The Republican Party and Human Rights; a History

The American Republic took a long arc to freedom starting with independence from the British monarchy to freedom for every man which gave birth to the Republican Party. The Republican Party has its roots in opposing the Presidency of Andrew Jackson and his policies in a movement known as the Whig Party. While Andrew Jackson led the Democrats of his time the Whigs led a chaotic coalition of ‘National Republicans and the Anti-Masonic Party’ (Whig Party, n.d.). A major rift formed between National Republicans who favored economic investment from the federal government and Southern Whigs who ‘actively sought to shift the party away from economic nationalism.’ (Whig Party, n.d.) The coalition of Whigs held together but the demands of anti-slavery and pro-slavery factions in debates over the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act which permitted slavery in new states by popular referendum, fractured it enough that a unified anti-slavery in new territories party, the Republican Party, emerged.

The isolation of slavery to the Southern states framed the central platform proposal of the Republican agenda that led to President Abraham Lincoln’s election. So gripping was the power provided by slavery that the Confederate states made the ultimate betrayal to America and declared war upon her siblings. It was only through the course of the civil war that emancipation, and the end of slavery, became an objective of the Republican Party. In the end it was always the opinion of Lincoln that the states had never left, that a new nation had not been formed in the name of slavery; merely that a rebellion in its name had occurred. On April 11, 1865 President Lincoln gave his last address on how the states were to be returned to the Union and was specifically speaking of Louisiana in his speech:

“Let us all join in doing the acts necessary to restoring the proper practical relations between these States and the Union.” President Lincoln went on, “[s]ome twelve thousand voters in the heretofore slave-state of Louisiana have sworn allegiance to the Union, assumed to be the rightful political power of the State, held elections, organized a State government, adopted a free-state constitution, giving the benefit of public schools equally to black and white, and empowering the Legislature to confer the elective franchise upon the colored man. Their Legislature has already voted to ratify the constitutional amendment recently passed by Congress, abolishing slavery throughout the nation.”

What is clear from President Lincoln’s words is that reunification with freedom, equality, and the right to vote for black people was the ideal of the reconstruction era to be embarked upon. He further spoke to the challenges of rejecting the path for reunification based in freedom: “Now, if we reject, and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse them. We in effect say to the white men “You are worthless, or worse — we will neither help you, nor be helped by you.” To the blacks we say “This cup of liberty which these, your old masters, hold to your lips, we will dash from you, and leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled and scattered contents in some vague and undefined when, where, and how.” Towards the end of his speech he made clear that Louisiana was not to be alone in pursuing freedom as a baseline. “What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally to other States.”

The message was clear from this speech that he preferred to consider the rebellion not an act of independence. As such the question of state’s rights was resolved in favor of the federal government which would now collaborate with willing franchised voters (who had to renounce the Confederacy to vote) to bring emancipation and a restoration of the Union’s borders and authority to the former Confederate states. Lincoln’s bravery forced unity for a country which could easily have gone separate ways in the hands of a President with weaker values for what it meant to be a human being. A white supremacist in the audience for Lincoln’s remarks on Louisiana, offended at the idea of black suffrage, shot and killed Abraham Lincoln three days later. It was President Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor, who was impeached in a hostile political environment as he acted too forgiving of the Confederacy and delayed freedom’s spread in the Southern states. Such foot dragging has been seen up to the present day with consequences in the quality of life and death for Americans everywhere. However, the pursuit of a better world was one worth endeavoring upon. This cause for betterment led to America’s founding and the rationale for keeping the Confederacy as part of these United States while freeing its people.

That pursuit in bettering the human condition led to an equally fundamental snowball codified by Abraham Lincoln. A lesser known speech by Lincoln, known as his second lecture on discoveries and inventions, provides a fascinating view on the inspiration President Lincoln derived from scientific pursuits and who could contribute to them. He identified the first invention written down in the bible being that of the fig leaf clothing and noted Eve’s contribution saying, “that the very first invention was a joint operation. Eve having shared with Adam in the getting up of the apron.” Providing for the recognition of Eve’s work he called her work “the mother of all sewing societies”.

