Contract with America: Promises Made? Promises Kept?
H.R. Mahood
Ramona M. Mahood
The University of Memphis
On the steps of the US capitol, September 27, 1994, Congressman Newt Gingrich, R, GA, along with 337 additional members and other national Republicans, announced a “Contract with America”. It offered a detailed, comprehensive legislative agenda, touching on everything from internal congressional reforms, to national defense, welfare to economic growth, term limits for national legislators, a balanced budget, crime control, and tort reform. Conservative in tone, the Contract stressed individual liberty, economic opportunity, limited government, citizen responsibility, and security at both home and abroad.
The ten items of the Contract (listed below) were carefully selected in terms of issues that were of fundamental importance but were also ‘doable’, and could be accomplished rather quickly. By dealing initially with items, such as Congress being governed by the same rules as all Americans, and broad philosophical concepts, such as balancing the national budget, the Contract could generate momentum that would eventually lead to confronting more contentious issues, such as environmental regulations and Medicare and Medicaid reforms (Garrett, 13).
In the pages that follow, the Republican pronouncement will be examined in the context of several of its key contributors, a chronological formulation of the Contract, reconciling some aspects of the Contract within the Republican Party, political responses to the Contract by national Democrats and the political realities of its formulation. Completion of these tasks can contribute to valuable insights as to how congressional parties and their members draft key legislation and political challenges in finalizing a complex piece of legislation like the Contract.
Key Contributors to the Contract
Newt Gingrich---His political career dates from a visit to the ossuary at Verdun, France. The sight of bones of thousands of soldiers convinced him that politics matters. He attended college at Emory University in Atlanta, and then received a Ph.D. in European history at Tulane University, in New Orleans. He began his teaching career at West Georgia College, Carrollton, Georgia, in 1970. He has always been a Republican, supporting Nelson Rockefeller’s presidential ambitions in 1968 because of the latter’s civil rights stands. In 1974 he made an unsuccessful run for the U.S. House, and he lost narrowly in 1976. He persevered and won in 1978 just as many House Republicans were embracing the Kemp-Roth 30% tax cut.
Gingrich is an American exceptionalist. He’s a believer in the idea, shared by many Americans but widely rejected by intellectuals, that America is a uniquely good nation with a special mission in the world. He also believes in an energetic government that advances modern technologies, but at the same time promotes and defends traditional values, a kind of American Gaullist. He is a cultural conservative who believes liberal ideas and values are destroying the nation’s poor, also a market capitalist who celebrates technological innovation.
As a House Republican, Gingrich did not want to play the role of an accomodationist. He argued that ranking Republicans who led the party when he came to the House were too submissive to House Democrats. He called for a more confrontational mode by his Republican colleagues. They should not compromise for a few crumbs in return, but frontally challenge the Democratic leadership. In this context, he established the Conservative Opportunity Society—in opposition to the existing welfare state—and recruited Republican back benchers to publicly denounce ‘welfare statism’. He compiled an extremely conservative voting record in the House, receiving high approval ratings from such conservative organizations as the American Conservative Union, National Tax Limitation Committee and the Christian Coalition (Barone, Ujifusa, ,371-5)
Dick Armey—was the first in his family to go to college. He received an MA from the University of North Dakota in 1964 and a PH.D from OKLA in 1969. He joined the faculty at the University of North Texas, in Denton as a professor of Economics. Keeping a keen eye on local politics and politicians, Armey successfully unseated district Democrat Tom Vandergriff, 51% to 49% in 1984. As he established himself in the House, some of his colleagues began to think of him as a think tank in cowboy boots or, a nicer version of then Senator Phil Gramm, a presidential wannabe and fellow conservative economist. Serving on the House Education and Labor committee, the liberal Democratic chair at the time, William Ford, characterized Armey as a ‘pain in the ass’.
