Contract FROM America

The Contract from America

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:29:05 +0000

We, the citizens of the United States of America, call upon those seeking to represent us in public office to sign the Contract from America and by doing so commit to support each of its agenda items and advocate on behalf of individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.

Protect the Constitution
Reject Cap & Trade
Demand a Balanced Budget
Enact Fundamental Tax Reform
Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government
End Runaway Government Spending
Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care
Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy
Stop the Pork
Stop the Tax Hikes

WSJ: A Tea Party Manifesto

Editorial Staff — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:28:47 +0000

The movement is not seeking a junior partnership with the Republican Party. It is aiming for a hostile takeover.

By DICK ARMEY AND MATT KIBBE

On Feb. 9, 2009, Mary Rakovich, a recently laid-off automotive engineer, set out for a convention center in Fort Myers, Fla. with protest signs, a cooler of water and the courage of her convictions. She felt compelled to act, having grown increasingly alarmed at the explosion of earmarks, bailouts and government spending in the waning years of the Bush administration. President Barack Obama, joined by then-Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, was in town promoting his plan to spend a trillion dollars in borrowed money to “stimulate” the economy.

Mary didn’t know it, but she was on the front lines of a grass-roots revolution that was brewing across the nation. More than 3,000 miles away, Keli Carender, a young Seattle school teacher and a member of a local comedy improv troupe, was feeling equally frustrated. She started to organize like-minded citizens. “Our nation’s fiscal path is just not sustainable,” she said. “You can’t continue to spend money you don’t have indefinitely.”

Today the ranks of this citizen rebellion can be counted in the millions. The rebellion’s name derives from the glorious rant of CNBC commentator Rick Santelli, who in February 2009 called for a new “tea party” from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. By doing so he reminded all of us that America was founded on the revolutionary principle of citizen participation, citizen activism and the primacy of the individual over the government. That’s the tea party ethos.

The tea party movement has blossomed into a powerful social phenomenon because it is leaderless—not directed by any one mind, political party or parochial agenda.

The criteria for membership are straightforward: Stay true to principle even when it proves inconvenient, be assertive but respectful, add value and don’t taking credit for other people’s work. Our community is built on the Trader Principle: We associate by mutual consent, to further shared goals of restoring fiscal responsibility and constitutionally limited government. These were the principles that enabled the Sept. 12, 2009 taxpayer march on Washington to be one of the largest political protests in the history of our nation’s capital.

The many branches of the tea party movement have created a virtual marketplace for new ideas, effective innovations and creative tactics. Best practices come from the ground up, around kitchen tables, from Facebook friends, at weekly book clubs, or on Twitter feeds. This is beautiful chaos—or, as the Nobel Prize-winning economist F.A. Hayek put it, “spontaneous order.”

Decentralization, not top-down hierarchy, is the best way to maximize the contributions of people and their personal knowledge. Let the leaders be the activists who have the best knowledge of local personalities and issues. In the real world, this is common sense. In Washington, D.C., this is considered radical.

The big-government crowd is drawn to the compulsory nature of centralized authority. They can’t imagine an undirected social order. Someone needs to be in charge—someone who knows better. Big government is audacious and conceited.

By definition, government is the means by which citizens are forced to do that which they would not do voluntarily. Like pay high taxes. Or redistribute tax dollars to bail out the broken, bloated pension systems of state government employees. Or purchase, by federal mandate, a government-defined health-insurance plan that is unaffordable, unnecessary or unwanted.

For the left, and for today’s Democratic Party, every solution to every perceived problem involves more government—top-down dictates from bureaucrats presumed to know better what you need. Tea partiers reject this nanny state philosophy of redistribution and control because it is bankrupting our country.

While the tea party is not a formal political party, local networks across the nation have moved beyond protests and turned to more practical matters of political accountability. Already, particularly in Republican primaries, fed-up Americans are turning out at the polls to vote out the big spenders. They are supporting candidates who have signed the Contract From America, a statement of policy principles generated online by hundreds of thousands of grass-roots activists.

