Taking the initiative : leadership agendas in Congress and the "contract with America"

Author(s)

    • Bader, John B.

Bibliographic Information

Taking the initiative : leadership agendas in Congress and the "contract with America"

John B. Bader

(American governance and public policy)

Georgetown University Press, 1996

  • : pbk

Available at  / 6 libraries

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 265-272) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Volume

ISBN 9780878406289

Description

Whatever one's political affiliation, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich's Contract with America signed on September 27, 1994 by over 300 Republican candidates to the 104th Congress, was a Capitol Hill milestone. Debate lingers on whether it was the key to the first Republican takeover of the Hous
Volume

: pbk ISBN 9780878406296

Description

"Taking the Initiative" shows that majority party leaders in Congress have set and successfully pushed their own policy agendas for decades - revealing the 'Contract With America' as only the most recent, and certainly not the most successful, example of independent policy making. Cutting deeply into the politics and personalities of three decades of party leadership, John B. Bader probes the strategies and evaluates the effectiveness of House and Senate leaders operating in a divided government, when Congress and the presidency are controlled by different political parties. He provides a historical context for analyzing the "Contract" and shows that aggressive agenda-setting has long been a regular feature of majority party leadership. Bader interviewed more than seventy congressional leaders, staff members, party officials, and political consultants, including speakers Thomas "Tip" O'Neill and Jim Wright, for this book. He supplemented these interviews with research in largely unexplored archival materials such as press conference transcripts, notes from White House leadership meetings, and staff memoranda on strategy.

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