Against Government: The Contract With America
Plotke, David
As I write, in the summer of 1995, we do not know how many of the measures proposed in the Republican Contract WithAmerica will finally become law. But whatever the final legislative result, the...
...Their successes are dynamic and ongoing, as public debate shifts to the right and antistatism gains strength.' Does the Contract mark a political break...
...Certainly the debates in the House about bills based on proposals in the Contract have not been lacking in ideological clarity or intensity, as when Republicans propose to repeal what they call the federal welfare state of the last sixty years...
...It deserves the attention...
...With regard to context, part of the success of the Contract With America derives from a correct Republican judgment that the popular verdict on the Reagan years remains favorable...
...354 • DISSENT...
...It begins with an offer to voters: As Republican Members of the House of Representatives and as citizens seeking to join that body we propose not just to change its policies, but even more important, to restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives...
...But without a credible record of making the state nicer or more efficient, the centrist Democratic position has no solid ground on which to resist the unqualified antistatism of the House Republicans...
...It can be linked with concrete proposals about reducing the size of government...
...That document is like one of Clinton's worst speeches, sprawling endlessly...
...When the Christian Coalition introduced its own legislative agenda in May 1995, it not only copied Gingrich's title by proposing a "Contract With the American Family," its leaders seem to have learned something about brevity...
...Instead, Republicans propose first to use their power to change the conduct of House business and then to bring up for a vote measures that express the main elements of the Contract's proposals...
...Probably not, if the stron352 • DISSENT Contract With America gest version of each proposal is implemented...
...House Republicans have taken the political initiative and House Democrats have failed to find a counter-strategy...
...It conveys a Republican capacity to select, to make a short list from among many conservative concerns...
...Contract or Covenant Nothing guarantees that political opportunities will be made good...
...Nor, following the failure of health care reform, did the administration have a set of policy proposals that could dominate the domestic political agenda...
...to affirm continuity—with Reagan's administrations—and to insist on deep change to complete the process that Reagan began...
...One term that captures the strength of a document like the Contract With America is manifesto (from "manifest," meaning to show clearly...
...This does not make Gingrich's antistatism valid, but it does make it more coherent than its competition...
...During and after the 1994 election, his lack of political initiative has been notable...
...The Contract takes a different stance: the problem with the government is that it is too big...
...Many on the left have claimed that the evident public rejection of their ideas has occurred because American politics is immune to serious consideration of ideas of such...
...Ten Promising Proposals What of the proposals themselves...
...The second lists proposed changes in the conduct of House business...
...Moreover, not all so-called social or cultural issues divide Republicans and the far right...
...As a document— the brief manifesto provided for the election campaign, not the tedious book published later on— the Contract is compelling...
...In less than a sentence the Contract links conservative themes about familial and religious values to its proposals without directly raising any of the divisive cultural and social questions that endanger Republican unity...
...But whatever the final legislative result, the Contract With America has already been a strikingly effective move in a campaign to restore Republican dominance inAmerican national politics.' The Contract With America was presented by Republican House candidates on September 27, 1994...
...In this case the dire consequences that Democrats have warned about—extreme personal hardships, and a rotted out social and economic infrastructure, for example—will come to pass.Yet a practical logic is likely to benefit the proponents of the Contract...
...The premise, evident in debate in Congress and elsewhere about the austerity budgets proposed in the House and Senate, is that cutting back the federal government is a good thing in principle and only needs to be restrained by pragmatic concerns...
...One argument they used was that this measure amounts to an unfunded mandate for states and cities and thus should be eliminated...
...and efforts to link the militarized far right with what is now the mainstream antistatist Republicanism of Newt Gingrich...
...In the platform this third way appears mainly as a desire...
...congressional accountability (1/5...
...Such cuts, rather than a total abolition of welfare, are apt to emerge from the legislative bargaining process...
...The text defines them as distinct legislative acts...
...These days there is no predicting the outcome of particular presidential contests even one year in advance...
...Instead, values are embedded in the measures that Republicans propose— these values will be enacted in the project that one joins by supporting the Contract...