Continue reading at the Wall Street Journal…

Tea Party Movement Celebrates Colorado Triumph

Editorial Staff — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 21:03:12 +0000

By Anna Fifield, Financial Times

America’s rambunctious “tea party patriots” were in celebration mode on Wednesday, after their man Ken Buck beat the Republican establishment candidate for the party’s Senate nomination in Colorado, handing the movement its fourth victory of the primary season.

Mr Buck, a gaffe-prone county district attorney, narrowly beat Jane Norton, the former lieutenant-governor backed by the Republican party, who had outfundraised Mr Buck by more than $2m.

“Get a good night’s sleep, because for the next 83 days we are going to unite the Republican party,” Mr Buck told supporters on Tuesday night, referring to the time left until November’s midterm congressional elections. Reunite it under the tea party banner, that is.

“Tea party patriots” – a burgeoning movement pressing for limited government and lower taxes, with Sarah Palin as their poster girl – are having a profound impact on the face of the Republican party.

In addition to Mr Buck, they have propelled their candidates to win primaries in Utah, Kentucky and Nevada, as well as in Florida – by default when the presumptive Republican nominee pulled out.

“We’re trying to take back the parties and put responsible people in control of them,” says Stephen Sabolich, a conservative activist from Cleveland, Ohio, who this week attended a tea party boot camp organised by FreedomWorks, a conservative group promoting “grassroots” opposition to the Obama administration.

“We’re taking over the parties. We’ve been very successful with the Republican party so far, but it’s a little more difficult with the Democrats,” says Mr Sabolich, 66.

In one of the training rooms was a board with a quote by Samuel Adams, one of the founding fathers: “It does not require a majority to prevail but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brushfires in people’s minds.”

Last August, tea party activists dominated the political news agenda, organising rowdy protests round the country and taking over the “town hall” meetings that lawmakers hold in their home districts during the summer recess.

Although healthcare, a lightning rod issue, is not at the top of the agenda this year, the looming midterms mean tea parties will be a potent political force in the next three months.

The activists are drawing up scorecards in electorates, knocking on doors and setting up phone banks to spur voters to support candidates who have vowed to uphold tea party principles.

They ask candidates to sign their “Contract from America”, a tea party manifesto designed to hold politicians responsible, formulated in response to the top-down “Contract with America” written by the Republican leadership when they took over Congress in 1994.

Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, is optimistic that conservatives can win the House, and perhaps the Senate, in November.

“Politically the elections will be a repeat of 1994 but it will be fundamentally different because these [tea party] folks are organised and are in all 50 states so it’s sustainable after the election,” he says.

The activists say they are aiming not just to install their preferred candidates on Republican tickets but to “shift the centre of gravity” within the party.

Continue reading the article at the Financial Times…

AOL NEWS: Will Populist Backlash Stand Up in Court?

Editorial Staff — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 07:55:37 +0000

WASHINGTON (Aug. 4) — Voters in Missouri show Congress what they think of a federal mandate to purchase health insurance. Lawmakers in Arizona take immigration enforcement into their own hands. And senators in Washington talk about amending the U.S. Constitution to block children born to those here illegally from automatic citizenship.

“We’re looking at the greatest showdown on states’ rights that we’ve had in a couple of generations,” said Richard Reuben, a University of Missouri law professor. “This is a historic time.”

Arizona conservatives sing the national anthem at a rally against illegal immigration Sunday in Phoenix.

Republicans have issued a tea party-friendly Contract From America based on “individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.” Democrats have countered with a parody whose No. 1 priority is to repeal health insurance reform, their No. 1 achievement.

Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, said the current revolt encompasses the tea party but is broader than that. He sees the prevailing public mood as the latest in a series of American populist movements. But unlike, say, the prairie populism of the 1890s that gave rise to the progressive movement, today there are more ways to express discontent, whether at the ballot box or on the Internet.

This time the growing number of lawsuits, ballot initiatives and legislation is part of a grassroots conservative movement that disapproves of the liberal political establishment in Washington. Said Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor and founder of The Volokh Conspiracy blog: “They are trying to have their voice heard — to mixed results.”

Continue reading at AOL News…

ATTENTION CANDIDATES: Join with Americans. Sign the Contract Today!

