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Posted November 18, 1995
It's report card time for The Contract With America. We've had a year to let the smoke settle. Where have the Republicans passed and where have they failed? Background: For those of you who need a little refresher, take a look at the background of the Contract. Legislation: We've summarized what's happened on five of the Contract's proposed items of legislation: The Congressional Compliance Act Scorecard: At the end of each summary we give that item a grade. The three grades are:
NEWT -- A Newt signifies successfully passed legislation. As always, our links make it easy for you to contact your reps and senators and give them a piece of your mind.
BACKGROUND: In the fall of 1994, Bill Clinton's popularity was dismally low, public dissatisfaction with the status quo in Washington and Congress was at an all-time high, and Newt Gingrich was preparing to blow out the Democrats with a single document. Seeing a chance to win big in the 1994 elections by tapping public anger toward Washington, Gingrich and other leading Republicans devised an inventive tool to pave their way toward majority rule in the House of Representatives: The Contract With America. 367 Republican Congressional candidates signed this highly-publicized pledge, which committed them to vote on 10 major issues in the first 100 days of Congress if the electorate gave the GOP a majority in the House of Representatives. It did, and astonished and crestfallen Democrats watched the Senate fall as well. After swearing in their new members and newly anointed Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia in January, the Republicans were off and running. However, the Contract was a promise only to bring the ten issues to a vote in the first 100 days, not to pass them into law. And that much the House Republicans accomplished. But the legislative fate of the Contract is a very different issue, particularly when it comes to consideration from the far more moderate and plodding Senate. One year after the historic 1994 election, just where does the Contract stand?
CONGRESSIONAL COMPLIANCE ACT: The first order of Contract business was taken care of on day one. Congress passed several institutional measures, including ones that cut committee staffs by one-third and opened committee meetings to the public. The Congressional Compliance Act, which required that "all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress" -- allowing, for instance, the unionization of Capitol Hill employees -- passed the House and Senate easily. President Clinton signed the bill, S 2 into law on January 23. Republicans saw this measure as an important symbolic acknowledgment of public dissatisfaction with Congress, and the sheltered life its members seem to lead. It was also an easy way to establish an image of the new Republican majority as achieving quick results. But the bill's easy passage would not be a sign of things to come. SCORECARD: A quick, decisive victory that established an early image of the Republicans as getting things done fast. NEWT
THE CITIZEN LEGISLATURE ACT: One reason the Republicans who signed the Contract were so successful on election day was the public sense that many members of Congress had overstayed their welcome, and had lost sight of the national interest after being consumed by the culture of Washington. Public support for a term limits amendment was evidenced by the many Democrats unceremoniously dumped by the voters, including House Speaker Tom Foley (the first sitting speaker to lose since 1862), and Judiciary Committee chairman Jack Brooks, who had been in Congress for 42 years. This issue divided Republicans like few others in this Congress so far. Its supporters argue that Congress needs a periodical purging of members who have become beholden to special interests. Opponents (including not a few self-interested incumbents) argue that members can become more effective -- and even less resistant to special interests -- as they acquire Washington experience, and that the best way to limit members' terms is through the voters. A March 29 House vote on HJ Res 73, a constitutional amendment that would limit all members to 12 years in Congress failed, 204-227. As a Constitutional amendment, it would have required a two-thirds majority vote in both Houses of Congress and ratification by 38 states. Other proposals, like one sponsored by freshman Republican Van Hilleary (R-TN), would have allowed states to lower the 12-year limit. After the failed House vote, which was opposed by many senior Republicans (even though the amendment would not have applied to current members) and most Democrats, the Senate did not vote. But House Speaker Newt Gingrich did promise to bring term limits to another vote in the next Congress. Sponsored by Rep. Bill McCollum (R-FL), this was the only item in the Contract not to pass in the House. SCORECARD: A big embarrassment for Gingrich and many of the freshmen. They had talked big about term limits, and were are all too aware that it is among the most popular grass-roots issues in America. TURKEY
