IX.

Contract with America

In August 1992 the Republican National Convention illustrated the dominance of the conservative wing of the party by focusing on topics such as traditional family values; the convention alienated many moderate supporters. The loss of the White House in 1992 to Democrat Bill Clinton marked the end of the Reagan-Bush era. However, in the midterm elections of 1994 the Republicans gained a majority in Congress for the first time in more than 40 years. The Republican candidates for the House of Representatives campaigned on a platform called the “Contract with America,” which consisted of a ten-point agenda that included a pledge to pass a balanced-budget amendment, to reform welfare, and to impose term limits. The contract was drafted by Representative Newt Gingrich, who became the Speaker of the House after the 1994 elections.

Republicans in both the House and the Senate encountered problems passing parts of their agenda. President Bill Clinton vetoed two welfare reform bills before finally signing a third one in August 1996. He also opposed proposed cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and educational and environmental programs. Even within the Republican Party, the members of the House and the Senate could not always agree. The House passed the balanced-budget amendment, but the Senate defeated it. However, there were some parts of the Republican contract that were successfully passed, such as an antiterrorism bill.

As the 1996 presidential election campaign began, Robert Dole, the Senate majority leader, emerged as the likely Republican nomination. Dole resigned his Senate seat in June 1996 in order to devote his full attentions to the campaign. Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi took over as Senate majority leader.

During the campaign, Dole focused on a 15-percent tax cut, his service to the country through his war record, and long service in government. However, Clinton defeated Dole in November 1996. Clinton received 49.2 percent of the popular vote compared with Dole’s 40.8 percent. The Republican Party, however, was able to maintain its majority in both houses of Congress.

In the spring of 1997 Congress and Clinton reached an agreement to balance the federal budget in five years by cutting projected spending by $263 billion, with many of the cuts to come from Medicare and Medicaid. The government actually eliminated the deficit in one year, and in 1998 the budget showed a surplus for the first time since 1969. The Republicans and Democrats then began to debate what to do with the projected surpluses. The Republicans insisted upon major tax cuts, while Clinton and the Democrats wanted to use the money to shore up Social Security and to increase spending on education.

During the 1998 general election, the Republican Party seemed likely to increase its majorities in Congress because of scandals in the Clinton White House—particularly the president’s affair with a White House intern and his efforts to conceal it. Republicans made the scandal and the president’s imminent impeachment a central issue in the congressional campaigns. But party leaders miscalculated the voters’ fatigue with the scandal and their opposition to impeaching and removing a president who most people thought was doing a good job.

In the election, the Democrats gained five seats in the House, the first time since 1934 that a president’s party picked up seats in an off-year election. The election left the Republicans with only a 223-211 lead over the Democrats in the House. While the party kept its 55-45 majority in the Senate, senators who had been major critics of Clinton in the investigations were defeated. Gingrich, the Speaker of the House, and his chosen successor, Robert L. Livingston of Louisiana, resigned their seats in the aftermath of the election, leaving the party’s leadership severely weakened.

After the election, Republicans in the House of Representatives pressed ahead with the impeachment process. In December the House voted along party lines to impeach the president for perjury and obstruction of justice. In February 1999 the Senate voted to acquit Clinton of the charges, although most Republicans voted to convict and remove the president from office. The Republican Party emerged from the ordeal badly damaged rather than strengthened, and it began to search for ways to repair its standing with voters.