ery other state and nearly 59 percent of the popular
vote. In the wake of Reagan’s landslide reelection,
the Republicans gained sixteen House seats and lost
two Senate seats. Republican senator Bob Dole of
Kansas succeeded the retiring Howard Baker as Sen-
ate majority leader. With these election results, Rea-
gan and the Republicans in Congress were confi-
dent that the Democrats would be more cooperative
in the legislative process.
Congress and Reagan’s Second Term The two ma-
jor domestic policy issues for Congress during Rea-
gan’s second term were deficit reduction and tax re-
form. Most Democrats in Congress reluctantly and
ambivalently voted for passage of the Balanced Bud-
get and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (also
known as the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings bill). Sup-
ported by Reagan and sponsored by Republican
senators Phil Gramm of Texas and Warren Rudman
of New Hampshire and Democratic senator Ernest
Hollings of South Carolina, this law planned to elim-
inate the deficit by 1991 through automatic, com-
prehensive, annual budget cuts. In 1986, the Su-
preme Court struck down the automatic provisions
of the law as unconstitutional. High budget deficits
remained the top domestic policy issue for Congress
during the 1980’s and early 1990’s.
By 1986, Congress developed a broad, bipartisan
consensus to reform and simplify income and corpo-
rate taxes by again reducing the number of tax
brackets and reducing or eliminating certain deduc-
tions. Beyond insisting that the net effect of such re-
form must not be to raise taxes, Reagan generally de-
ferred to Congress to negotiate and determine the
details of a tax reform bill. Bipartisan leadership
in achieving passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1986
was personified by Democratic representative Dan
Rostenkowski of Illinois, chairman of the powerful
House Committee on Ways and Means, and Republi-
can senator Bob Packwood of Oregon, chairman of
the Senate Committee on Finance.
In the 1986 congressional elections, the Demo-
crats gained three House seats and eight Senate
seats. These results enabled the party to win control
of the Senate and elect Senator Robert Byrd of West
Virginia as Senate majority leader. Tip O’Neill re-
tired, and Democratic representative Jim Wright of
Texas became Speaker of the House. The leadership
of both houses of Congress, but especially the Sen-
ate, became more combative and confrontational in
relationships with President Reagan and with the
Republican minorities.
In particular, the Democratic Senate conducted
an extensive investigation of the Iran-Contra affair
and rejected Reagan’s nomination of Robert H.
Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987. The Senate in-
vestigation eventually revealed that Reagan knew
about and approved of the National Security Coun-
cil’s illegal sale of weapons to Iran and the use of the
funds from those sales to aid the Contra rebels
in Nicaragua. Meanwhile, Speaker Wright imposed
stricter party discipline on Democrats and was more
assertive in his relationship with Reagan than
O’Neill had been. Pressured by Republican repre-
sentative Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the House in-
vestigated Wright for ethical violations. Wright re-
signed from Congress in 1989 and was replaced
as Speaker by Democratic representative Thomas
Foley of Washington.
Congress and George H. W. Bush in 1989 Although
incumbent Republican vice president George H. W.
Bush easily defeated Michael Dukakis, the Demo-
cratic governor of Massachusetts, in the 1988 presi-
dential election, the Democrats increased their ma-
jorities in Congress. They gained two seats in the
House and one seat in the Senate. Democratic sena-
tor George Mitchell of Maine became Senate major-
ity leader. During Bush’s first year as president, the
Senate rejected his nomination of John Tower to be
secretary of defense. There were also prolonged
conflicts between Bush and Congress over deficit re-
duction, taxes, entitlement spending, and defense
spending.
Congress and Foreign Policy The election results
and public opinion polls of 1980 indicated that
Americans wanted a more assertive, military-oriented
foreign policy in response to the Iranian hostage cri-
sis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Commu-
nist Party’s repression of the Solidarity movement
in Poland, and the threat of growing communist in-
fluence in Central America, especially Nicaragua.
Consequently, Republicans and most Southern
Democrats in Congress supported President Rea-
gan’s policies of higher defense spending; aid to
anticommunist guerillas; installing new nuclear mis-
siles in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
countries, especially West Germany; developing the
Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) to project Amer-
ican military power in the Persian Gulf region;The Eighties in America Congress, U.S. 245