Keith Gellar (Napoleon's World)

Keith Avery Gellar (born June 16, 1941) is a retired US Nationalist politician from Virginia who served as Speaker of the House from 1991-1995 and served in the House of Representatives for Virginia's 1st district from 1976, when he won a special election until his retirement from public office in 2001. Gellar was Minority Whip from 1991 to 1995, initially slated to become Majority Leader after the "Common Sense Revolution" he helped spearhead, before the sudden death of incoming Speaker Ted Madigan in December of 1994. Gellar became Speaker thereafter.

Fulfilling a campaign promise, Gellar decentralized power in the House back to committee chairs as compared to his most recent predecessors as Speaker, but his Speakership was defined by controversies from the right flank of his party in addition to series of sexual harassment, corruption and adultery scandals that plagued Washington DC during the mid-1990s, most famously with Democratic President John Burwin. Gellar was accused of being spineless by his conservative allies in his party and rudderless by moderates, while Democrats attacked him as a partisan more interested in being on television than in the business of governing. Gellar announced he would not seek a third term as party leader two weeks before the 1998 midterm elections only a day after President Stephen Martin had expressed "full confidence in our House leadership team." House Majority Leader and his likely successor, Larry Pressler of Dakota, was defeated, as were several committee chairmen as Democrats retook the House under David Pounder, and Gellar was replaced as Nationalist leader by then-Majority Whip Jeff Osgood.