Editorial Staff — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:54:50 +0000

NEWSMAX: Rubio Backs Contract From America

Editorial Staff — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:17:56 +0000

y David A. Patten, Thursday, July 8, 2010 01:25 PM

Newsmax has learned that conservative Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio has pledged to support the pro-liberty, anti-tax agenda known as Contract From America, which appears to be emerging as a major political force in the midterm elections.

In an e-mail response to Newsmax, Rubio, a Republican, confirmed that he has signed the contract, which presents 10 key platform planks that promote “individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.”

“I’m proud to sign the Contract From America, which is a restatement of the principles and values that have made America exceptional for centuries and that are needed in Washington today,” Rubio’s e-mail stated Thursday. “At a time when Washington is spending money that we don’t even have to expand government, the Contract From America is a reminder that America deserves leaders who will be a check and balance on the direction this president and Congress are pursuing.”

Several high-profile Republicans have joined Rubio in signing the contract during the past 48 hours, including Senate candidate Dan Coats of Indiana, Rep. Tom Rooney of Florida, and Senate candidate Ken Buck of Colorado.

“Due to your efforts, these candidates have chosen to be champions of Main Street values and have joined with you in signing the Contract From America,” declared a post on the group’s Web site, TheContract.org.

But Rubio’s commitment lends the contract perhaps its highest-profile supporter among those running in November.

“We’re very pleased,” tea party activist and Houston attorney Ryan Hecker, who originally came up with the Contract concept, tells Newsmax. “By signing the Contract From America, Marco Rubio is saying he’s listening, he’s really adopted this very Main Street agenda. He’s saying this is a powerful grassroots document, that is very much a mainstream document, that should be adopted for everyone. It should be helpful to him in the general election race, but beyond that it represents the values of a majority of Americans.”

FreedomWorks, the D.C.-based facilitator of the conservative grass-roots movement sweeping the nation, also heralded Rubio’s decision to sign onto the contract.

“This just confirms the grass-roots instincts in backing Rubio” over Gov. Charlie Crist, FreedomWorks spokesman Adam Brandon tells Newsmax. “It shows that he’s dead serious about policy. If he’s elected to the Senate, you can bet he’ll be a policy innovator, and that’s just what this country needs. In the coming budget battle, it’s not going to be policy for the timid, and he’s shown that he’s a leader.”

A Rasmussen Reports poll on Thursday showed that Rubio has taken a 36 percent-to-34 percent lead over Christ, who left the Republican Party to become an independent after it became clear that his chances of defeating Rubio in a GOP primary were slim. Democratic candidate Kendrick Meek is running a distant third with 15 percent, according to Rasmussen.

Rubio’s commitment means that more than 130 candidates have now signed onto the list of 10 key principles, which are designed to reduce the pervasive influence of the federal government in the lives of everyday citizens — rapid progress, considering the fact that the contract was unveiled only on April 15.

“We’re more getting candidates every day,” Ryan Hecker, the tea party activist who came up with the contract concept, tells Newsmax.

The contract urges members of Congress to cite the specific clause in the Constitution that gives them authority to pass any new legislation. It rejects cap and trade, which it says will hurt the nation’s economy and global competitiveness. It aims for a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget, and would require a two-thirds majority to pass any tax hike.

Continue reading this article at Newsmax.com…

Senate Candidates Marco Rubio (R-FL), Dan Coats (R-IN), and Ken Buck (R-CO) Sign the “Contract from America”

Editorial Staff — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:58:22 +0000

The Contract from America Foundation announced today that Senate Candidates Marco Rubio (R-FL), Dan Coats (R-IN), and Ken Buck (R-CO) have joined over 130 Senate and Congressional candidates nationwide by listening to the wishes of their constituents and signing the “Contract from America,” a Main Street grassroots legislative blueprint for 2010 and beyond.

In signing this bottom-up call for economic conservative and good governance reform, Marco Rubio stated: “I’m proud to sign the Contract From America, which is a restatement of the principles and values that have made America exceptional for centuries and that are needed in Washington today. At a time when Washington is spending money that we don’t even have to expand government, the Contract From America is a reminder that America deserves leaders who will be a check and balance on the direction this president and Congress are pursuing.”