Armey’s politics are defined by his economics, and his economic model is pure Adam Smith (Barone, Ujifusa, 1269-1270). He favored a frontal assault on the national government by scrapping the national tax code and establishing a flat tax by 1997. He saw himself as a guerrilla warrior wrestling with a huge, insensitive national bureaucracy. Get government’s hand out of the market place. Governments are dumb and mishandle taxpayer’s money. Individual citizens are better managers of their budgets than is the national government with its budget.
As a result, Armey actively pushed for military base closings across the nation in order to reduce government spending. In this context, he called for the establishment of an independent commission that would draw up a list of base closings which Congress, than would approve or reject. Interestingly enough, he voted to close Carswell Airforce base in Ft. Worth. He is not one to ‘bring home the bacon’. He also declared war against farm subsidies. He argued persuasively that subsidies are no more needed to maintain supplies of corn, wheat, oats, and such than they are for other farm crops that manage to be produced without subsidies. Additionally, he argued that farmers no more deserved subsidies than other small businessmen throughout the country. Armey’s voting record in the House, not surprisingly was conservative. Like Gingrich, he received consistently high approval ratings from such organization as the Christian Coalition, the national Tax Limitation, Committee, and the National Federation of Independent Business.
Haley Barbour—Left high school to work in Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign. After finishing law school at the University of Mississippi, he volunteered to work in Gerald Ford’s 1976 presidential race. 1980 found him working in John Connally’s bid for the presidency. Two years later, Barbour ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate against then-incumbent John Stennis. These electoral activities got Barbour noticed in national Republican circles in Washington. Moving to the capital in 1991, he set up a lobbying shop. He was soon selected to serve as national chairperson of the Republican Party and did so from 1993-1997.
When Haley Barbour assumed the national chairmanship of the Republican Party in 1993, he found it in shambles. He quickly set about restoring its competitiveness for the 1996 presidential election. He upgraded the committee’s technology, initiated the compilation of a small donors list, and commissioned a national survey seeking various ideas and principles the party faithful could rally around—lower taxes, smaller national government, increased defense spending, and congressional reform. Social issues like gun control, social decay, and abortion rights were also included. Results did show deep reservoirs of support for all of the just-listed issues. The findings were, in fact, a template for the Contract with America (Garrett, 74-6).
It was also fortuitous in publicizing the final draft of the document, that Barbour held the Republican national chairmanship because of his political linkages and resources of the office. The Contract was going to require a proactive media campaign in order to sell it. It was necessary to put a human face on it. Just prior to the Capitol steps ceremony, Barbour spent over $1 million for a full page ad in TV Guide publicizing its contents. Barbour believed, for many Americans, the Contract was a radical concept that could be hard to sell. But, from his perspective, Republican loyalists and millions of other Americans were hungry for the kind of political agenda the Contract encompassed (Garrett, 98).
A number of other factors also contributed to the formulation of the Contract with America. For example, these included a changing political climate in the early years of President Clinton’s first term, a decade-long struggle within the Republican Party to achieve a congressional majority, and the publication of series of studies by conservative think tanks aimed at generating broader public acceptance of the Contract.
Politically, the Contract found a particularly receptive audience in the 1994 congressional elections because of growing disenchantment with the existing Democratic Congress and the perceived widespread views of a lack of leadership by the Clinton White House. The Clinton campaign in 1992 generated the expectation of great changes being made to deal with domestic problems, i.e. the growing deficit and congressional deadlock. Moreover, the fact that Democrats in 1993 controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, seemed to create means for changes to take place by ending partisan infighting. But, failure to make substantive changes in 1993 and 1994 clearly facilitated political changes in November, 1994. Thus, the concept of the Contract found a growing receptive audience.