The power of invention fought what Lincoln called ‘Old Fogy’ mentality that resisted change. He spoke of a ‘Young America’, to which the Revolution was still a living memory for some in his day. He said, “The great difference between Young America and Old Fogy, is the result of Discoveries, Inventions, and Improvements. These, in turn, are the result of observation, reflection and experiment.” Abraham Lincoln continued to speak to the root of discovery as an “original impulse of our nature.” Encouraging discovery and invention became a core mission of Lincoln’s administration and led to the passage of the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act in 1862 founding agricultural colleges in every state.

Additionally, Lincoln oversaw the creation of the Department of Agriculture so that the best practices for America’s food sources could be managed and protected scientifically. The foundational principles of Republican support for freedom and science have their roots in the first President to serve under the Republican banner. Environmental conservation also made a step forward with the Yosemite Grant in 1864 setting the stage for it to become the first federally protected land in the nation. This would provide a stepping stone to the creation of the first national park, Yellowstone, in 1872. It has always been my personal view that conservative and conservation are not at odds with one another. The conservation of resources and the natural, god given, world we live in for future generations should be a core value for any conservative movement.

President Ulysess S. Grant furthered the Republican agenda of the time with the help of Congress. The Indian Appropriation Act passed in March of 1871 and granted Native Americans the ability to hold citizenship. (Matuz 297) His Civil Rights Act of 1875 ‘prohibited racial segregation in public housing and transportation.’ (Matuz 297) This effort to prevent segregation from taking root in America was ruled unconstitutional in 1883. Women weren’t forgotten and Congress passed a bill calling for equal pay for men and women holding similar jobs in government agencies. (Matuz 299) This solidified nearly 100 years of Republican support for human rights.

President Theodore Roosevelt served as a true champion of modern-day American ideals. A magnificent list of accomplishments had to be pared down to the core values I want to advocate for here. His largest effort was in conservation and led to the creation of the United States Forest Service, created five national parks, and passed the Antiquities Act of 1906. His foreign policy recognized a world as existing and America engaged. His actions in negotiating the end of the Russo-Japanese War earned him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. His work post-presidency also supported science (and his own macho self-image as a manly explorer) where he gathered thousands of animal specimens for the Smithsonian. One of his largest expeditions, the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition ventured to South America on behalf of the American Museum of Natural History. The impact of the expedition was so large the river he traversed was renamed Rio Roosevelt. Despite our modern ecological understanding that such specimen harvesting is devastating to ecosystems he pursued it as part of the spirit of discovery core to the American consciousness of the time. (Matuz 407)

Just as President Lincoln freed the slaves and the Republican movement adopted the 14th Amendment to grant citizenship to blacks another Republican, President Calvin Coolidge, signed into law a bill granting all American Indians citizenship in 1924. This step continued a struggle for full citizenship by Native Americans that would only be fully resolved in 1948. Additionally, Coolidge resolved in his first State of the Union speech on December 6, 1923 the rights of blacks in clear terms:

“Numbered among our population are some 12,000,000 colored people. Under our Constitution their rights are just as sacred as those of any other citizen. It is both a public and a private duty to protect those rights.”

President Coolidge’s speeches spoke a mixed message at times on whether to restrict immigration and in favor of states controlling the advancement of human rights. In practice, he still did not hire any members of the KKK to his cabinet (an astounding turnaround from the presidency of Woodrow Wilson less than a decade earlier). Through this complicated lens we see the fundamental principle that all men are created equal rose to the top through the signing of the Indian Citizenship Act. On June 30, 1924 a major speech was given by President Coolidge on the ethics of the American economy at the time. An opening on individual liberty was given where he stated, “one of the greatest perils to an extensive republic is the disregard of individual rights.” (Coolidge Foundation)

The journey to protect individual rights extended through the Cold War era to see the end of legal segregation in America. However, I’m going to move to a turning point in our story on Conservative history to when conservative power reached it’s peak and began abandoning principles in favor of pure power. An economic malaise, foreign policy uncertainties, and signs of corruption in Washington D.C. shook the confidence of the American people. The fundamental reminder for Americans of how sharply reliant the economy was on foreign oil came in the form of two oil crises in the 1970s. The 1979 crisis, under President Jimmy Carter, emerged as the Iranian revolution removed the Shah and took American hostages for a year at the embassy. This parade of embarrassment and the spike in oil’s price were beyond President Jimmy Carter’s ability to contain.