Ken Buck further noted: “This contract reflects my conservative values and record. I’m proud to stand-up with grassroots Americans as we fight the Washington establishment.”

The Contract from America is not a list handed down from on high by old-bull politicians, but one handed up from the true grassroots in this country. After garnering nearly half a million votes in less than two months, the Contract from America is a blueprint that will serve notice to public officials about what the people want for their future.

Ryan Hecker, one of the organizers of the Contract from America, elaborated: “These candidates, by signing the Contract from America, have shown themselves to be true champions of Main Street values. They have illustrated that, if elected, they will listen to their constituents and be grassroots conservative leaders in the Senate.”

When voting was completed, the top ten planks in the Contract from America were: (1) Protect the Constitution; (2) Reject Cap and Trade; (3) Demand a Balanced Budget; (4) Enact Fundamental Tax Reform; (5) Restore Fiscal Responsibility and Constitutionally Limited Government in Washington; (6) End Runaway Government Spending; (7) Defund, Repeal, and Replace Government-run Health Care; (8) Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy; (9) Stop the Pork; and (10) Stop the Tax Hikes.

More information about the candidates who have signed this Main Street Agenda is available at the Contract from America’s website, www.contractfromamerica.org.

CONTACT: Ryan Hecker, 215-880-2430
DOWNLOAD A HARDCOPY OF THIS PRESS RELEASE HERE.

Congratulations to Last Night’s Big Winners Who Signed the Contract

Editorial Staff — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 02:32:32 +0000

Last night was a big night across the country for some key races, some of which went quietly into the blogosphere and others that caused reverberations that will leave both Democrats and Republicans feeling the pressure that November is bringing…and with it, fall winds of change. Real change.

Signers of the Contract from America won key elections in three states and four races:

NORTH CAROLINA: Bill Randall won the District 13 runoff against Bernie Reeves with almost 60% of the vote. We intend to keep an eye on his campaign as Randall attempts to unseat incumbent Brad Miller.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Tim Scott, running in District 01 against Paul Thurmond, son of Strom Thurmond, walked off with 68% of the vote in this mandatory primary runoff.

Also taking home a big win in SC was Jeff Duncan out of District 03. Jeff faced primary challenger Richard Cash and came away with nearly 52% of the vote.

UTAH: With all eyes of the nation on the dirty politics that seemed to permeate this election, Mike Lee trumped Tim Bridgewater’s run at the Utah Senate with 51% of the vote in what turned out to be a nail-biter of an election night.

Everyone associated with the Contract from America would like to congratulate all of these candidates on running clean campaigns and sticking with the principals of the Contract. Keep up the great work and we’re behind you!

Also, a special “Thank You!” to everyone involved the the grassroots Twitter initiative, @TheTwisters. Follow them at hashtag #twisters.

November’s so bright, we’re all gonna have to wear shades!

ABC NEWS: House GOP Begins Crafting New ‘Contract [FROM] America’

Editorial Staff — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 06:45:00 +0000

Effort is Modeled on Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Agenda [and the 2010 "Contract from America"]

By TEDDY DAVIS

House Republican leaders are beginning the process of crafting a 2010 version of the “Contract with America” that proved so successful for the party in the 1990s. GOP leaders hope that the election-year agenda will help the party shed the “party of no” moniker that Democrats have sought to pin on them during President Obama’s administration. They kick off the effort at a Tuesday press conference in Washington, D.C.

“There are a number of seats that you get just by being ‘no,’” Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican spearheading the effort, told ABC News. “But you don’t get a majority by just being ‘no.’ You’ve got to say what you’re for.”

The GOP’s effort to craft an election-year agenda, which has been dubbed “America Speaking Out,” was inspired by the way in which former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Georgia, used a 10-point “Contract with America” to fuel the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress. Although polls indicated that the 1994 vote was motivated more by animus towards President Clinton than by familiarity with the Contract’s provisions, Republican leaders found the document to be a useful governing tool as they led the first GOP House majority in 40 years.

Tuesday’s event, which is scheduled to take place at Washington’s Newseum, will not unveil a GOP platform. Instead, the press conference is being used to outline the process by which Republicans are hoping to engage Americans in developing a new governing agenda. Republicans are asking supporters to submit policy ideas through a web-based platform. The GOP will also offer an iPhone application to solicit input. GOP activists can then discuss the proposals, some of which will eventually be included in the party’s election-year agenda.

