Republicans who think they can reclaim the majority this fall want to reprise a major element that swept them to power in 1994 as a new Democratic president suffered in the polls. Voters can expect to see this fall a new “Contract” pledging the GOP would be better stewards of taxpayer money and would shine sunlight on Congressional dealings.
But what’s still unclear is whether it will be a Contract with America or the Contract from America. While House Republicans are drafting a new Contract with America they’ll drop after Labor Day, top conservatives are glomming onto a potentially competing document that promises health care repeal and opposes a cap-and-trade system for climate change. That Contract from America was created in part with help from tea partiers and is making the rounds on the Internet.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) became the first member of Congress to sign yesterday, lauding that it was “created by the people” thanks to more than 450,000 people who submitted ideas online.
Among the 10 specific proposals in the Contract from America: to “demand” a balanced budget, “reject cap and trade” and ban all earmarks until the budget is balanced. Most pressing to this year’s domestic policy is a pledge to “Defund, repeal and replace the recently passed government-run health care with a system that actually makes health care and insurance more affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health care and health insurance system that isn’t restricted by state boundaries.”
It’s 356 words.
The original Contract was released Sept. 27, 1994. It was 264 pages and offered sweeping promises of changing the way Congress functions. From proposing term limits for committee chairs to slashing the size of Congressional staff, it had concrete ideas that candidates sold across the country for the six weeks until they swept the midterm election. It also included specific legislative text outlining their plans for welfare reform and spending.
National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions told reporters at a briefing this week that the new Contract being drafted will “draw a specific picture” of the expectations for how a Republican majority would behave. It will illustrate ways to make America an “employer nation” and propose changes to the tax code. He pointedly did not say if it would propose defunding, repealing or replacing the health care reform measure passed by the Democrats.
Instead, “We’re going to talk about process,” Sessions said, because “Bad process means bad policy.” The Contract will point out that Democrats voted not to read the health care bill by approving the rule for considering the measure, complicated stuff that polls have long shown doesn’t sway an electorate.
Sessions (R-TX) said there was “active work being done right now” on the Contract and once it’s released “The American people will have a very good idea about what we as House Republicans will move as legislation, what we will pass and the direction that we’re going to head this country in.”
Sessions said the GOP knows why they lost power in 2006: “It happened because of the demise of the ideas that were being presented in Washington and so Republicans lost faith with the American voter because we no longer gave them a vision which could be understandable or that they believed in.” He said instead of pushing specific policy plans, they’ll hold Pelosi and Obama accountable for their record of “failure.”
“We’re going to give them credit for that agenda. … They will lose the majority this year,” he said. Sessions said his only goal is to win 40 seats, reclaim the majority and retire Speaker Nancy Pelosi. If not, his chairmanship would have amounted to “a warm bucket of spit.”
“I’m not the least bit interested in coming in second place,” he said.
Additional reporting by Lucy Madison