...As the platform calls for many new government programs and expansion of ongoing activities, it is fair to conclude that (New) Democratic policies mean real growth in government activity...
...Newt Gingrich, Rep...
...For example, Republicans in a House subcommittee voted to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931—which requires that workers on federal construction projects be paid at local prevailing union rates...
...the "Personal Responsibility Act" (antiwelfare...
...Prospects The Contract WithAmerica is one of the most successful political initiatives in recent years...
...The other is to argue that a commitment to efficiency will offset any growth in government brought about by policy choices...
...The House Republicans have made the best of their chance, in part because of the Contract With America itself...
...Democratic statements, including the 1992 platform, blame public mistrust of government on excessive bureaucracy or bad Republican policies...
...No six-month success story can discredit all these conceptions...
...The Senate defeated the balanced-budget amendment on March 2. 2 Ed Gillespie and Bob Schellhas, eds., Contract With America: The Bold Plan by Rep...
...Such accounts leave several virtues of the Contract unnoticed...
...Opposition to most forms of affirmative action is a popular position that unites these forces more than it divides them, and it remains available for a national initiative beyond the various state-level campaigns now underway...
...A third strength of the Contract's proposals is that they are concrete...
...The first promises voters that Republican members of the House will do their best to enact it...
...First, the weakness of the Clinton administration provided an opening for the House Republicans...
...It never gets a clear name or program so that one can measure results against proposals...
...Clinton's position— that of center Democrats, New Democrats, neoliberal Democrats, however one names them— embraces a partially antistatist rhetoric while remaining committed to policies that promise no real reduction in government activity...
...They are right, but their need to make this argument indicates the extent to which the Christian right has begun to grasp the need for strategic compromises in order to be in a position to achieve basic goals, rather than simply stating those goals as immediate demands and denouncing those who refuse to agree...
...If he ignores it or seeks to accommodate its proposals, he seems to offer more evidence of his weakness...
...In the triumphalist book (put together after the election) that now surrounds the Contract, only two lists of principles are mentioned...
...The "Family Reinforcement Act" encourages adoption and greater parental control of education...
...Gingrich's 1995 speeches sometimes have it, which makes his public performances more effective than those of most of the politicians with whom he is competing...
...product liability (3/10...
...Before the Contract, a large and sympathetic audience already existed for political attacks on the federal government—especially when such attacks are so well crafted and well timed...
...The first is that the state is the captive of dominant social groups...
...This premise has not even been put in question by two critiques of the right and the far right: exposés of Pat Robertson's loony and anti-Semitic view of modern history...
...Read against the Democratic Platform it is a pleasure...
...Gingrich and Armey are identified as the authors, along with House Republicans in general...
...There is of course a further problem that I will not discuss here: much of the left is uncertain about its basic commitments...
...q SUMMER • 1995 • 353 Contract With America Notes 1 One version of the term limit proposal received a 227-204 vote in the House, but this was well short of the two-thirds required for a constitutional amendment...
...By contrast, the proposals in the Contract With America rest on several decades of Republican efforts to combine antistatist commitments and practical governance in a society that cannot dispense altogether with a state...
...Despite the pledges of total transformation, the Contract's proposals would be most effective if implemented only in part...
...Will the proposals made in the Contract With America be effective...
...The coherence of the Contract With America makes it easy to explain and defend, especially against critics with no clear positive alternative...
...This allowed Gingrich et al...
...And divisions among DemoSUMMER • 1995 • 349 Contract With America crats made it hard for Clinton to rely on their numerical advantage...
...and the "Citizen Legislature Act" (term limits) would all move authority away from the state...
...The Republican promise is further recommended by its modesty...
...It proposes that a Republican majority in the House will transform the way Congress works...
...Clearly at that time many people had never heard of it...
...4 The Contract With America provides an impetus for legislative efforts in areas outside its main focus...
...Why did the contract have such success...
...All this makes the Contract one of the most successful national political initiatives of recent years...
...They thought—and perhaps still think—that Clinton's defeat of Bush marked the end of a phase of Republican domination and meant both a rejection of Reaganism and a turn toward a (New) Democratic alternative...
