What Republicans should promise voters in their first 100 days

Imagining what a 2022 GOP agenda might be

An elephant.
(Image credit: Illustrated | iStock)

On September 27, 1994, the Republican minority in the House of Representatives gathered on the steps of the Capitol to unveil their agenda for the upcoming midterms. In a document signed by all but two sitting members and every non-incumbent candidate, they committed to supporting 10 specific measures in their first 100 days of the next Congress. Engineered by then-Minority Leader and soon-to-be Speaker Newt Gingrich, the Contract with America marked the first time in modern history that a congressional caucus coalesced around an explicit legislative program without direction from the White House.

It was, as they say, a different time. Almost 30 years after the Contract with America and approaching a decade since Donald Trump descended the golden escalator, Republicans have almost given up on the pretense that they're interested in legislating. In 2020, the party did not bother to update its 2016 platform, offering only a statement of continued support for then-President Trump. On Fox News this week, current Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) offered mostly vague platitudes about what measures he might pursue if he follows in Gingrich's footsteps.

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Samuel Goldman

Samuel Goldman is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also an associate professor of political science at George Washington University, where he is executive director of the John L. Loeb, Jr. Institute for Religious Freedom and director of the Politics & Values Program. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard and was a postdoctoral fellow in Religion, Ethics, & Politics at Princeton University. His books include God's Country: Christian Zionism in America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) and After Nationalism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021). In addition to academic research, Goldman's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.