The debut of “America Speaking Out” comes at an ambiguous time for House Republicans. Over the weekend, the GOP captured a staunchly Democratic district in Hawaii which had been held by 10-term Democratic Rep. Neil Abercrombie, who resigned to run for governor.

On the other hand, the GOP failed to capture the Pennsylvania congressional district which had previously been held by the late Democratic Rep. Jack Murtha, even though the culturally conservative district was the only House seat in the country which had gone from backing John Kerry for president in 2004 to backing John McCain for president in 2008.

House Republican leaders are not the only ones crafting an election-year agenda.

A tea party activist from Texas named Ryan Hecker has already used an online voting system to develop his own “Contract from America,” which was unveiled at events around the country on April 15th. So far, the “Contract From America” has been endorsed by more than 50 congressional candidates in total, including two sitting Republican senators: Oklahoma’s Tom Coburn and South Carolina’s Jim DeMint.

Continue reading at ABC News…

THE ATLANTIC: House GOP’s New Contract is a Page From the Tea Party

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 21:47:38 +0000

By Chris Good

House Republicans unveiled a new website today, AmericaSpeakingOut.com, through which they’ll solicit ideas for a Contract with America style platform document. Visitors can submit and vote on platform ideas for the House Republican Conference. The idea was hatched by House Minority Leader John Boehner and led, at Boehner’s request, by California Congressman Kevin McCarthy.

In launching the site, House Republicans are taking a page from the Tea Party movement, which in April unveiled and promoted the Contract from America–a Contract with America style document created by Houston-based Tea Party activist Ryan Hecker. Hundreds of thousands of people voted for their favorite principles online to create the Contract as an open-sourced platform for the Tea Party movement. That document, unveiled ahead of nationwide April 15 Tea Party events, was praised by prominent Republicans including Boehner, who said in a press release that the Contract from America should be required reading for every lawmaker.

Continue reading at the Atlantic…

WASHINGTON TIMES: “Stating the Obvious”

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 21:37:17 +0000

By Doug Mainwaring

The emergence and rapid growth of the Tea Party movement is due in large part to an increasing concern by taxpayers that our government has strayed too far from fiscal responsibility. As many have awakened from our shared national somnambulism, the electorate’s attention is galvanized by issues once considered banal or trivial, now viewed as grave threats to our country’s security, prosperity and even our national identity. A public that until a few years ago quietly trusted the job that its government has been doing in Washington is now focused like a laser beam on both the role of government and the careers of our leaders.

Tea Partiers’ deepest fears for the future of our nation are being realized in Greece. They see the beginnings of anarchy in a social democracy crippled by enormous budget deficits (13.6 percent of gross domestic product) and a heart-stopping national debt (115 percent of GDP). They see a country saddled with massive, unsustainable, unbearable entitlements. This has caused many to reflect on how our own annual budget deficit and national debt may be taking us down the same path as Greece and the other social democracies of Europe. Tea Partiers and their many sympathizers are well informed: They easily see the connection and are making sound, reasoned conclusions.

In addition to fiscal irresponsibility, there is a second major component of concern for Tea Partiers: government exceeding its constitutional limits. Too much power, money and authority are concentrated in our national government. This is detrimental to the functioning of the individual states and increasingly diminishes the freedom and liberty of the American people.

For a very long time, a majority of those who serve us in Washington have worked under the assumption that the national government is better equipped than any other entity to govern and solve all of America’s problems, and, therefore, bigger government is better. The result has been ever-increasing regulation, unfunded mandates, earmark projects and increasingly toxic entitlement programs, including the recently enacted health care reform law.

But what if this paradigm is ill-formed? What if Americans actually could be better served by being governed and regulated locally to a greater degree? Our national government has taken on a life of its own, to the disservice of those it was established to serve. Perhaps a smaller national government, with many functions returned to the states, would be better.

On April 15, the Contract from America was unveiled at tax rallies held across the country. I co-authored one of the provisions in the contract:

“Create a Blue Ribbon task force that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states.”