THE FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT: This part of the Contract, designed to leash "an out-of-control Congress," contained two major elements -- one of which was so contentious it almost cost a senior Senator his committee chairmanship. The less controversial measure is one that enjoys more bipartisan support than most of the Contract: the line-item veto. It would allow the President to selectively veto parts of larger bills without squelching the entire legislation. Its supporters see it as a way to trim the "pork" that lawmakers inevitably slip into bills without costly delays in passing legislation -- a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate would be required to override a veto. The bill remains stalled in a House-Senate conference, and will not be completed until Congress passes a budget reconciliation bill. The story of the balanced budget amendment has been far more dramatic. This measure, which would require a balanced federal budget by the year 2002, also requires a two-thirds majority in each chamber and among the states. After passing the House, the bill performed a high-wire act in the Senate. A desperate Republican attempt to win over borderline Democrats to achieve their needed 67 votes included a national advertising campaign. Senators, like Majority Leader Bob Dole, were concerned that the amendment's failure would reinforce the Senate's image as a "black hole" that was devouring the House's Contract With America successes. (The Senate, as Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-NM), once said, is "the cup that cools the coffee.") To his dismay, Dole came up one vote short. Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-OR) was the lone Republican to oppose the amendment. A group of Senate freshmen, led by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), sought unsuccessfully to strip Hatfield of his chairmanship of the ultra-powerful Appropriations Committee. Through a parliamentary procedure, Dole left the door open for another vote on the measure. Since the amendment came so close to passage, its Senate opponents could be vulnerable in some states in the 1996 elections. SCORECARD: Even though the House easily passed the Balanced Budget Amendment, its embarrassing failure in the Senate results in a net negative. While the line-item veto may pass soon, it is a) not an especially trendy issue and b) helps out Bill Clinton in the short term. TURKEY
THE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT: Like many of the items in the Contract, this issue was named with a nifty bit of GOP-speak. It is better known as welfare reform, and while the Republicans argue that it is about personal responsibility, ending dependency, and shrinking federal government, opponents argue that it is a callous rollback of much of the last 60 years of American social policy. House and Senate conferees are finishing up the job of hashing out differences between the two chambers' versions of the bill. They have reportedly leaned toward the Senate version, which is a less Draconian proposal. President Clinton seemed to indicate his support of the Senate plan after its passage. But in the wake of a study warning that over a million American children may be plunged into poverty as a result of welfare reform, he now appears ready to veto it. SCORECARD: Newt and Co. won points for dealing decisively with a massive program that everyone agrees is in need of repair. Charges that the Republicans have been too harsh may be sticking a little, but until the human toll actually materializes, the GOP comes out on top. NEWT
THE TAKING BACK OUR STREETS ACT: Republicans, never soft on crime and always aware of Democratic vulnerabilities on the issue, wrote six crime-related measures into the Contract. Most were directed at revamping what the 1994 crime bill, passed by a still-Democratic Congress. Republicans contended that the bill was stuffed with pork, and $8 billion of "new social spending masquerading as crime prevention," including those highly-publicized funds for midnight basketball leagues. In February the House passed each of its six bills: damage restitution for victims of federal crimes; $8 billion more of funding for new state prison construction contingent on states' adoption of tough new sentencing laws; "block granting" to the states of funds deemed as social spending in the Clinton crime bill; more leeway for the introduction of evidence obtained without a warrant but "in good faith" -- the exclusionary rule reform act; limitations on death penalty appeals "to facilitate the swift execution of convicted cold-blooded murderers"; and deportation of illegal aliens who are convicted of violent crimes. The Senate has not voted on most of the measures, which await consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee. When the Senate does take action, it may also try to repeal the assault-weapons ban passed last year. The block-granting of crime-prevention funds (or social welfare, depending on who you ask) was attached to HR 2076, the House version of the spending bill that funds the Justice Department, which is currently in a House-Senate conference. The death-row appeal limits, also known as "habeas corpus reform" were also included in a Senate anti-terrorism bill passed in June. The House Judiciary Committee passed a version in June, but political wrangling has prevented the bill from coming to a vote in the full House. SCORECARD: The crime provisions in the Contract haven't won much notice. An attempt by the Senate to lift the weapons ban, reportedly postponed after the Oklahoma City bombing, would be politically explosive. So, the jury's still out. INCOMPLETE |
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