Of the 10 policy imperatives listed in their "Contract with America," House Republicans failed to pass only one: limits on the tenure of senators and representatives.
Yet, while they were unable to agree among themselves on adding the dubious term-limits amendment to the Constitution, voters and members of the two houses have by their own actions made the question moot.In 1994, the electorate, exercising the power already conferred on it by the Constitution, ended the Democrats' 40-year lock on the House with the election of 73 new Republican members.
In 1996, at least seven of the 15 Democratic senators up for re-election will be retiring, and it is almost certain that Republicans will pick up some of those seats. They now hold a 54-46 edge over the Democrats.
A number of House members also have announced their intentions to leave Capitol Hill next year.
Thus, an issue that has generated acrimonious debate and more than its share of hyperbole has been solved by American voters and their elected representatives without changing a comma or period in the Constitution.
Professional term-limits advocates would not agree and they certainly will not cease their endeavors. But why revise the Constitution to impose arbitrary term limits when the people have demonstrated that such action is superfluous?
When agitated, American voters traditionally have thrown one set of rascals out and let a new set of rascals in.
It is ludicrous to contend that the federal government would operate more effectively if many of its most experienced and able legislators were forced to retire at the height of their influence. But that is the view of term-limits zealots.
Interestingly, three of the 1996 Republican presidential contenders have served in Congress longer than might have been permitted under some proposed term strictures.
Bob Dole has 34 years of service on Capitol Hill; Phil Gramm, 14 years and Richard Lugar, 18 years. Term limits are a popular campaign issue, but in practice even their most ardent supporters in Congress would prefer not to adhere to them.
When the term-limits bandwagon first began rolling across the land, many Republicans jumped aboard because they foresaw an opportunity to regain control of the House if entrenched Democratic members were forced to retire.
Along with pro-lifers, anti-gun control lobbyists and advocates of a balanced budget amendment, term-limits proponents played a major role in electing Republicans last year.
They also helped demonstrate that the Constitution arms the people with ample power to exert their will without revision of the document itself or enactment of stringent legislative regulations.
A similar situation occurred with proposals for a balanced budget amendment. The Senate failed earlier this year to approve an amendment that had cleared the House.
But pressure from the electorate was so great that congressional Republicans produced a budget designed to be balanced in seven years, and the Democrats, led by Bill Clinton, advanced one that would achieve a similar result in 10 years.
The Republicans have not forsaken their drive for a balanced budget amendment. But in the matter of congressional turnover and the budget, the ends desired by a majority of Americans appear to have been achieved because people and their elected representatives acted on their own.
A similar situation occurred in 1937 when Franklin D. Roosevelt ignited a political firestorm by proposing to enlarge the Supreme Court as a way of overriding its vetoes of New Deal reforms.
During his first term in the White House, Roosevelt became infuriated when the court's ultra-conservative wing consistently ruled as unconstitutional important measures designed to help America extricate itself from the Great Depression.
In four years, Roosevelt had not been able to nominate a single justice. So he shocked the court, the Congress and the nation at the beginning of his second term when he sent to Capitol Hill legislation which would have permitted him to appoint a new justice for every one of the six sitting justices who was over 70.
As Roosevelt's proposal was being debated in the Senate, however, an unexpected miracle occurred on the court. Two of its conservative members, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts, began voting with the court's liberal wing to uphold such vital New Deal measures as the Social Security and Labor Relations acts.
The Senate rejected the "court packing" plan, but Roosevelt had won his war without firing a shot: Three of the court's most reactionary members resigned within the next two years.
By the time he died in 1945, Roosevelt had made nine appointments to the court. Yet, the size of the court had not been increased and the Constitution had not been amended.