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Hyde was born in Chicago, the son of Catholic parents who supported the Democratic Party. He attended Duke University, graduated from Georgetown University and obtained his law degree from Loyola University. Hyde played basketball for the Georgetown Hoyas where he was a member of the school's 1943 championship team. He served in the Navy during World War II and remained in the Naval Reserve from 1946 to 1968, as an officer in charge of the U.S. Naval Intelligence Reserve Unit in Chicago. He retired at the rank of Commander.
By 1952, Hyde had switched political parties and supported Dwight Eisenhower for president. He made his first run for Congress in 1962, losing to Democratic incumbent Roman Pucinski in the 11th District. Hyde was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1967 and served as Majority Leader from 1971 to 1972. He served in the Illinois House until 1974, when he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November, 1974 in a surprising victory for Republicans in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
Political positions and legislation
Hyde was one of the most vocal and persistent opponents of abortion in American politics and was the chief sponsor of the Hyde Amendment to the House Appropriations bill that prohibited use of federal funds to pay for elective abortions through Medicaid. But in 1981, he and U.S. Senator Jake Garn of Utah, another pro-life stalwart, broke with the National Pro-Life Political Action Committee, when its executive director, Peter Gemma, issued a "hit list" to target pro-choice members of both houses of Congress. Hyde found such lists to be distasteful. In 1993 the 1976 Hyde Amendment law was amended to allow payments for abortions in case of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.
Hyde was also an original sponsor of the Brady Bill requiring background checks for gun buyers, and he broke with his party in 1994 when he supported a ban on the sale of semi-automatic firearms. He also sponsored family leave legislation, calling this "capitalism with a human face."
In 1981, after leaving the House Banking Committee, Hyde went on the board of directors of Clyde Federal Savings and Loan, whose chairman was one of Hyde's political contributors. In 1990, the federal government put Clyde in receivership, and paid $67 million to cover insured deposits. In 1993, the Resolution Trust Corporation sued Hyde and other directors for $17.2 million. The government settled with the defendants for $850,000 and made an arrangement exempting Hyde from having to pay anything.
Hyde was also a member of the congressional panel investigating the Iran-Contra affair. He vigorously defended the Reagan administration, as well as Oliver North.
Hyde was a member of the House Judiciary Committee for his entire tenure in the House. He was its chairman from 1995 until 2001, during which time he served as the lead House "manager" during the President Clinton impeachment trial. In calling for Clinton's removal from office, Hyde argued that the House had a constitutional and civic duty to impeach Bill Clinton for perjury. In the Resolution on Impeachment of the President, Hyde wrote:
"What we are telling you today are not the ravings of some vast right-wing conspiracy, but a reaffirmation of a set of values that are tarnished and dim these days, but it is given to us to restore them so our Founding Fathers would be proud. It's your country. The President is our flag bearer, out in front of our people. The flag is falling, my friends. I ask you to catch the falling flag as we keep our appointment with history."
Clinton was impeached by the House on two charges: perjury and obstruction of justice. Hyde served as chief prosecutor at the President's trial in the Senate. He is remembered for these remarks in his closing argument:
"A failure to convict will make the statement that lying under oath, while unpleasant and to be avoided, is not all that serious. We have reduced lying under oath to a breach of etiquette, but only if you are the President. And now let us all take our place in history on the side of honor, and, oh, yes, let right be done."
The managers presented their case over three days, from January 14 to 16. They presented excerpts from videotaped grand jury testimony that Clinton had made the previous August and also made submissions on matters of interpretation and application of the laws governing perjury and obstruction of justice. They argued that the evidence and precedents justified Clinton's removal from office because of "willful, premeditated, deliberate corruption of the nation's system of justice through perjury and obstruction of justice."
The defense presentation took place from January 19–21. Clinton's defense counsel argued that Clinton's grand jury testimony had too many inconsistencies to be a clear case of perjury, that the investigation and impeachment had been tainted by partisan politics, that the President's approval rating of more than 70 percent indicated that his ability to govern had not been impaired by the scandal, and that the managers had only presented "an unsubstantiated, circumstantial case that does not meet the constitutional standard to remove the President from office".
January 22 and 23 were devoted to questions from members of the Senate to the House managers and Clinton's defense counsel. Under the rules, all questions were to be written down and given to Rehnquist to read to the party being questioned. On January 25, Senator Robert Byrd moved for dismissals of both articles of impeachment for lack of merit. On the following day, Rep. Bryant moved to call witnesses to the trial. In both cases, the Senate voted to deliberate on the question in private session, rather than in a public, televised procedure. On January 27, the Senate voted on both motions in public session. The motion to dismiss failed on a nearly party line vote of 56–44, while the motion to depose witnesses passed by the same margin. A day later, the Senate voted down motions to move directly to a vote on the articles of impeachment and to suppress videotaped depositions of the witnesses from public release.
Over three days, February 1–3, House managers took videotaped closed-door depositions from Monica Lewinsky, Clinton's friend Vernon Jordan, and White House aide Sidney Blumenthal. On February 4, the Senate voted by a margin of 70–30 that excerpts from these videotapes would suffice as testimony, rather than calling live witnesses to appear at trial. The videos were played in the Senate on February 6, featuring 30 excerpts of Lewinsky discussing her affidavit in the Paula Jones case, her concealment of small gifts Clinton had given her, and his involvement in procurement of a job for Lewinsky.
On February 8, closing arguments were presented with each side allotted a three-hour time slot.
Despite Hyde's efforts, President Clinton was acquitted of both perjury and obstruction of justice. A two-thirds majority required for conviction, but only 45 senators voted for conviction on the perjury charge and only 50 on the obstruction of justice charge.
While Hyde was leading the impeachment of President Clinton Congress during the Monica Lewinsky affair, it was revealed that Hyde himself had conducted an extramarital sexual affair with a married woman named Cherie Snodgrass. who was also married. However the affair was somewhat ancient history. Hyde was 41 when involved in the affair, and was 75 at the time of the impeachment proceedings. Hyde admitted to the affair in the media and attributed the relationship as a "youthful indiscretion". He was 41 years old and married when the affair occurred. Hyde said the affair ended when Snodgrass' husband confronted Mrs. Hyde. She forgave her husband and the couple remained married until Mrs. Hyde's death in 1992.
Hyde remained in Congress until January of 2007. He died November 29, 2007 at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago following complications from open heart surgery at Provena Mercy Medical Center in Aurora, Illinois several months earlier. He was survived by his second wife, Judy Wolverton, and by his four children from his first marriage.