...absent the account of plausible goals, there is an avowal of principle...
...The second list is briefer: accountability, responsibility, and opportunity...
...The main debate is now over how to separate the reasonable from the excessive in the Republican proposals...
...The Virtues of Exclusion In liberal newspapers and journals, a typical account of Republican progress in the new Congress starts by acknowledging how much success has been achieved in turning Contract proposals into promising bills...
...Robert Marshall Wells, "Panel Votes to Repeal Laws After Democrats Walk Out," Congressional Quarterly 3/4/95: 693...
...Instead of providing a critique of social welfare policies and then considering possible reforms, the Contract proposes a Personal Responsibility Act that attacks "welfare dependency" by making it much harder to receive benefits...
...If the state is captured by dominant groups and politics is everywhere, on what grounds can one strongly object to antistatism...
...The editors were on the staffs of Armey and the Republican National Committee...
...It has damaged an already fragile Democratic administration and unified Republican forces to an impressive extent...
...the ten proposals designate clusters of related bills, but the point is that these proposals are close to being plausible pieces of legislation...
...This separation is recognized in order to declare responsibility...
...Democrats made a telling error in the fall of 1994 when they sought to damage the Contract by linking it to Reagan...
...The Contract With America is both a way to extend the unfinished "Reagan Revolution" and a project for more definitive antistatism than Reagan could implement...
...House Republicans made a serious effort to give the congressional election a national character and to focus it on the Contract...
...Either way Republican chances in 1996 improve...
...Perhaps the religious right benefited from being on the sidelines long enough to watch the success of the Contract With America...
...balanced-budget amendment (1/26...
...The Republican formulation in the Contract With America, without saying a word directly about Clinton, targets qualities that have caused him so much trouble— his ambivalent style of leadership, evasiveness, and unwillingness to take responsibility...
...The Democratic position calls 350 • DISSENT Contract With America for a third way between "do-nothing government" and excessive reliance on government...
...The Contract has also helped to shift the terms of public debate to the right...
...Nothing in the Democratic Platform suggests that they have the capacity to accomplish such a difficult maneuver, and there was little in Clinton's first eighteen months to indicate otherwise...
...Against a background of open political discussion, this form is not undemocratic— it condenses values, programs, and practical measures into sharply drawn proposals that carry the force of strong arguments made at all three levels...
...Absent the values, what remains is a set of programs...
...And they indicate a willingness to compromise—thus the antiabortion plank proposes to prohibit "only" lateterm abortions...
...SUMMER • 1995 • 351 Contract With America In this light, the exclusion of controversial questions from the Contract is more than craftiness...
...It is a compelling move in a campaign to rebuild a national Republican regime that Clinton wounded without dismantling...
...The third outlines ten legislative goals focused on cutting taxes, balancing the federal budget, and reducing the federal role in social welfare provision...
...Political Surprises The Contract With America is a relatively clear and detailed program with a strong ideological content...
...But there is deep popular suspicion of such growth...
...But the Contract With America is so counter to prevalent views among analysts of parties, Congress, and American political thought as to suggest a contrary hypothesis...
...7 Differences in meaning between "contract" and "covenant" are congruent with the interpretation of these documents that I am proposing...
...the Democratic Platform offers a covenant in which "ordinary people" take power...
...This antistatism—with conservative, populist, and libertarian elements—has been a pillar of Republican power from the days of Nixon's silent majority on...
...line-item veto (2/6...
...The party leadership was politically adrift...
...The separation between leaders and citizens is reaffirmed by claiming that Congress will respect values and share faith—not simply express them...
...The Contract With America offers a contract between citizens and political leaders...
...All this should come as a surprise to most analysts of contemporary politics...
...Moreover, the Democratic leadership took the Contract With America seriously...
...Yet they are not vague by design...
...Still other sources of conventional wisdom insist that contemporary political initiatives should proceed pragmatically, without relying on big stories about political meaning in history...
...Contract signifies a more formal and more legal agreement among distinct agents...
