When Henry J. Hyde went to Washington in 1975 to represent the western suburbs of Chicago in Congress, he was advised to steer clear of the House Judiciary Committee if he wanted an interesting assignment. The year before, the whole nation had watched the committee conduct the sensational impeachment hearings that led President Nixon to resign. "I was told that the golden days of the committee were over, that it would sink into desuetude," Hyde remembers. "But I was a lawyer, so I was drawn to it."
Twenty-three years later, his instinct has put Hyde at the center of one of...
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