This is where I shall begin a deep examination of President Ronald Reagan, the lionized hero of the modern Conservative movement, Representative Newt Gingrich, the Bush family, the late Senator John McCain, and Senator Mitt Romney. Reagan laid the groundwork for their contributions and alterations to the conservative mindset and practical philosophies. However, it wasn’t until Trump that a new groundwork, a foundation of self-interest, reliant on fascism, was put in place. I want to examine what made Reagan’s conservative era so profoundly impactful at a principled level and carried the weight of Lincoln’s emancipation, the power of freedom in foreign policy, and sensible stewardship at home through a strong national defense. One aspect of Reaganism that did fail in the long term, and created a rot we deal with to this day, was the economics of lowering taxes to boost growth. Failures such as that will be examined alongside the corruption that took hold among Conservatives driven by power, masses willing to hate, and principles deemed inconvenient to hold or return to. The costs to American society by that change in conservative thought started at the end of Reagan’s era, sped up under Newt Gingrich, and became a full betrayal of conservative thought under Trump.

President Reagan carried power and wit in his words during his rise to replace President Carter in the White House. One of his most famous lines was spoken in 1980 on July 17th at his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination for President: “[a] recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.” (Wikipedia 1) This quotable talent President Reagan had is framed in the American consciousness. However, on principle Reagan was a shifting and adapting individual. On occasion this was beneficial to conservative values, in others it began to show the turn that would accelerate to the present-day disaster.

One of these shifts was in regards to who Republicans and conservatives should serve, appeal to, and communicate their ideas with. At the 2nd CPAC convention Ronald Reagan opened observing what had just occurred the previous year stating “we have been through a disastrous election.” As he did in optimistic prose Reagan highlighted the growing conservative movement but also found an interesting reality on the ground floor of the political parties. He cited a 1972 Georgetown University study on political party leadership and membership and found “the delegates to the Republican convention [were] almost identical in their responses to those of the rank-and-file Republicans. Yet, the delegates to the Democratic convention were miles apart from the thinking of their own party members.” Reagan then served an erroneous thought when he said “I am impatient with those Republicans who after the last election rushed into print saying, “We must broaden the base of our party”” After rattling off a list of conservative principles he famously ends his speech with “And if there are those who cannot subscribe to these principles, then let them go their way.” (Patriot Post 1) This was viewed as a narrow, pardon my influence of modern pundits for the phrasing, ‘appealing to the base’ strategy.

The Republican party, on the journey to Reaganism, had evolved to a socially liberal and fiscally conservative mindset. Reagan wanted to blend social conservativism, and was clear about the conservative issues of “law and order, abortion, busing, quota systems” being held by Democratic voters, where economic restraint, lower taxes, and good governance were in the Republican party. This divide of the conservative ideals, in his mind, should find a home in one political party. “isn’t it possible to combine the two major segments of contemporary American conservatism into one politically effective whole?” Reagan presented this question in a speech to the 4th annual CPAC event in 1977. Reagan clarified his intention by saying “What I envision is not simply a melding together of the two branches of American conservatism into a temporary uneasy alliance, but the creation of a new, lasting majority.” (Patriot Post 2)

The power of this conservative ideology would be rooted in the power of adaptability. “Conservative wisdom and principles are derived from willingness to learn, not just from what is going on now, but from what has happened before. The principles of conservatism are sound because they are based on what men and women have discovered through experience in not just one generation or a dozen, but in all the combined experience of mankind.” It is my view that conservative thought needs to return to this acceptance of reality. The entire purpose of this chapter is to present an evaluation of how same-sex marriage and LGBT rights, abortion, tax reduction at all costs, and the means of power attainment have corrupted and prevented the modern Republican party from participating in solutions on climate change, race issues, and genuinely making government efficient and effective. Reagan’s vision for the modern conservative movement would be one that tackles a problem and moves on. The track record for action’s that work would speak to the need for future change; rather than adherence to a dogmatic and rigid philosophy where if “facts don’t happen to fit the ideology, the facts are chopped off and discarded.” To ensure full understanding of what he meant he said “If there is any political viewpoint in this world which is free from slavish adherence to abstraction, it is American conservatism.” I want to take this further and require change to be data-driven in the modern age for any political movement; but especially with conservatives leading the way.

