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:
National Security Restoration Act
Senior Citizens Fairness Act
Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act
Common Sense Legal Reform Act
The Family Reinforcement 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.
TURKEY -- Although often confused with the Newt, the Turkey marks a failure.
INCOMPLETE -- We can't be sure yet. Only time will tell.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?
NATIONAL SECURITY RESTORATION ACT: As the GOP increasingly turns away from its Cold War internationalism, the United Nations has become a favorite villain of party conservatives. This act seeks to end what many Republicans consider a highly onerous trend, the placement of American troops under U.N. command (a situation which admittedly brought disastrous results in Somalia). Under the act, which passed the House 241-181, command of U.S. troops participating in multinational operations would be much more closely guarded. A similar bill introduced in the Senate by Majority Leader Bob Dole has been debated by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but has not yet been considered in the full Senate, thanks in part to a Democratic filibuster. With U.S. troops preparing to head to Bosnia as part of a U.N. peacekeeping force to enforce a new peace agreement in the region, this issue is sure to draw new attention. Republicans have also cut funds for U.N. peacekeeping activities (the Senate slashed $220 million) in the bill which funds the Departments of Commerce, Justice, State and the federal judiciary. However that bill is stuck in House-Senate conference, and with a Presidential veto looming, is likely to change. Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Jesse Helms (R-NC) has been one of the Senate's most vociferous critics of the United Nations. Finally, President Clinton grudgingly signed on November 30 a Congressional defense spending bill that adds $7 billion to the Pentagon's own budget request for 1996.
SCORECARD: Not a thrilling victory, but Clinton's acceptance of the boost in defense spending was a symbolic win for GOP hawks. And even if the peacekeeping measures don't materialize, U.N.-bashing has been a highly successful pastime for Republicans in this era of "black helicopter" and "global taxation" paranoia. NEWT
SENIOR CITIZENS FAIRNESS ACT: As high-turnout voters who guard their benefits warily, senior citizens make up a vital but sensitive bloc of the electorate, and no major political document from either party would be complete without a nod to them. The Contract took aim at a tax on Social Security benefits instituted by Bill Clinton, which was repealed in Congress' budget bill that has caused the current standoff between President Clinton and Congressional Republicans. Republicans also want to raise the earnings limit for taxable Social Security from about $11,000 to $15,000. (Currently, Social Security recipients lose $1 in benefits for every $3 they earn over $11,280.) The overwhelming support of the House (a 424-5 vote) for this measure underscores the popularity of pro-seniors legislation in Congress, and in particular the sensitivity of the Social Security program, the "third rail of American politics." But early last month the Senate voted against including the earnings limit in the budget. (Even though the measure won 53 votes, budget rules required 60 for passage.) But Republican leaders in both Houses have vowed to push the raise through. The House Ways and Means Committee plans a new round of hearings on the matter, and Senator John McCain is sponsoring the measure in the Senate. Opponents have argued against making further budget cuts to make up the $7 billion gift to the elderly.
SCORECARD: SCORECARD: It can never hurt at the ballot box to be seen as fighting for more dollars in seniors' pockets. However, the gains from these little-noticed reforms may be more than outweighed by Democratic charges -- which seem to be sticking -- that Republicans are gouging the elderly, through cuts in medicare and medicaid, to pay for their $245 billion tax cut. INCOMPLETE
JOB CREATION AND WAGE ENHANCEMENT ACTACT: The Republican assault on government regulations; you could almost see them licking their chops while carrying out this overhaul of hated government interference in the private sector. The House bill would require federal agencies to carry out a detailed "cost-benefit analysis" before imposing any new regulation to ensure that the health or environmental dangers that may be avoided are not outweighed by the costs imposed on the private sector in complying with the regulation. The bill, which passed 277-148, would also expand the application of the "just compensation" clause of the Fifth Amendment by raising the standard which requires the government to pay landowners whose properties are devalued by federal decree -- the declaration of a lot as undevelopable wetland, for example. A Senate measure was bogged down in weeks of negotiation this spring. And although Dole made compromises with conservative Senator J. Bennett Johnston (D-LA), who sponsored a milder Democratic alternative, the bill was filibustered and finally pulled on July 20 without a vote. That bill did not include the "just compensation" provisions of the House bill, but would have opened the door for review and possible repeal of existing regulations. The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee has also approved a bill that would require a review of current regulations by federal agencies.
SCORECARD: A complicated issue for the average voter to absorb. The idea of rolling back federal regulations is a highly popular one around the country, but the Republicans have proved vulnerable to recent charges that they are in the pocket of big business at the expense of important environmental laws. INCOMPLETE
COMMON SENSE LEGAL REFORM ACT: Yet another highly popular target of Republican rhetoric is America's legal profession and court system. However, while Republicans have always complained that the courts are too soft on criminals, the legal reforms in the Contract are concerned not with street crime. Sounding that common theme, it is the effect on American businesses that concerns the GOP. The best-known of this act's provisions establishes a much-debated "loser pays" system, which would require the losing party to pay both sides' legal fees, primarily designed to discourage frivolous lawsuits against corporations. Another corporate-friendly proposal would reform product liability laws and limit punitive damage awards to $250,000 or three times "the actual harm," whichever is greater. Also, a securities litigation reform plan would limit the scope of lawsuits filed against companies by disgruntled shareholders. The Senate has not acted on "loser pays," but it has passed the other provisions in similar forms. House-Senate conferees have yet to produce compromise versions for final passage.
SCORECARD: Passing "loser pays" would be an attention-grabbing victory for the Contract. But even if only product liability and securities litigation reform pass, the Republicans will have gotten much of what they wanted from this plank. NEWT
THE FAMILY REINFORCEMENT ACT: "For too long government policies in Washington have been undermining the American family," says Contract co-author and House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX). If this is true, it's not clear what solutions this provision will bring. Hardly a critical part of the Contract, it seems to have been designed more as a way of underscoring the GOP ticket's emphasis on "family values." The House and Senate must confer on versions of a bill toughening sentences against child molesters and child pornographers. Measures to beef up enforcement of child support by cracking down on "deadbeat dads" were included in the House and Senate welfare reform bills, which are still being reconciled by a conference committee before final passage.
SCORECARD: A nice-sounding item on the Contract checklist, but not much action and not much resonance with the public. TURKEY
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