Additionally, a series of political polls taken in October and November 1994 were not good news for national Democrats. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll taken in mid-October of that year inferred that bill Clinton and his party were headed for huge losses in both the House and Senate. This poll showed that only 39% of voters believed the nation was headed in the right direction, compared to 48% and a disapproval rating of 43%, a five percent difference. With respect to Congress in 1994, only 24% gave it an approval rating, while 67% disapproved. This was a net disapproval rating of 43%. Additionally, voter approval ratings were in favor of the Republicans. This poll noted the GOP moving into a six-point lead (44% to 38%). Finally, in October 1994, 39% said their congressman had performed well enough to deserve re-election compared with 49% who thought it was time to give a new person a chance, a ten point difference. In short, these various diagnostic indicators spelled trouble for congressional Democrats seeking re-election.
A decade-long struggle within the Republican Party for control is also instructive with respect to the formalization of the Contract. Certainly the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Republican gains in both the House and Senate established a conservative and political centripetal force that drove national Republicans closer together. Conservative voices rising within the party at this time were those of Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott, Vin Weber, and Bob Kasten. Reagan’s landslide victory in 1984 translated into additional seats for conservative congressional Republicans. Two new House members destined to play important roles in the 1994 elections were Dick Armey and Tom Delay, both from Texas. Gingrich took control of the House GOP Political Action Committee (GOPAC) and energized it for purposes of fund raising, organizing, and proselytizing.
By the late 1980s, frustration was increasing within ranks of congressional Republicans in connection with the leadership style of Republican minority leader, Bob Michel – IL. Younger, more junior members perceived Michel as being too lethargic and quiescent and too accommodative to majority Democrats. They preferred a more activist, confrontational leader, i.e. Newt Gingrich. When President George H. Bush appointed House minority whip, Dick Cheney, WY, as his Secretary of Defense, Gingrich made his move and captured the whip position.
The early 1990s were witness to an escalating struggle for control of congressional Republicans between the Gingrich forces and the Michel forces. President Bush broke the promise he made at the 1992 Republican convention of ‘no new taxes’, with a call for a tax increase. Gingrich rallied his forces to reject this move while Michel fought for the increase. This intra-party battle galvanized Dick Armey and Tom Delay to support Gingrich and fight the increase. Both had ambitions for higher positions within the congressional party. In 1993, Michel announced his retirement and Gingrich assumed the leadership position prior to the 1994 elections. Within twelve months, congressional Republicans crafted a plan for winning majorities in both Houses and within eighteen months, the Contract was drafted and 337 Republicans signed the document. And, within twenty-one months, the Republicans won a majority in both houses for the first time in over 40 years (Aldrich and Rhode, 541-546).
Finally, the upsurge in the number and political activities of conservative think tanks in the latter decades of the 20th century require attention (Rich 2006) The Contract’s linage can be traced back to the 1980s. Some of the ideas of the Contract emerged from extensive interaction between congressional personnel and more aggressive and conservatively oriented think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute (AEI), CATO Institute, American Exchange Council to name a few. These organizations increasingly focused on Congress. Overtime, these organizations researched and published books and monographs dealing with existing institutional problems within the Congress from their perspectives. Some of these, therefore, found their way into the Contract. Additionally, in 1994, Heritage foundation developed a handbook on issues of importance to them that was made available to candidates. Thus, through the publication of books, journals, briefing papers, and op-ed articles, these organizations got the word to their subscribers and allies. Though these organizations do not engage in the traditional lobbying sense, but they do maintain consistent linkages with congressional personnel and their staffs.
Contract Formulation
The Contract with America began to take form during a series of Republican brain-storming sessions in Salisbury, Maryland in early 1994 (Balz, 1). These sessions included Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, along with other Congressional Republicans Bill Paxon (New York), Tom Delay, Robert Walker, and others. This early group concluded two things with respect to the existing political environment: Republicans had a better than even chance of regaining majorities in both houses of Congress and that the political climate was increasingly negative toward President Clinton. By crafting a positive message to American voters, victory was inevitable. Overtime, other influential Republicans were brought into discussions such as Haley Barbour, national Party Chairman former executive director of the Christian Coalition, Ralph Reed, and nationally known conservative Grover Norquist. Another participant, Kerry Knott, Dick Armey’s chief of staff, came up with a title for the emerging document, Contract with America (Garrett, 76).