To put a bow on Reagan’s slight nuance from a party of adherents to one willing to work for America he spoke of the Republican Party’s obligation to African-American voters in saying “we believe in treating all Americans as individuals and not as stereotypes or voting blocs”. More to the point he said: “Our candidates must be willing to communicate with every level of society, because the principles we espouse are universal and cut across traditional lines. In every Congressional district there should be a search made for young men and women who share these principles and they should be brought into positions of leadership in the local Republican Party groups.” There are two takeaways from his approach to how the Republican party and conservative philosophy should be treated electorally. The first is that Reagan believed conservatives were the majority of America but divided between Democrats and Republicans in the 70s and should be united. The second is that he believed, rightly or wrongly, that minorities would join the Republican party if enough conservative appeal was given to them. He famously stated “Latinos are Republican. They just don’t know it yet.” In this way he framed conservative ideals as more important than the political reality. In so doing he adapted this belief into the amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants.

Since at least 1956, every U.S. president has granted temporary immigration relief to one or more groups in need of assistance. The largest was the amnesty, or “Family Fairness” policy implemented by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, Sr. The story behind the fairness policy begins on November 6, 1986, when President Reagan signed the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which gave up to 3 million unauthorized immigrants a path to legalization if they had been “continuously” present in the U.S. since January 1, 1982. (NY Times 1)

In 1987, Reagan’s Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) commissioner announced a blanket deferral of deportation (logistically similar to today’s DACA program) for children under 18 who were living in a two-parent household with both parents legalizing, or with a single parent who was legalizing. Then, in July 1989, the Senate passed legislation to protect a bigger group — prohibiting deportation of all spouses and children of those who were legalizing under IRCA.

But the legislation stalled in the House, and in 1990 President Bush Sr. administratively implemented the Senate bill’s provisions. His INS commissioner, saying “We can enforce the law humanely,” expanded the blanket deferral to as many as 1.5 million spouses and children of immigrants who were legalizing, provided they met certain criteria. President Bush thus protected over 40 percent of the then-unauthorized population from deportation. The House then passed legislation, and President Bush signed it later that year. (The Hill)

To review some of the executive order grants of temporary immigration relief: President Reagan’s deferral of deportations for up to 200,000 Nicaraguans (NY Times 2). Extended voluntary departures for Poles with 7,000 affected between 1981 to 1987. President Bush Sr. deferred action for Chinese nationals after the Tiananmen Square Massacre with 80,000 affected. There was a “parole of Soviets and Indochinese, even though denied refugee status” with 2,225 Indochinese and 5,000 Soviets affected by 1989.

After the 1991 Gulf War President Bush “directed AG to grant deferred enforced departure (DED) to Persian Gulf evacuees who were airlifted to the US after the 1990 Kuwait invasion” with 2,227 affected. The criteria for this humanitarian act was motivating as it applied to those who had US citizen relatives or harbored US citizens during the invasion. This allowed evacuees to apply for permanent residency leading a Kuwaiti doctor to say, “I feel the President has finally put a happy ending on this tragic story.”

In 2002, President George W. Bush signed an executive order of expedited naturalization for green card holders who enlisted in the military. This ended a three year wait, let the soldiers seek citizenship immediately, and applied to anyone on active duty as of Sept. 11, 2001. It included Lance Cpl. José Gutiérrez, a Guatemalan who received U.S. status through SIJ and died in Iraq. (American Immigration Council). John McCain, in one of his final bill proposals in the US Senate during the Trump Administration, proposed granting 3 million illegal immigrants amnesty in a proposal that called on them to pay a $5,000 fine in the process. Effectively keeping the door open to immigrants even if their arrival was across a border without approval in a true Conservative fashion. (Numbers USA)