Our Founding Fathers did not envision a massive, all-powerful, centralized national government, nor was it their intent to lay the groundwork for one in our Constitution. Rather, our current national government exists as it does despite our Constitution. As a result, the national government is too bloated, too greedy, too unaccountable and always hungry for more. Too often, the national government has proved it is inadequate for the task of competently managing its massive programs and exercising good and faithful stewardship over the funds provided to it from the American people.

Continue reading at the Washington Times…

House GOP Launches “America Speaking Out” Online Initiative

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 18:58:12 +0000

Today, Republicans in the House of Representative launched an online initiative very similar to the Contract from America, in which they intend to solicit ideas from the American people. Presumably they will act on the best ideas and perhaps on those that generate the greatest response. Their initiative is called, “America Speaking Out” and it can be found online at http://www.americaspeakingout.com/.

The Contract from America team enthusiastically applauds the efforts of GOP leaders to actively listen to the American people. We also strongly encourage you to use “America Speaking Out” as an additional tool to make sure your voice is heard. Visit their site. Register your name. Get involved. Review the ideas. Write comments. MOST IMPORTANTLY… CAST YOUR VOTES.

All of the the agenda items listed in the Contract from America have been submitted to the “America Speaking Out” website. If those items are still important to you and your community, vote for them again.We have long said that the Contract from America serves as a clarion call for those who recognize the importance of free market principles, limited government, and individual liberty. It is the natural extension of a movement that began in the local communities and quickly spread across America in response to unprecedented government expansion, reckless spending, and a blatant disregard by our leaders of the nation’s founding principles.

We are thrilled that GOP leaders in Washington have heard that call and are taking steps to re-engage with the American people.Yes, the Contract from America initiative has already been listening to Americans since last year. We have debated thousands of ideas. We have logged hundreds of thousands of votes. But far more important is the role we will continue to play, however large or small, in helping build strong coalitions of like-minded Americans that will work together to restore and rebuild this great nation.

Please continue to engage in all aspects of the political arena during this pivotal election year. Thank you for your continued support.

Warm regards,

The Contract from America Team

“Contract from America” Applauds GOP’s Initiative to Listen to the American People During Pivotal Election Year

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 00:52:19 +0000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, May 24, 2010

Tomorrow, House Republicans are launching a new initiative to “engage Americans across the country and give them a voice in creating a new agenda for Congress.” Called, “America Speaking Out,” the effort is led by Chief Deputy Whip, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

Following the lead of the Contract from America, the GOP’s initiative seems to acknowledge the fundamental relationship between the American people and their representatives; a relationship founded on the notion that representatives are elected by the American people to advance the people’s priorities, not their own. In launching America Speaking Out, the GOP will retrace the steps made by the Contract from America during the last eight months in asking the American people for their input in developing a new policy agenda.

Ryan Hecker, founder of the Contract from America initiative said, “I think it is great that House Republicans are listening to the people and borrowing from the tea party movement and the Contract from America project”

During this pivotal 2010 election cycle, millions of grassroots Tea Party activists will be closely watching this initiative. To gain the support of grassroots activists, the Tea Party movement, and the American public, the GOP needs to embrace a genuine effort to listen to the American people and advance those priorities over the destructive and self-serving tendencies of Washington insiders.

“The Contract from America is not an exclusive set of public policy proposals, and I hope that Republican members of Congress express their willingness to listen to the people and sign the Contract from America, which was created and vetted by nearly one half-million people,” Hecker noted.

The Contract from America is proud to join with Tea Party activists across the country to continue a constructive dialogue with leaders who promise to listen and support the principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally-limited government, and free markets.

More information about each plank, including its full description and the name of the activist who first proposed it, is available at the Contract from America’s website, www.contractfromamerica.org.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Ryan Hecker, (215) 880-2430

——————–

Download a hardcopy of this press release here.

ROLL CALL: GOP to Roll Out Agenda-Building Project

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 00:51:11 +0000

House Republican leaders will roll out a new initiative on Tuesday that will become a central part of designing their policy agenda, according to GOP aides familiar with the plan.

