In 1994, Republicans issued a document similar to the 2010 Pledge to America. That fall, the Republicans took control of the House, for the first time in 40 years.
Contract with America
The House election of 1994 swung 54 House seats to the Republican side, gaining them a majority of 230 seats for the first time since 1954. The Senate election of 1994 altered the Senate balance from 44 – 56 in favor of Democrats to 53 – 47 in favor of Republicans.
The Republican Party, united behind Newt Gingrich‘s Contract with America that promised House votes on popular reforms, built on voters belief that the current House leadership was corrupt, as well as the disapproval of conservative and many independent voters with President Clinton’s actions (that included a failed attempt at universal health care and gun control measures).
Evangelicals were a significant voting bloc in the Republican party and an important group among voters. According to a survey sponsored by the Christian Coalition, 33 % of the 1994 voters were “religious conservatives.”
The Contract
Republicans picked issues with 60% or more polling support from voters and copied chunks of rhetoric out of popular former Republican President Ronald Reagan‘s 1985 State of the Union Address, attempting to capture the wishes of American voters.
Calling it a contract and having almost all Republican House members publicly sign it gave it an air of a business document with signature-signing commitment, bringing up images of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The Contract was written by, among others, John Boehner and was made up of promised changes to House procedures that were implemented on the first day Republicans elected a majority speaker. The House passed other promised legislation, but they either fell short of votes or were never taken up by the Senate.
The Southern Wave
The wave that swept Republicans into control was powered by the growing disapproval of Democratic president Bill Clinton by the Southern religious conservatives, and their anger at his attempt at gun control.
Republicans built on the general perception that the House leadership was corrupt, as well as the dissatisfaction of conservative and many independent voters with the president.
A second factor was the Southern response to Supreme Court rulings to redraw district boundaries. Southern states drew maps that concentrated black voters in districts surrounded by white voter districts, increasing by far the white Republican dominance in those districts and those states.
As a result, Republicans swept the South, formerly a Democratic haven, at congressional and statewide levels, and in gubernatorial and special elections. And it remains a Republican stronghold today.
Was it the Contract? Polls taken soon after the election showed few voters were even aware of the Contract or the promises it contained. The majority was won on charges of corruption and redistricting to favor Republicans.
Republicans now pursued an ambitious agenda with their new majority power, but were many times forced to negotiate with Democratic President Clinton, who held and used veto power against some excesses.
Although Republicans promised to cut government spending, a November 13, 2000 article by Edward H. Crane, president of the libertarian Cato Institute, stated, “… the combined budgets of the 95 major programs that the Contract with America promised to eliminate have increased by 13%.” So they spent more.
The shifting balance
Democratic president Bill Clinton was re-elected in 1996. Starting that year, the Republican majority in the House steadily eroded. By 2000, their majority had shrunk to just 9 votes. The knife-edge victory that year of Republican president George W. Bush showed a country evenly divided.
Republicans resurged (new word) both in the House election of 2002, and House election of 2004, through the benefit of more Southern State redistricting, the new War on Terror as well as the re-election of George W. Bush.
But in the House election of 2006, Democrats swept the election, adding 31 seats to attain a new majority in the House (233 Democrats, 202 Republicans). The Senate election of 2006 left the Senate in Democratic control with 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and 2 Independents caucusing with the Democrats, as well as the majority of state governorships (28-22).
Reasons for the 2006 Democratic party takeover have been assigned to the decline of the public image of George W. Bush, the dissatisfaction of the administration handling of both Hurricane Katrina and the War in Iraq, Bush’s Congressional defeat of Social Security Reform, and the culture of corruption, with the series of scandals in 2006 involving Republican politicians.
Previously we looked at the Republican survey that tried to listen to what a small sample of Americans were angry about and what they said they wanted from Congress.
Next, we’ll look at the first section of the actual Pledge to America document Republicans published in 2010; A Plan to Create Jobs. What are the promises they make in the Pledge, what are the truths and the half-truths, and what has already been accomplished?
GOP Pledge—A Plan to Create Jobs
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