As the Washington establishment struggles with the stark reality of the new political order, all eyes are on the massive class of incoming freshmen, totaling at least 85 House and 13 Senate Republicans. Of those, more than 70 will replace Democrats, representing a historic electoral rebuke of the Democratic Party. More meaningful and underreported is the quality and unity of purpose in this massive voting bloc. Almost to a person, they ran on job creation, restoring economic growth, repealing and replacing Obamacare, and reining in deficit spending.
A vast majority signed, and won by campaigning on the Contract FROM America, the closest thing there is to a policy manifesto from the leaderless, decentralized Tea Party movement.
Ryan Hecker, a Tea Party activist from Houston, created the online platform for the contract that solicited ideas from hundreds of thousands of citizen activists that were eventually winnowed down to the top 10 policy planks by popular vote.
Tim Scott from South Carolina, now a freshman representative on the House Republican leadership team, won in part by pointing out that his primary opponent had refused to sign on to the Tea Party’s document. He will be working with at least 56 contract signers in the House.
In the Senate, 12 members elected this year signed the contract, representing the largest bloc of committed fiscal conservatives in our lifetimes. No such bloc existed in 1995, even though Republicans controlled the body.
Mike Lee from Utah, was the very first signer of the contract, and fully embraced it in his upset defeat of incumbent appropriator Robert Bennett. Expect to see Lee, along with Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and their freshman colleagues make life uncomfortable for the tax, borrow and spend culture in the Senate.
Contract plank No. 9, suspend all earmarks, has already rolled the appropriating elites in both legislative bodies and on K Street, an important first step in defeating the culture of spending in Washington. First priorities in the 112th Congress are repeal and replace Obamacare (No. 7) and cutting spending (No. 5).
House Democrats have doubled down on the same leadership team, led by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., that drove them off a liberal cliff, consoling themselves with the hope that these new legislators and their citizen mandate are somehow extreme and out of the mainstream of public opinion.
We encourage them to keep their hope alive. The reality may prove too difficult for them to accept.
According to a FreedomWorks poll conducted by Frank Luntz the weekend before the election, every plank of the contract garnered the support of a majority of the American people, and the overwhelming support of self-described Tea Partiers.
For instance, 70 percent of the total population and 87 percent of Tea Partiers support ending runaway spending with a statutory cap limiting federal spending growth to the sum of inflation plus population (No. 6). Only 9 percent and 2 percent, respectively, opposed such restraint.
When asked whether they would support “reducing government spending and programs by 10 percent across the board,” an overwhelming 70 percent of the general population and 89 percent of Tea Partiers said yes while only 14 percent and 3 percent said no.
As incoming House Speaker John Boehner himself has noted, the American people have not given Republicans a mandate, but a second chance. They were not given power, but a responsibility to the American people.
They should embrace this opportunity with humility and a fidelity to the founding principles that make our nation unique in all the world. The Contract FROM America offers a legislative road map for the journey.
Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe are chairman and president, respectively, of FreedomWorks and co-authors of “Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto,” published by HarperCollins.
Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe are chairman and president of FreedomWorks, respectively and co-authors of “Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto,” published by HarperCollins.