The effort, called “America Speaking Out,” will include town hall meetings and other public forums that will allow Republicans to gather ideas for the new GOP agenda from citizens around the country.

The initiative will also include a website, complete with a mobile phone application, that will allow citizens to submit ideas for the Republican agenda online.

“America Speaking Out will be our effort to engage the American people about their priorities for a new policy agenda,” said one GOP aide.

Continue reading at Roll Call…

THE HILL: GOP Plans ‘America Speaking Out’ Event

admin — Mon, 24 May 2010 23:58:27 +0000

By Molly K. Hooper

House GOP leaders have planned a high-profile event at Washington D.C.’s Newseum Tuesday morning to launch the start of their “America Speaking Out” project.

Chief Deputy Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is in charge of the initiative to result in the release of a set of policy items that Republicans would pursue if they won back control of the House in November.

According to officials involved in the effort, “America Speaking Out” will focus on gathering feedback from Americans on what items that lawmakers should be focusing on in the future.

GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence (Ind.) said on Monday “it’s part of a process of engaging Americans.”

Pence added that the project was not a product of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

“’America Speaking Out’ is not a project of the political” campaign arm, Pence said. He refrained from going into further detail.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) tasked McCarthy with heading the effort to produce a list of policy changes similar to the successful “Contract with America” that Republicans used in 1994 to win control of the House and the Senate.

Continue reading at The Hill…

HUFFINGTON POST: “GOP Crowd-Sourcing Its Policy Agenda”

admin — Mon, 24 May 2010 23:52:36 +0000

This time around, the GOP is crowd-sourcing its contract. House Republicans want your help “develop[ing] a new governing agenda,” according to a statement announcing a new effort to elicit public input on the GOP policy agenda.

“To return power to the American people and begin to restore the broken bonds of trust between Americans and their elected leaders, House Republicans are asking all Americans to be part of an unprecedented new initiative that will, in time, lead to a new policy agenda,” reads the release, announcing the new initiative, “America Speaking Out,” which launches Tuesday.

The Republican initiative comes after the Tea Party movement put forward its own version of the GOP’s 1994 Contract with America, which they call the “Contract from America.”

Some elected Republicans have been slow to sign on to the Tea Party contract and the “America Speaking Out” initiative gives them something to rally behind, while retaining a grassroots feel.

“We’ve been talking to them throughout the process, but that wasn’t the impetus of this,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who is heading up the initiative. “We hope they’ll make those ideas a part of this process.”

The outreach also raises questions about where the GOP stands. A major critique of the Republican Party that comes from its conservative base is that it lost its way over the last decade and that it no longer stands on principle. Asking for help in crafting a governing agenda does little to discourage that criticism. Democrats have been happy to repeat the charge, accusing the GOP of lacking new ideas and relying on a simple strategy of opposition to whatever the Democrats propose.

“This sounds like the sequel to a really bad movie. The same old characters whose failed leadership, mismanagement, and ethical shortcomings created a huge mess are now attempting a drastic makeover with a slick marketing effort in hopes the public will somehow forget that the GOP was responsible,” Doug Thornell, an aide to Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told HuffPost in a statement. “Republicans ran everything for years and we know how that turned out — huge deficits, debt, millions of jobs lost, putting the special interests first. The American people just can’t afford another Republican dud.”
Continue reading at the Huffington Post…

WASH POST: “The Tea Party’s Allegiance to No One”

admin — Wed, 05 May 2010 17:06:43 +0000

By Kathleen Parker

No one doubts the sincerity or power of the Tea Party movement anymore. We get it: free-market principles, limited government and individual liberty.

Those are the three fundamentals of the Tea Party’s “Contract From America,” to which any serious Republican must subscribe, nay, sign in blood. Make it real red.

Nowhere is this new power-to-the-people imperative in starker relief than in Utah — one of the nation’s reddest states — where three-term conservative Sen. Bob Bennett seems likely to lose the Republican Party nomination this weekend.

This, despite the fact that Bennett’s voting record earns an 84 rating from the American Conservative Union, an A ranking from the National Rifle Association — and is nothing like a liberal’s.