...Second, the Democratic House leadership was in trouble...
...Regarding actual practical choices, such forms of positioning are pre-programmatic...
...The second is that politics is everywhere, so that the big politics of national partisan conflict and federal policy has no special status...
...That historic change would be the end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public's money...
...moratorium on federal regulations (2/ 24...
...This argument is made in many forms, depending on which dominant group one has in mind (class, gender, and so on) and how one believes that their domination is secured...
...The key theme is antistatism...
...Thus the exclusion of major "social issues" seemed to express discipline and responsibility, even to many advocates of conservative positions on those issues...
...One device for managing this tension amounts to populist and communitarian claims that a big government can be a friendly government...
...The May 1995 Supreme Court decision, U.S...
...This fiercely antistatist dynamic is far from played out...
...One focuses on the political context, the other on the document itself...
...9 Advocates of abortion rights have claimed that anti-abortion groups retain an eventual commitment to eliminating anything close to the Roe v. Wade notion of abortion rights...
...Its size leads to intrusiveness and fiscal irresponsibility...
...The "Fiscal Responsibility Act" (a balanced budget amendment to the constitution...
...The Democratic Platform contains no serious discussion of any nondefense area in which the size of government will be substantially reduced...
...The capacity to articulate basic values in the act of declaring immediate objectives requires a clarity about both that is not often achieved and an ability to fuse them in an active way...
...But there is some indication that it helped to convince voters that House Republicans were serious and capable...
...The "Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act" offers tax cuts for business and attacks social and economic regulation...
...The Contract contains no proposal on abortion, or gun control, or affirmative action, or prayer in school...
...By contrast, the Clinton Democratic Platform of 1992, which ends its preamble this way: Therefore we call for A REVOLUTION IN GOVERNMENT— to take power away from entrenched bureaucracies and narrow interests in Washington and put it back in the hands of ordinary people...
...A large and useful literature shows why American politics tends not to be ideological, why parties are fragmented and have so much trouble maintaining unity in Congress, why parties rarely take programmatic leadership, and why the presidency is now the leading American political institution...
...The next definitions then diverge considerably...
...Term Limits v. Thornton, further diminishes the chances of this part of the Contract With America being achieved...
...The crisp, direct contractual language of the Republican document contrasts with the populist communitarianism of the Clinton Democrats who (recalling Carter) claim not so much to be responsible leaders as to be (part of) the people—in power and thus no more blameworthy than any of the rest of us if things do not go well...
...It originated with the House leadership of a major political party, and after the election, measures based on it moved rapidly through the House at the initiative of an energetic and unified Republican party...
...6 Both documents propose to restore public confidence in government, but in different ways...
...The Contract is performative rather than preachy and didactic, and this quality separates it from most routine Republican and far right pronouncements.' The closing reference to theAmerican family's "faith" is full of meanings: American political values are a faith, they overlap with other religious faiths, and Americans are a metaphorical family who value their actual families partly as centers of faith...
...But if the new administration represents a covenant—a shared commitment among all citizens out of which the government expresses the popular will—there is no one to blame for this failure to achieve stated goals.' Or maybe we are all to blame...
...For example, severe cuts in social welfare expenditures might temporarily reduce budgetary strains...
...Part of their vagueness comes from efforts to paper over deep conflicts...
...Most alleged manifestos on the left or center are really statements of perspective and lack the dynamic and concrete qualities of the Republican Contract...
...It does not claim that all the measures will be enacted...
...the "Common Sense Legal Reforms Act" (limiting litigation...
...Their position has the virtue of clarity...
...8 The book in which the Contract With America is engulfed rarely has this performative quality...
...The success of the Contract WithAmerica raises a question: why haven't there been more effective counterarguments against its radical antistatism...
...After two years of the Clinton administration, no discernible "revolution in government" was on the horizon...
...The first includes individual liberty, economic opportunity, limited government, personal responsibility, and security at home and abroad...
...civil litigation (3/7...
...The values of the "American family" are not spelled out in so many words...
...Second, the themes of the Contract With America are linked to widely shared sentiments...
