We're about to celebrate the ten year anniversary of Newt's "Contract with America." Of course, from my perspective, "celebrate" isn't exactly the correct verb. How about "dissect?" That sounds better.
The Republican Contract with America was a masterstroke. Yes, I said that, now please you can put away the torture implements. I still have the bruises left over from the diary I did knocking hydrogen fuel cell cars. With one sheet of paper, the Republicans not only stole the spotlight, they showed us their strategy for the next decade: short, pithy statements, wrapped in patriotic language, with little concern about making action match words. The funny thing is, we still haven't managed to find away to counter that strategy. Frustrating as it was, and is, the "contract" played a major roll in starting the mudslide that put Republicans in control of congress.
Get out the scalpels and tongs, it's time to play dissect that contract.
I'm sticking this here so we can see how they did it, learn from our own mistakes, and be ready to head them off at the pass. After all, Newt already has his
new contract ready for his '08 run at the White House.
The contract is actually broken into two parts. It's the shorter first part that got put on flip boards and pointed at on TV, but it's full of what amount to statements of ideals, not real proposals.
- FIRST, require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress;
- SECOND, select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse;
- THIRD, cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third;
- FOURTH, limit the terms of all committee chairs;
- FIFTH, ban the casting of proxy votes in committee;
- SIXTH, require committee meetings to be open to the public;
- SEVENTH, require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase;
- EIGHTH, guarantee an honest accounting of our Federal Budget by implementing zero base-line budgeting
They clearly accomplished almost none of these things. Congresscritters still enjoy many privileges that greatly exceed those of the mere mortal. Some rule changes were made on how much largess our public servants could rake in, but at the same time new systems were put in place to see that they would be better compensated than ever before the moment they stepped into the loving arms of the private sector. If they changed anything about the working of committees, it was only to bring them more under the thumb of Republican leadership. They did nothing about getting honest accounting, because it didn't really interest them.
The second part of the contract was a laundry list of laws the Republicans wanted to see passed. These ranged from a bill to require tougher sentences on drug crimes (they passed that one), to one that would have required a balanced budget. In between were a lot of other bills that contained ideas we're still fighting over, including tort reform, changes to the tax code, and Social Security.
The star of the legislative package was the "Citizen Legislature Act," which would have introduced twelve year term limits for both congressmen and senators. However, from the moment they took control in 1994, this act was never seriously considered. It was the first casualty between what the Republicans promised, and what they delivered. Those who signed onto the contract that day in '94 promised personally that they would serve no more than twelve years. But one after another, they've reneged on that promise.
Of the proposed laws, they got welfare reform (with a lot of help from Clinton), and a few scraps. Not much else of note. National Journal figures that the Republicans got maybe a third of their acts passed in one form or another, put another third of the ideas in a diluted form into other legislation, and left another third on the drawing board. I think National Journal was being generous. Far from shrinking any part of the government, except perhaps regulatory agencies, the Republicans have padded more and more fluff on at every level.
So the Contract With America was a monstrous failure, right? The Republicans promised and they didn't deliver. We should have been able to use that to hammer them every single day from 1994 till now.
Only the contract was never about getting things done, it was about getting power. Here's how the Ohio Times-Recorder puts it
...more significantly, the contract with its easily readable promises and seemingly common-sense ideas, resonated and built a brand for the Republicans. It's a brand that has helped them take the House, the Senate and the White House.
Yes, Virginia, that's what this was all about. Branding. Putting Republican names and faces next to all these acts and statements that included words like "fiscal responsibility" and "personal responsibility" and "American dream" and "common sense." It's an extension of the ploy they've been using for fifty years and then some: Democrats are pie in the sky dreamers who want unrealistic goodies from an all powerful government, Republicans are hard-working common sense types who look for practical solutions.
So how do we stop this? Well, we try to hold their feet to the fire as best we can, but since the press has the collective memory of a tse tse fly, making people live up to their promises is never going to make the front page.
No, a better proposal is to fight fire with fire. We make our own contract. We call it something else, but we put down statements just as short, even more blunt, and just as clear. We put stakes in the ground. We make the Democratic brand as instantly recognizable as the Nike swoosh.
How do we do that? Well, I have some ideas, but I'd like to hear yours.