highly visible executive branch, the legislative
branch operates in relative obscurity, usually only
making waves with a few key votes and the occasional
scandal. However, the 104th Congress was a congres-
sional session filled with exceptions, and its lasting
impact on the collective memory of the nation is but
one more of its noted peculiarities.
The New Republican Majority The Contract with
America, the now notorious legislative platform of
the 104th Congress, was the most recognizable and
broadly sweeping partisan congressional agenda of
the modern political era. Its preelection announce-
ment by Republican House candidates heralded the
arrival, or some would say continuance, of many
Ronald Reagan-era right-wing ideas in the political
mainstream of the mid-1990’s. The contract’s con-
stituent elements, unlike its lasting endurance as a
symbol of conservative policy action, are much less
well known. Indeed, public opinion polling con-
ducted in 1994 and 1995 saw that even in the con-
tract’s heyday, well under half of Americans knew ex-
actly what it was.
The ten-point plan proposed far-reaching re-
forms. These proposals ranged from the usual (an
anticrime package, including increased prison fund-
ing, the Taking Back Our Streets Act) to the potent
(congressional twelve-year term limits, the Citizen
Legislature Act) to the procedural (a call for the
line-item veto, under the Fiscal Responsibility Act).
The Republicans pledged that once they took con-
trol of the House, the bills would be proposed on the
House floor within the first one hundred days of the
new Congress.The Origins of the Contract The contract’s origins
can be traced to the mid-century conservative ideol-
ogy of Barry Goldwater Republicanism but are more222 Contract with America The Nineties in America
Weeks before Republicans took control of both houses of Congress, House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich addressed Republican congressio-
nal candidates on Capitol Hill during a rally where they pledged the Contract with America. Gingrich assumed the role of Speaker of the
House in 1995.(AP/Wide World Photos)