Over the coming months, Gingrich and Armey shouldered most of burden of finalizing the draft and selling it to a good number of skeptical House Republicans (Babson, 1995). Through a series of dinners, luncheons, and informal gatherings, Gingrich cajoled, pressured, and convinced a growing number of his congressional colleagues, of the need for clear statement of goals and principles that clearly differentiated national Republicans from national Democrats. By coming together under the terms of the Contract House leaders believed being offered to the American people. The document would play crucial in the fall elections of 1994.
Implicit in the process of shaping the document is the fact that younger, more junior, and more conservative members were the catalyst. Many senior members remained aloof and somewhat skeptical. On the other hand, the contents of the document reflected these revolutionaries’ brand of “take-no-prisoners” conservatism and who were less risk-averse. Gingrich’s forces believed there were pent-up policy demands that were waiting to be unleashed given the right circumstances—welfare reform, tax reduction, crime control.
Additionally, Gingrich’s GOPAC (GOP Political Action Committee) working in concert with the Republican national Committee, was able to obtain unprecedented financial commitments for candidates. As party chair, and a former head of a large lobbying firm, Haley Barbour was able to tap into a high level of Republican financial largess. With an increasing level of confidence that Republicans were going to retake the Congress, Republican donors were amendable to larger and repeated solicitations.
Through the summer into September, the document underwent final modifications. In order to judge public response to the final draft, Republican pollster Frank Luntz was contacted to conduct focus groups on the concept and content (Connolly, 94). In a confidential memo after his polling, his conclusions were: that with the relatively non-partisan nature of the Contract, the Republicans had an excellent chance of winning back control of the Congress. The fact is that the Republican members of Congress would actually sign their names to the document, with the condition that if the provisions in the Contract were not accomplished, they should be thrown out of office. The tenor of the document was non-partisan and was not aimed specifically either at Clinton or congressional Democrats. The Contract represented a willingness of a segment of politicians to unite over a set of important issues and put their names and careers on the line. Armed with strong, positive feedback, Gingrich, Armey, DeLay, Barbour, and others of the House leadership, were of the opinion that provisions of the Contract were obtainable, and that the voters would reward them with majorities in both houses.
By late summer, the working group had the document largely completed. Dick Armey and others finally ‘teased out’ the details of the all-inclusive ten items. He set for his collaborators a time table of June for approval of the Contract the first cut being in June, second approval session July 15, and approval of the final draft August 12. Behind the scenes, Gingrich was consulting with various senior House leaders such as Henry Hyde, IL. Bill Archer, Texas, and Bob Livingston, LA. Overtime, with guarantees to those with reservations would be allowed to debate some items on the floor of the House; virtually all of the above were in agreement.
Gingrich v Dole
Gingrich and Senator Robert Dole, in their own way, fought hard to regain majority status for Congressional Republicans in the 1980’s and ‘90’s. But they kept each other at arms length. Gingrich’s hard-driving, confrontational style did not sit well with the Republican Senator from Kansas. Though Dole was impressed with Gingrich’s rising power, prestige, and publicity among his House colleagues, he did not have high regard for the latter’s tactics and methods. Cultural differences between the two chambers as well as dueling agendas also strained their relationships.
As Dole became more aware of elements of the Contract and the speed with which Gingrich and his allies in House sought to formalize them into law, the more reservations the Senator had. As Republican leader, he had to evaluate these various elements with respect to their chances of passage. Coming up with a voting majority for ‘across the board enactment’ would not be easy. For example, a House provision in a balanced-budget amendment requiring a three-fifths majority to raise taxes might not be attainable. Additionally, House proposals to deny welfare benefits to legal immigrants and unwed mothers under 18 would be strongly challenged by Democrats. Also, an attempt by the House to repeal a ban on semiautomatic weapons also faced strong opposition by Senate Democrats. This is not to say that Senate Republicans, in general, did not share a number of the Contract’s goals but they had their own agenda such as repealing the War Powers Act, lifting the arms embargo in Bosnia, and putting welfare reform on the back burner. Senator Thad Cochran, R-Miss. said “we have our differences but our differences with the Democrats are much more pronounced.” Conservative Republican William Kristol said, “The House may be a Ferrari but the Senate will at least be an Oldsmobile. They will be going in the same direction” ( Wolf, Hasson, 4).
