Editing Contract with America (section)

==Effects==
Some observers cite the contract with America as having helped secure a decisive victory for the Republicans in the 1994 elections; others dispute this role, noting its late introduction into the campaign. Whatever the role of the contract, Republicans were elected to a majority of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1953, and some parts of the contract were enacted. Most elements did not pass Congress, while others were [[veto]]ed by, or substantially altered in negotiations with President [[Bill Clinton]], who would sarcastically refer to it as the "Contract on America"<ref>{{cite news |last=Wines |first=Michael |title=The 1994 Campaign: The President; Campaigning On Economy, Clinton Plays The Teacher |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=October 25, 1994 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/25/us/the-1994-campaign-the-president-campaigning-on-economy-clinton-plays-the-teacher.html |access-date=March 25, 2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Luncheon address by President Bill Clinton |publisher=The American Society of Newspaper Editors |date=November 28, 2000 |url=http://www.asne.org/kiosk/archive/convention/2000/clinton.htm |access-date=February 16, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725022028/http://www.asne.org/kiosk/archive/convention/2000/clinton.htm |archive-date=July 25, 2011 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> implying that the Republicans' legislative package was akin to an [[contract killing|organized-crime "hit"]] on the American public. As a blueprint for the policy of the new congressional majority, authors Micklethwait and Wooldridge argue in ''[[The Right Nation]]'' that the contract placed Congress back in the driver's seat of domestic government policy for most of the 104th Congress, and placed the Clinton White House on the defensive.<ref name="RightNation"/>

[[George Mason University School of Law|George Mason University]] law professor [[David E. Bernstein]] has argued that the contract "show[ed]&nbsp;... that [Congress took] [[federalism]] and limited national government seriously", and "undoubtedly made [the Supreme Court decision in] ''[[United States v. Lopez]]'' more viable".<ref>{{cite news |author-link=David E. Bernstein |last=Bernstein |first=David |date=December 16, 2010 |url=http://volokh.com/2010/12/15/constitutional-doctrine-and-the-constitutionality-of-health-care-reform/ |title=Constitutional Doctrine and the Constitutionality of Health Care Reform |work=[[The Volokh Conspiracy]] }}</ref>