EVENTS

Date:	Monday, September 27, 2004
Time:	10:00 AM -- 11:30 AM
Location:	Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor, AEI 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036

September 2004

The Contract with America Looking Back and Looking Forward: What Does It Mean for the Twenty-First Century?

The Contract with America, adopted in 1994 by the Republican majority of the 104th Congress, aimed to "restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives."  Ten years later, the values, principles, and goals set forth in the Contract--government accountability, fiscal responsibility, U.S. sovereignty in national security issues, common-sense legal reform, personal responsibility and welfare reform, strengthening families, middle-class tax relief, job creation, and greater efficiency in government--continue to be pressing issues at the forefront of policy debate. This September 27 AEI conference featured several architects of the Contract with America along with key players of the time to discuss the Contract's impact on public policy and reform over the last decade, as well as its significance entering the twenty-first century.

Joseph Gaylord
Chesapeake Associates

The Contract with America was a vital component of the Republican takeover of the House in 1994. Republicans had largely been locked out of the majority in the House of Representatives for the past one hundred years with few exceptions, and the Contract helped in hastening this change. The Contract effectively communicated a strong message to the electorate about Republican beliefs and ideals. This occurred for several reasons:  First, the Contract's clear enumeration of ten principles served as an ethical and moral compass for both candidates and voters. Additionally, the Contract was written with pellucid clarity, rather than in the vagaries of Washingtonian bureaucratese and legalese. The candidates who supported the Contract were trained in its issues and principles; they knew and believed in what they were talking about.  This personal conviction enhanced the ability of the candidates to communicate with voters while serving as a lifeline for novice freshman candidates by giving them a clear message. Furthermore, the Contract afforded Republicans the opportunity to gather resources, both in terms of raising capital and in garnering an energized Republican grassroots effort. Finally, the Contract was effective in part due to the political weaknesses of former President Clinton.

Michael Barone
U.S. News and World Report

Three factors contributed most to the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 1994: First, the spate of talented and able Democratic House candidates that began their careers in the early 1970s were beginning to dry up: by 1994 they were leaving the House, running for the Senate, or retiring altogether. Second, the 1990 redistricting mildly favored Republicans for the first time in decades, helping to break the Democratic stranglehold in Congress. Third, the South had begun its transformation from a bastion of solid Democrat support to a Republican stronghold. Newt Gingrich was the only Republican in the Georgia Congressional delegation when he was first elected, a fact in sharp contrast to the nine Republicans that currently representing the state.

The Contract with America provided a national theme--a rallying cry of sorts--that allowed Republicans to run as "the new guys in town." This provided a stark distinction against incumbent Democrats, who were largely cast as cynical and moribund politicians. The Contract with America also had reverberations throughout the world; it was such an effective political mechanism that current Italian Prime Minister Silvo Burlusconi used the same idea in his "Contract with Italy" for his Forza Italia Party in the 1990s. British Prime Minister Tony Blair employed similar tactics with his assent to the Labour Party leadership in Britain later in the 1990s.

In evaluating the success of the Contract ten years later, it is vital to bear in mind the slim majorities that were held intact by Speaker Gingrich at the time. Newt Gingrich never worked with more than 235 Republicans in a House where a majority is 218, which necessitated a strict compliance to the party line. This party discipline has carried over in the current House, where Speaker Hastert has never had more than 229 Republican colleagues to work with.  In both cases, the glue that has held the Republicans together has been money, which has helped to grease the wheels of these political machinations. Though it is difficult to precisely evaluate the Contract's exact effects, it seems likely that the Contract accounted at least for twenty-two of the 230 total seats won by Republicans in 1994.

The Honorable Jennifer Dunn (R-Wash.)
U.S. House of Representatives

As a freshman member of Congress first elected in 1992, the passing of the Contract in 1994 marked a significant departure from the past. Several achievements stand out in particular. Requiring that the laws the Congress creates also apply to itself--as well as selecting an independent auditing firm to audit the House--was also important in changing the mentality of Congress. Republicans were able to cut the operating costs of the House by $200 million compared with spending under Democratic leadership. Additionally, cutting the number of House committees and limiting terms of committee chairmen were long overdue changes. Rooting out the practice of proxy voting gave members an actual incentive to go to meetings, while opening hearings and meetings to the public invited more transparency and accountability.
 