Illustrative of other Gingrich-Dole competition was the Republican Governor’s Association meeting in Williamsburg, Virginia, in early January 1995. At this time, newly elected Republican governors (they now held 30 governorships, the best showing since 1970), were “feeling their oats”. These were bright newcomers elected in either 1993 or 1994: Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin, John Engler of Michigan, Pete Wilson of California, Arne Christensen of Minnesota, Mike Leavitt of Utah, George Bush of Texas, George Pataki of New York, Tom ridge of Pennsylvania, and George Allen of Virginia, to name a few. Both Dole and Gingrich addressed the governors at this meeting. Dole, looking for policy direction and advice, saw the governors a key element in subsequent legislative policy making. Dole, therefore, favored the creation of tasks forces among the governors in such policy areas as: crime, Medicaid, education, unfunded mandates and so on. This arrangement would serve as a “Good Housekeeping” seal for all Republican House bills. It would be a “swing” constituency between the firebrand tactics of Gingrich and the more laid-back and decentralized policy making apparatus Dole preferred. This did occur, but Gingrich went one better by promising that Republican House chairmen would meet monthly with the governors to ensure their support and cooperation.
On the first one hundred days of the 104th Congress, nine of the ten planks of the contract passed substantially in tact; the one casualty was term limits, which would require a constitutional amendment. Nonetheless, the document was strongly supported by a majority of House Republicans. However, as already noted, support for the Contract in the Senate was a different story. Contract proposals calling for a balanced budget, tax reform, and term limits did not attain majorities so as to become law. By 1996, there was a growing consensus in the national press that the contract was not popular and appeared to be a mistake. Ironically, for all of Gingrich’s drive and ambition to shape the national agenda, he had relatively more success as an inside-the-House legislative leader than as an outside-the-House shaper of national public opinion. He was successful, however, in using the Contract and his position as Speaker, to lead his party to purposeful action.
Democrats Respond
With the publication of the contents of Contract by the Republican National Committee in late October, 1994, the campaign for its acceptance by the voters was joined. From the Democrats point of view, it was “heaven sent”. This was a target that they would allow them to take attention and head off Clinton. They quickly attacked the document on several grounds: it was a fiscal fraud and warmed-over Reaganism (promising tax cuts, defense increases, and a balanced budget); the Contract was a stealth effort to undermine vital governmental programs; the Contract was another GOP lie (like former president Bush’s “no new tax pledge”), the document was going to turn rank-and-file Republicans into robotic followers of Gingrich, finally the Contract was grotesquely cynical because it promised votes on all ten items which few, if any, would eventually become law. Democrats also sought to pin down first-time Republican candidates on the kinds of spending cuts that might be required in their respective districts (Garrett, 98-102). But, most candidates deflected questions promising to closely evaluate which cuts were most justified. The Contract was a more compelling legislative document in that it forced national Republicans to stand or fall together.
Conclusion
In January 1995, victorious republicans caucused under the influence of we-won-it and we got-a-sweeping national mandate for change. Gingrich and his victorious House majority, took the Contract they crafted for electioneering purposes and moved to adopt it wholesale as their legislative agenda. This decision had the virtue of granting instant focus, organization, and legislative efforts to a brand new, inexperienced, and eager legislative majority. Pragmatically speaking, were the accomplishments and strategies noted in earlier pages by Gingrich and his allies realistic and without fault?