I’ve spoken to immigration at length because it was a corner stone of Trump’s rise to the Presidency with his ‘build the wall’ chants. However, the legacy of Ronald Reagan continued beyond his term as President and the presidency of George Bush through the 1994 Contract with America championed by then Representative Newt Gingrich and Representative Dick Army. The success of that contract led to the first Republican controlled House in Congress in 40 years and Newt’s promotion to Speaker of the House. Key aspects were adapted from President Reagan’s 1985 State of the Union speech with some additions. It served as part bill proposal and part strategy document for how Republicans would operate if they were in control of the House. The following Congressional reforms were listed:

1. All laws applying to the rest of the country apply to Congress.
2. A major audit of Congress by an independent auditing firm.
3. Cut the number of House committees and committee staff by 1/3.
4. Limit the terms of all committee chairs.
5. Ban the casting of proxy votes in committee.
6. Require committee meetings to be open to the public.
7. Require a 3/5 majority to pass a tax increase in the House.
8. Implement zero based budgeting for the Federal Budget.

Breaking this down we can automatically see that some of these have not held up over time. It went further with ten bill proposals:

1. Fiscal Responsibility Act to create a balanced budget and tax limiting amendment and legislative line-item vetoes to the budgeting process.
2. Taking Back Our Streets Act was an anti-crime package that was a full-throated crime bill with the bells and whistles for the death penalty, increased prison funding, and increased police funding. Effectively, it embraced the ‘more is always better’ approach to policing. We know today this approach has been devastatingly flawed.
3. The Personal Responsibility Act was intended to prohibit welfare to minor mothers and denying increased AFDC for additional children while on welfare. As part of this was a two years limit provision and work requirement.
4. 7The Family Reinforcement Act had child support enforcement, tax incentives for adoption, stronger child pornography laws, and an elderly dependent care tax credit.
5. The American Dream Restoration Act had a $500 child tax credit, repealed the marriage tax penalty, and promised to create ‘American Dream Savings Accounts’.
6. The National Security Restoration act proposed no US troops under UN command and a vague restoration of national security funding and a promise to maintain our credibility in the world.
7. Senior Citizens Fairness Act would raise the social security earnings limit, repeal the 1993 tax hikes, and provide tax incentives for private long-term care.
8. Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act proposed small business incentives, capital gains cuts and indexation, neutral cost recovery, and unfunded mandate reform to “create jobs and raise worker wages”. The outcome for wage growth adds up to the usual mantra of lowering taxes. The key aspect to note is a focus on capital gains taxes, rather than income tax reductions.
9. Common Sense Legal Reform Act had “loser pays” laws, reasonable limits on punitive damages, and a reform of product liability laws.
10. Citizen Legislature Act had a vote on term limits. This clearly never happened.

What you can tell by this priority list is perceived grifters on government money was a major concern and criminals were seen as contaminants to remove from society, rather than be returned to it. We have the data in the modern era which shows that these approaches are deeply flawed and exceptionally harmful to those impacted directly and indirectly. The idea of compassionate conservativism had clearly been forgotten. While promoting families in the traditional structured form they also looked to unprepared mothers as a shameful, willful abuse of the system rather than what it frequently was: cases of ignorance and poor planning matched with desperation and uncertainty. After 25 years its clear to me, as a conservative, that these were spiteful initiatives rather than solutions to society’s problems.

It is in Reagan that the peak of conservative power began in America and so too did its decline. The Newt Gingrich era saw an attempt to impeach President Bill Clinton over a family values scandal; rather than one of legal substance. For President Clinton, his motivations were shame at adultery, rather than intent to criminally harm the United States, which led to his perjury and impeachment. The journey along this road continued with moderate and respectably factions of the Republican Party electing President George W. Bush, nominating veteran statesman and Senator John McCain, and a great administrator with family values chops in Mitt Romney. These standard bearers never lost sight of the dignity of the United States even as some truths about the conservative doctrine began coming through. A revived interest in fiscal responsibility through the Tea Party rose to office in 2010 and carried on until Donald Trump’s candidacy.