But Bennett committed the ultimate sin in Tea Party circles. He voted for the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), a.k.a. “bank bailout,” during the George W. Bush administration. And, he advanced a market-driven health-reform bill as an alternative to the Democratic plan that, alas, also included an insurance mandate.

Continue reading at the Washington Post…

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: GOP Leaders Want their Money Back from Charlie Crist

admin — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 02:00:59 +0000

With Florida Republican Gov. Charlie Crist expected to announce an independent run for Senate, Republican leaders say they will do their best to starve him of campaign funds.

By Dave Cook, Staff writer at Christian Science Monitor

With Florida Republican Governor Charlie Crist expected to formally announce late Thursday that he will run for the Senate as an independent, GOP leaders made clear they would do their best to starve him of campaign funds.

At a Monitor sponsored breakfast for reporters, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) said, “I certainly will request the money that I donated to his campaign from my leadership PAC back.”

Senator Cornyn added that, “people have already asked for their money back and I expect that to continue. I think in addition to seeing his coffers depleted by having to return money, I think his ability to raise money as an independent will be dramatically down.” Governor Crist has $7 million in the bank and is not legally obligated to return the funds.

Crist is dropping out of a Republican primary with former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio. Recent polls show Crist losing the primary badly while having a fighting chance in a three-way general election fight with US Rep Kendrick Meek, the Democratic candidate.

Cornyn said NRSC officials and others have suggested that he drop out of the Senate race this year and run in 2012 against Democratic Senator Bill Nelson. “Staying in the primary and dropping out and running in 2012 are much more preferable than running as an Independent because I think his future electoral prospects are irreparably damaged by his deciding now to run as an Independent,” Cornyn said.

There is a lesson for him [in] Crist’s sagging political fortunes, Cornyn admitted. He had asked Crist to run for the Florida Senate seat after former Governor Jeb Bush declined to run. “In this political environment, it is not necessarily helpful for candidates running in the states to have the national party chairman endorse them. I think more than any time I have seen in the recent past, instead of a Contract for America, voters want a Contract from America. They want to be listened to, not lectured to and not to have their choices made for them,” Cornyn said.

Continue reading at the Christian Science Monitor…

GA Cong. Candidate Tom Graves

admin — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:50:18 +0000

Georgia Congressional Candidate Tom Graves Signs Contract from America

(Cumming, GA) – Tomorrow, Tom Graves, congressional candidate for a May 11 special election in Georgia’s 9th Congressional District, will join hundreds of local Tea Party and limited government groups around the country by signing the “Contract from America,” a grassroots legislative blueprint for 2010 and beyond. Originally proposed by Ryan Hecker, a Houston Tea Party activist and National Coordinator for the initiative’s chief organizing group Tea Party Patriots, this project is intended to present a different kind of agenda for our federal lawmakers: unlike the Contract with America introduced in the 1990s, everyday citizens proposed and voted on every plank of the Contract from America.

Grassroots activists from across the country, including Tom Graves, visited the website to choose their top ten priorities from a list of 21 action items that committed Americans from all walks of life proposed.

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Tom Graves is proud to join with millions of Tea Party activists across the country to announce the arrival of the Contract from America and the exit of elected officials who continue to ignore calls for fiscal responsibility, constitutionally-limited government, and free markets.

U.S. Senate Candidate Mike Lee

admin — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:44:20 +0000

U.S. Senate Candidate Mike Lee Signs “Contract From America”

Salt Lake City, UT — U.S. Senate candidate Mike Lee today signed the “Contract From America,” an innovative policy agenda promoting free enterprise, individual liberty, and limited government. Lee said:

“I am pleased to join Senator Jim DeMint in signing this contract and agenda which reflects and captures a nationwide movement demanding that Congress restore America’s constitutional principles. Developed by a consensus of almost a half-million patriots across the country, I believe that this contract articulates the principles that I and other true conservatives are fighting for.”

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Lee concluded by saying, “This initiative comes in the tradition of 1994’s ‘Contract With America,’ which spurred a tidal wave of Republican victories that ended decades of Democratic stranglehold on Congress and helped put the brakes on the Clinton Administration. I’m inspired that so many Americans are behind a restoration of those values, and I look forward to working with Senator DeMint and others to implement them.”