...2 The Contract made only a modest contribution to the Republican electoral victory in 1994...
...Why Success...
...Perhaps accounts of the fragmentation and lack of ideas in American politics have been too much shaped by the dismal state of Democratic politics from the late 1960s on and by a widespread hostility among academics and political analysts to Republican proposals, especially those from the right of the party...
...The last phrases from the Contract cited above—proposing a Congress that "respects the values and shares the faith of the American family"— are fascinating...
...One thing that makes the Contract so effective is its lack of lists...
...5 Here the Republicans make a double pledge: to pursue a specific program and to be trustworthy...
...This is not literally true...
...Most currents to the left of center Democrats are not well positioned to argue against Gingrich...
...The copyright on the book is held by the Republican National Committee...
...It has three parts...
...Whether Gingrich runs for president or not, the Republican candidate will surely benefit from the political dynamic that the Contract has skillfully amplified...
...They represent the fringe of a broad popular mood that has flourished in the United States over the last two-and-a-half decades...
...They did both...
...Efforts to deny this on the left have focused on the modest level of public knowledge of the document before the November election, the low 348 • DISSENT Contract With America turnout in that election, and the uncertain prospects of particular bills drawn up to implement the Contract...
...For obvious historical reasons this term is not much favored by those announcing right-of-center political projects...
...Richard Benedetto, "Christian Coalition Gains a Political Voice," USA Today 5/18/95...
...national security (2/16...
...anti-crime (2/7-14...
...Another part reflects the left's lack of recent experience in governing, so that broad aims have not been required to take practical form...
...First, they have a real shape, which derives from their central aim: to reduce the role of the state in making social decisions...
...Republicans have shown a much better grasp of the political moment...
...Ironically, they have converged on two themes that are now politically limiting, although each of them retains analytical merit...
...The full text of the Contract takes up only six pages in a book of the same title published by the Republican National Committee...
...5 Contract With America, p. 7. 6 Democratic Party Platform, adopted by the 1992 Democratic National Convention on July 14, 1992, reprinted in Congressional Quarterly Almanac: 102nd Congress, 2nd Session 1992 (Washington: Congressional Quarterly, Inc., 1993), p. 59-A...
...When the other two measures—the "National Security Restoration Act" and the "Taking Back Our Streets Act"—stress national security and fighting crime, they offer predictable qualifications to the antistate emphasis...
...7-12...
...They saw its formulation as a Republican error that provided an opportunity for a counterattack linking Republican candidates, the Contract, and the record of the Reagan administrations.' The process of formulating the Contract, obtaining signatures, and then taking the relevant measures through the House in 1995 has brought about a high level of unity among Republicans, which has in turn encouraged disunity among Democrats...
...Measures passed on the following issues: House rules revisions (1/4...
...Its brevity is attractive...
...A typical second definition of contract is: "an agreement enforceable by law...
...After the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, extremist antistatism has been discovered by the national media...
...Dick Armey and the House Republicans to Change the Nation (Times Books, 1994), pp...
...In most dictionaries the first definition given for each term is very similar—each is defined as an agreement between two or more persons to do or not do something...
...3 Stanley Greenberg claimed: "Clearly the explicit images of the Reagan era are very negative for the public, particularly Reaganomics...
...they would enhance the decision-making role of the market, families, and religious and communal associations...
...That passivity worsens his dilemma...
...To make this revolution we seek a NEW COVENANT to repair the damaged bond between the American people and their government, that will expand OPPORTUNITY, insist upon greater individual RESPONSIBILITY in return, restore COMMUNITY and insure NATIONAL SECURITY in a profoundly new era...
...This is in striking contrast with the Democratic platform and most left-of-center declarations, which usually take the form of general statements of principles (in favor of democracy, or populism, or diversity...
...Large numbers of House Democrats have voted for measures linked with the Contract...
...The writer then suggests that such success will end soon, because Republican unity will explode when controversial social and cultural issues, notably abortion, come up for debate...
...Given an antistatist political context, shaped by decades of Republican domination, limited further shifts in that direction might have modest positive results in the short term...
