But the assertiveness has only heightened the House minority's second-fiddle role.
The main thing crimping travel opportunities for him lately, he noted, is that Democrats have slipped into the House minority.
But a larger House Democratic minority in the next Congress and an infuriated White House are likely to block any such move.
She holds the No. 2 position in the House minority now, having defeated a more conservative opponent for the job of whip last year, with impressive dispatch.
After 40 years in the House minority, Republicans lacked experience in compromise - especially among themselves.
In effect, the even split in the committee's membership gives the House minority a veto power that it does not enjoy on any committee dominated by the majority.
Looking ahead, Mr. Gingrich refused to even entertain the question of whether he might resign Republican leadership, should his party slip into the House minority.
If Democrats aren't secretly praying for a slim House minority and the president for a Democratic House, then they are fools.
Indeed, the House minority could thwart the Senate, too, because the three-fifths rule would apply to tax bills negotiated in House-Senate conference committees.
At the time he took his seat, his party was the smallest House minority in Minnesota history.