirting federal campaign finance laws. Jost forwarded the information to the Democratic committee, which then filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission, where the matter stalled.

By the time Jost took on Jones’ 1994 Democratic congressional campaign against Gingrich, the legions of “anti-Newt” researchers had grown and stacks of information had piled up. Newly discovered documents reinforced their suspicions that GOPAC was involved in raising money to elect a Republican majority in the House even though it was not a federally registered PAC.

Jost drafted the ethics complaint filed by Jones.

Aside from the ethics case, Jones remembers that his low-budget congressional campaign gained prominence largely because of Jost’s “creative ideas.”

“Newt wouldn’t debate me. He was ducking me,” said Jones, a former cast member of the television series “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

“So one day Newt was speaking in Alabama and Steve says, ‘Why don’t you go to Alabama and get you a couple of coon hound dogs, some hunting dogs, and take pictures saying you are hunting for Newt,’ ” Jones said. “So I did, and AP picked up the picture, and it brought a lot of attention to the fact that Newt was ducking me.”

Though they lost the election, the team kept hunting Gingrich on the ethics charges. With Jones as the front man and Jost working spin control behind the scenes, they effectively became a one-stop information center for reporters and other interested parties.

“Two and a half years ago, Steve and I were the only ones trying to keep the kite in the air,” Jones said.

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Jost could not remain in obscurity forever. A Newsweek magazine story in late 1995 described him as “Gingrich’s most dangerous enemy,” and one who “knows how to manipulate Washington’s scandal machinery.”

The consultant’s name came up again the following spring, when Republicans filed a complaint against Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), a ranking member of the House Ethics Committee. Republican members claimed McDermott had a conflict of interest in the Gingrich case because Jost had been one of his campaign fund-raisers.

The McDermott matter was quickly dropped. This week, the Washington state congressman was forced to remove himself from the Gingrich case after it was revealed that he had leaked to news organizations a tape-recording of a cellular telephone conversation involving Gingrich concerning the ethics complaint.

By mid-1995, Jost had tired of campaigning on the road and wanted to spend more time with his wife and child. He left the campaign firm, but helped guide the recent U.S. Senate campaign of Illinois Democrat Richard J. Durbin.

Jost’s early involvement in the Gingrich probe was barely mentioned and of little worry to the Sanchez team that recruited him. Despite Sanchez’s temporary concern, her advisors did not consider it to be a “lightning rod” issue.

Choosing Jost “was not an anti-Gingrich statement. It was not intended to thrust Loretta into the Gingrich controversy,” said attorney Wylie Aitken, Sanchez’s chief political backer, who participated in the interviews.

“We thought it was significant he had worked for other members in fund-raising, and having the firm that he had,” said John Shallman, Sanchez’s campaign manager, who interviewed Jost by telephone from California. “He can pick up the phone and [House Minority Leader Richard] Gephardt is going to know who it is and [Minority Whip] David Bonier is going to know who he is.”

And ultimately, Sanchez said, she felt comfortable with Jost and believed that he would easily fit “into that old-boys network that exists” in Congress.

“I feel very comfortable that Steve will be at my side,” Sanchez said. “It seems to me like he’ll be very calming in the difficult periods that exist in Congress.”

With Dornan nipping at Sanchez’s heels with claims of voter fraud and Republicans likely to mount a strong challenge in 1998, Sanchez’s team says it is good to have a “battle-tested” veteran on their side.

Sanchez must respond to the Dornan complaint by Jan. 26 so that the House Oversight Committee can decide whether to hold hearings. She said her campaign did nothing wrong.

“If I was going to fight, I wouldn’t want anybody more than Steve Jost,” said one longtime Democratic staffer on Capitol Hill who asked to remain anonymous. “In a very positive way, he has an appetite for battle.”