First, the conception of the governing process as perceived by Contract supporters was faulty as was their interpretation or the meaning of the 1994 election results (Fenno, 20-21). The Contract was packaged with help of focus groups and polls for electoral purposes. The document was a laundry list of ten-vote getting proposals with equal weight for each. These, in turn, would eventually be voted on by the House. In truth, though, the proposals were a mixed bag, because some were broadly institutional and even constitutional, in their content and impact; others were narrowly programmatic. Additionally, each of the items garnered varying degrees of support among Republicans. By prescribing an equality of effort for all the items, the Republicans substituted inflexibility for flexibility. They deprived themselves of a chance to evaluate their legislative agenda in terms of tradeoffs, or to make distinctions between what they would like to get and what they had to get.
Second, the Contract conveyed no sense of long-run strategy for actually enacting any of its proposals into law. It mainly focused on action within the House Representatives. It also took no account of the broader legislative context that lay beyond, a context of separate branches of government and the sharing of powers. Also the planners did little ground work as far as evaluating Senate reaction in light of its distinctive procedures and its different ideological makeup.
Third, there was the problem of the freshman class in the 104th Congress. These seventy-three newcomers were key in House enactment of the Contract. Certainly their numbers gave them influence in any final outcome with respect to action on the Contract; but they also brought inexperience with them, as well. As one source notes, “They arrived on Capitol Hill with a sense of common purpose that has rarely been seen in any incoming class of congressmen”. They came to Washington with a commitment to the Contract and determination to transform their conservative policy preferences into a new pattern of government, but in such a large class, there were inevitable differences among them (Aldrich, Rhode, 562-564).
Implicit was a kind of “rush to judgment” mentality. In this context, the Contract was of crucial importance and their election was a national mandate to enact the Contract-promises made, promises kept. By unconditionally embracing the Contract, the freshmen class made the inadequacies worse. Their attachment to the document introduced a large dose of rigidity into the legislative process, setting the Republican party on a course that would be difficult to change.
When all was said and done, House Republicans displayed great diligence and discipline in drafting and passing nine of the ten planks of the Contract. When it was over, they talked and acted as if they had mastered the legislative process. They did not meaningfully understand the difference between passing the Contract and governing the country. They thought they had passed the crucial performance test and now were ready for the nation to embrace their effort. In fact, their performance on the Contract was rather short-run, narrowly focused, and was at best, only a preliminary test of their governing ability. The latter was going to involve a more complicated and longer-lasting legislative effort.
Endnotes
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politics.Political Science Quarterly, 112, 541-567.
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Georgetown University Press.
Babson, J. (1995, April 8). Armey stood guard over contract. Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 987-988.
Balz, D. (1994, November 20). GOP “contract” pledges 10 tough acts to follow. Washington Post, p. A1.
Barone, M. & Ujifusa, G. (1994). Almanac of American politics. Washington, DC: National Journal.
Barone, M. & Ujifusa, G. (1996). Almanac of American politics. Washington, DC: National Journal.
Borger, G. (1994, December 12). A think tank in cowboy boots. US News and World Report, 117, 52-53.
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world: The historical significance of the contract with America. Policy Review. 73, 18-45.
Cloud, D.S. (1995, February 2). Speaker wants his platform to rival the presidency. Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report,
53, 331-335.
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Weekly Report, 52, 2711-2712.
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Gimple, J. G. (1996). Fulfilling the contract: The first 100 days. Needham Heights, MA: Allan & Bacon.
Gingrich, N. (1995). To renew America. New York: Harper-Collins.
Gingrich, N., Armey, R.K., Gillespie, E., Schellhas, B. (1994). Contract with America: The bold plan by Representative
Newt Gingrich, Representative Dick Armey, and the House Republicans to change the nation. New York: Times Books.
Hager G. (1994, October 1). Can GOP count on its own to back ambitious plan? Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report,
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New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
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Rich, A. (2006). Think tanks, public policy, and the politics of expertise. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Wolf, R., & Hasson, J. (1995, January 3). One train but many tracks: Division could derail the Republicans. USA Today
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