Breach of Contract: America can Accept No Substitute for House Republicans’ Pledge to Defend the United States

(Washington, D.C.): On February 15th, the U.S. House of Representatives broke faith with the
American people: Just a few months ago, as part of their Contract With America, congressional
Republicans solemnly promised to protect them — as well as their forces overseas and their allies — against ballistic missile attack by deploying “highly effective” anti-missile defenses at “the
earliest practical moment.”

The Republican House breached its Contract With America in adopting an amendment offered by
Rep. John Spratt (D-SC) by a narrow, 218-212 margin. As a result, the Contract-promised
“National Security Revitalization Act” (known as H.R. 7) was stripped of one of its most
important provisions — the pronouncement that it is the policy of the United States to defend its
populace against ballistic missiles and the adoption of a mechanism to begin putting such a
defense into place. Pursuant to the original contract, the Secretary of Defense was to be given
sixty days after enactment to present a plan for providing a national missile defense.

Promises, Promises

Rep. Spratt was able to prevail thanks to the defection of twenty-four Republican congressmen.
Remarkably, this group includes a member of the same House leadership that was responsible for
producing the Contract With America: Rep. John Kasich of Ohio, the chairman of the House
Budget Committee. This is the more astounding since, in addition to endorsing the Contract in
the course of seeking re-election last fall, Rep. Kasich had signed a “Pledge to Defend America.”
This pledge said:

“I recognize that the world-wide proliferation of mass destruction weapons — nuclear,
chemical and biological — represents a current and growing danger to the United
States, our military forces overseas and our allies. I recognize the fact that today we
cannot protect the United States, our troops overseas or our allies against even one
ballistic missile armed with a nuclear, chemical or biological weapon. If elected, I will
support a vigorous U.S. effort to develop and deploy effective defenses against such
weapons as an immediate national priority.”

The other members of the “Dirty Two Dozen” were: Charles Bass (NH), William Clinger
(PA), Howard Coble (NC) (who also signed the Pledge to Defend America), Vernon Ehlers (MI),
Harris Fawell (IL), Bob Franks (NJ), Greg Ganske (IA), James Greenwood (PA), Peter Hoekstra
(MI), Scott Klug (WI), Jim Leach (IA), Frank LoBiondo (NJ), Bill Martini (NJ), Jan Meyers
(KS), Connie Morella (MD), Tom Petri (WI), John Porter (IL), Jim Ramstad (MN), Ralph Regula
(OH), Marge Roukema (NJ), Christopher Shays (CT), Peter Torkildsen (MA) and Fred Upton
(MI).

Excuses, Excuses

What were these Republicans thinking when they walked away from their Contract With
America? Rep. Kasich professes simply to have “made a mistake.” According to a spokesman,
“He rushed into the vote and didn’t have a clear explanation of the amendment.” While it strains
credulity that an experienced legislator like Kasich could have failed to understand the strong
opposition to the Spratt amendment being expressed by his colleagues among the House
leadership, an honest mistake can be forgiven — if it is promptly corrected.

On the other hand, some, like Rep. Shays of Connecticut, defensively stand by their votes — citing
as justification concerns about the costs of defending the American people against missile attack.
Rep. Fawell claimed that he had abandoned the Contract because he wanted to take a “moderate
approach” to missile defenses.

Still a Sow’s Ear

Interestingly, all but eight of the defectors subsequently voted for a pro-missile defense
amendment offered by the National Security Committee’s chairman, Rep. Floyd Spence. The
Spence amendment, which was adopted by 221-204, inserted hortatory language into H.R. 7. It
describes “deployment of affordable, highly effective national and theater missile defense systems”
as “an essential objective of a defense-modernization program that adequately supports the
requirement of the national military strategy.”

This bit of eleventh-hour damage-control is welcome — as are the votes the House Republican
leadership mustered to defeat other Democratic efforts to leave us defenseless against missile
attack. One of these amendments would have foreclosed the option to deploy space-based anti-missile weapons. Another would have allowed the American people to be defended only if the
Secretary of Defense certified that all the military’s myriad of readiness, housing and quality of life
problems have been solved.

The Spratt language does not, however, accomplish what the Contract promised, namely concrete
steps leading to the earliest practical deployment of highly effective anti-missile protection for the
people of the United States. There should, consequently, be no mistake. If — in the interest of
minimizing the significance of their loss — Republicans now obscure what Democrats in the
House of Representatives (all but seven of whom voted for the Spratt amendment) and the
Clinton Administration are doing, they risk far more than merely their credibility with the
American people. They will be implicated once again in one of the most irresponsible
policies ever adopted by a democratic government: the policy of assured U.S. vulnerability
to missile attack.

The Bottom Line

It is worth noting that on the same day as the House finished its action on H.R. 7 — and Speaker
Newt Gingrich claimed to have fulfilled another of his party’s commitments under the Contract
With America — new evidence came to light that Saddam Hussein has the capability to produce
deadly biological viruses optimized for use with ballistic missiles. Will these or similar, murderous
weapons have to be used in a contract on the American people before the protection promised by
the Contract With America is afforded?

The House Republican leadership is to be commended for its decision to include a commitment to
defending the American people against missile attack in its bid for a mandate to govern in the
Congress. Having done so, it cannot responsibly settle for anything less. Another legislative
vehicle must be promptly found to permit the House to affirm its determination to provide
a highly effective anti-missile defense at the earliest practical time and to start the clock on
executive and congressional actions needed to begin putting such a defense into place.

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