The Contract cemented tax reform and tax relief as major tenets of the Republican Party platform, firmly planting business on the side of the GOP. Welfare reform transformed the existing system by creating incentives for people to work and affected the lives of many Americans morally and economically.

Dick Armey
Freedom Works

During the lead up to the 1994 elections, Democrats could not conceive of a scenario under which Republicans would retake Congress. The prospect of a Republican takeover did not even enter into the realm of possibilities for congressional Democrats. Indeed, when then-speaker Richard Gephardt asked why I was not running for the whip position before the 1994 elections, he conveyed his incredulity at the prospect of a Republican takeover with a resounding laugh when I responded that I was running for majority leader.  The Contract with America was successful because the candidates who helped to draft it fervently believed in its causes. Two principles determined the Contract's substance: first, all issues had to be popular with the American people (over 70 percent support), and second, the issue had to be something that the Democrats had not wanted to bring to the floor of the House. Using these two guiding principles, it is unsurprising that the Contract proved as popular as it did with American voters.
 
Republicans, however, did not manage their enthusiasm from the 1994 election successes well, which understandably hurt us in 1996. Though Republicans may have done a poor job managing their euphoria after the 1994 elections, Democrats did considerably worse in handling their dismay, which permitted Republicans to retain the majority in the 1996 elections despite some erosion in the total number of seats held. The result of the Republican takeover was an overall decrease in the amicability of Congress in general, as Democrats suffered the double disparagement of losing the House as well as a significant portion of their staffs.
 
Also important to remember is the amount of loyalty that many of the new committee chairmen felt they owed to the Republican House leadership. This had a significant influence on the degree of compliance received from the top down. This is in stark contrast to the current state of affairs in the House, where Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Tom Delay hold much less sway over their committee chairmen.

Finally, attributing the current deficit to the House leadership is unfair because it does not appreciate the conditions by which the deficit came into being, nor the economically conservative principles which Delay and Hastert value.

Newt Gingrich
AEI

National capitals always resist large-scale change, and it was only through the Contract's proposals for a radical shift in governance that significant results were achieved. The Contract was successful for several reasons: First, it allowed newcomers, in this case Republicans, to briefly overwhelm the established elites with a high level of energy and charge. The Contract also effectively focused the media's attention, rather than allowing it to dissipate on a collection of individual House races. Consequently, the public listened to what Republicans were saying about the Contract. Further, with rare exceptions in American history, there has never been a document like the Contract with America that pledged action on a specific set of items, rather than a mere party platform, which only pronounces support for certain policy positions.

The Contract With America was a difficult sell at first because much of the planning time was spent on the "long view," which is difficult because this approach initially made our efforts largely misunderstood. The Contract, however, was laid out tactically. We wanted to be sure not to divide the Republican base or afford the media a chance to mischaracterize the Contract as a product of extreme southern religious conservatives. For this reason, all the issues contained within the Contract had to be favored by at least 70 percent of the electorate. This approach made sure that no matter how inexperienced the politician preaching the message, the substance of that message would resonate with the populace; the message was designed to reach the average American voter. This helped the Contract turn out to be one of the great entrepreneurial events in American political history.

To have any hopes of ending forty years of Democratic control in the House, Republicans needed something of this magnitude to beat the Democrats. The effect was shattering; Democrats suffered from the twin ailments of a severely wounded psyche in their unanticipated loss of the majority in addition to a sudden dearth of resources, as committee staff were significantly reduced. This psychological shock has lasted up to present; it is only now with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi that Democrats have begun to think about how to regain the majority. In addition, the candidates who signed the Contract and helped to draft it actually believed in its principles and were prepared to see them through; no importance was placed on fitting the Washington establishment's mold of how to do things. Finally, everything the Contract accomplished was built on the principles and ideas espoused by Ronald Reagan. Reagan had educated an entire generation about these principles, and the Contract with American built on his ideas, and in many ways, stood on his shoulders. 

AEI intern Chris Allen prepared this summary.