In that middle era of conservative thought between Reagan and Trump there was a commonality of differences between Democrats and Republicans in governing style but neither party ever had a vested interest in destroying the country to preserve their slice of power. That changed with the candidacy of Donald Trump and his presidency. The party open to immigrants, and to expanding citizenship to unrecognized and marginalized members of society became the party of closed borders, Muslim travel bans, and child separations at the border. The party championing free trade in a renewed global economic system that saw economic freedom as a means to topple the Soviet Union, trade relations and resulting blockades as a way to nudge dictatorships toward freedom, and seeing economic interconnectedness as a preventative measure to conflict suddenly spun on its heels and became the party of tariffs, trade wars, and punitive economic actions at Trump’s perceived slights to his personality. This is exemplified by his manipulation of military aid to Ukraine for his own political benefit. The party of family values became the party of ‘grab em by the pussy’, multiple marriages, and of paying porn stars for their silence.

More dangerous is the harm to democracy and elections Donald Trump has brought into the conservative movement. Trump’s voter fraud investigation proved a scam which disbanded without any evidence of wrong doing. That conspiracy theory evolved into a hatred for democracy leading to a decline of respect for elections in the Republican Party. The stability of a democracy comes from peaceful transfers of power rooted in term limits, respecting elections, and the military adhering to a chain of command. From falsified ballots in North Carolina, not recognizing the victory of their Democratic opponents in Alabama’s Senate race and Kentucky’s gubernatorial race, and Trump’s constant heaping of ‘illegals are voting’ delusions a clear trend among Republicans is that democracy can’t be trusted.

The reality is Republicans will be thrown out. Conservatives who collaborated with Donald Trump will have zero credibility to participate in the discussion for what comes next. The how and when of the end of the Trump era is uncertain; but is there still validity to the concepts inherent in the Conservative philosophy that can be salvaged and championed in its wake? I believe so. What follows is an attempt to, with or without the Republican Party, do what is right by the United States from a conservative viewpoint and embrace the future for humanity in a data driven, compassionate, and open-minded way.

“If there is any political viewpoint in this world which is free from slavish adherence to abstraction, it is American conservatism.” — Ronald Reagan

Bibliography

Note on Bibliography: This is in no way up to proper standards. I’m merely providing the record of my research so others may do so as well. Also, yes, there is an actual book in here. They are full of great information not always found online!

Abraham Lincoln’s Last Public Address, www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/last.htm.

Abraham Lincoln’s Second Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions, www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/discoveries.htm.

Matuz, Roger. The Presidents Fact Book. New York, Black Dog and Levanthal Publishers. 2012.

“Speeches as President (1923–1929).” Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation ICal, www.coolidgefoundation.org/resources/speeches-as-president-1923-1929-2/.

“Speeches and Debates of Ronald Reagan.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Jan. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speeches_and_debates_of_Ronald_Reagan.

“Ronald Reagan — Let Them Go Their Way.” The Patriot Post, patriotpost.us/pages/428-ronald-reagan-let-them-go-their-way

“Ronald Reagan — The New Republican Party.” The Patriot Post, patriotpost.us/pages/430-ronald-reagan-the-new-republican-party.

Pear, Robert. “U.S. May Let Some Illegals Stay If Relatives Qualify for Amnesty.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 22 Oct. 1987, www.nytimes.com/1987/10/22/us/us-may-let-some-illegals-stay-if-relatives-qualify-for-amnesty.html.

Noferi, Mark. “When Reagan and GHW Bush Took Bold Executive Action on Immigration.” TheHill, 4 Feb. 2016, thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/219463-when-reagan-and-ghw-bush-took-bold-executive-action-on.

Ap. “IMMIGRATION RULES ARE EASED FOR NICARAGUAN EXILES IN U.S.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 July 1987, www.nytimes.com/1987/07/09/world/immigration-rules-are-eased-for-nicaraguan-exiles-in-us.html.

Executive Grants of Temporary Immigration Relief, 1956-Present. www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/research/executive_grants_of_temporary_immigration_relief_1956-present_final_0.pdf.

“VICTORY: Senate Votes Down Amnesty Proposals.” NumbersUSA, 1 Mar. 2018, www.numbersusa.com/news/victory-senate-votes-down-amnesty-proposals.

Gingrich, Newt. “REPUBLICAN CONTRACT WITH AMERICA.” Republican Contract with America, web.archive.org/web/19990427174200/www.house.gov/house/Contract/CONTRACT.html.