...That is why, in this era of official evasion and posturing, we offer instead a detailed agenda for national renewal, a written commitment with no fine print...
...The Democratic Platform does not distinguish core proposals from the endless number of less important good things that a decent Democratic administration might take on...
...Taken as a group, the Contract's proposals would move authority and resources away from Congress, the executive, the courts, and federal agencies...
...Its supporters see it both as a radical shift and as continuous with the last decade's national politics...
...Antistatism and Faith In addition to a contractual notion of relations between political leaders and citizens the first part of the Contract contains two other main themes...
...The Contract With America does not propose to express an identity between political leaders and citizens but to represent the latter responsibly...
...the "American Dream Restoration Act" and "Senior Citizens Fairness Act" (tax cuts...
...Left communitarian critics of rights discourse have similar problems with regard to attacks on a state that imposes costly and intrusive procedures on market and social actors...
...Two other contextual factors have played a role in the Contract's success...
...By the fall of 1994 the administration was widely perceived as not having lived up to expectations...
...Finally, the Contract WithAmerica has further weakened the Clinton presidency...
...But the paramilitary groups are not on a political island...
...In this light, the Contract With America story is a provocation to familiar views, one whose results might be creative...
...It is likely that only a very small part of the electorate voted Republican because they had read and approved it...
...Many have attributed Republican success to those omissions, hinting that there is something dishonest about them...
...Amid public skepticism about politics in the mid-1990s, proponents of the Contract benefit by taking responsibility for some things rather than proposing to make everything good happen while providing no clear standard of accountability...
...A common further definition of covenant is: "a solemn agreement between the members of a church to act together in harmony with the precepts of the gospel...
...and welfare (3/24...
...It can be the beginning of a Congress that respects the values and shares the faith of the American family...
...Thus the political feasibility of a Democratic course of at least modestly expanded government is bound to be in question...
...But one should not think that Republican successes are illusory or contingent on the final result of particular legislative battles...
...There are two sets of answers...
...Where Is the Critique of Antistatism...
...Scandals had weakened or destroyed several important Democrats...
...Cited in Richard L. Berke, "Republicans' Campaign Trail Turns Right, Toward Reagan," New York limes, October 17, 1994...
...unfunded mandates (2/1...
...The logic of public political argument now greatly weakens the position of people from whom one might expect to hear a compelling answer to the rising chorus of antistatism—centrist Democrats and political currents to their left...
...The prospects of such a course depend on whether those guiding it can increase efficiency and accountability so briskly that a government launching many new projects will on balance not grow much...
...covenant signifies a shared commitment among agents who consider themselves linked in a community...
...One important reason is the political and theoretical limits of the positions held by those who reject the Contract's approach...
...The notion of a contract also acknowledges a separation between political leaders—the "we" of the Contract—and citizens...
...Here the Gingrich Republicans may benefit from the limits on their overall power—for the moment—while being able to blame the problems that continue to exist on the timidity of some of their allies and the obduracy of their Democratic opponents...
...The form of the Contract implies that its proponents know when to stop talking, and even suggests that such restraint signals an ability to limit the state...
...There is a pledge to eliminate obsolete programs, but no actual program is so identified...
...It has been justified in terms of broad claims about American political history and national identity...
...Here the Republicans enjoy a big advantage...
...Feminist legal theorists cannot easily counter antistatist critiques of family and social welfare policies—why should we support a state that is complicit in constructing gender domination...
...Bush's failure was not politically decisive, but opened a phase of political combat about whether to renew Republican domination or replace it with something else...
...In deciding who should get what, why not replace the rigidity and hyperindividualism of rights talk and a legalistic politics with the flexibility of market decisions and the responsiveness to communal preferences of nonstate associations...
...Maybe the disarray of Democratic ideas and strategies does not mean that a lively, idea-driven, disciplined politics is ruled out in America...
...The above definitions are from the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, second edition...
...If he attacks specific elements of it, he seems to be taking unpopular political positions...
Vol. 42 • July 1995 • No. 3
