ABSTRACT
Washington observers concentrated on the shared characteristics of the newcomers. As a group, they espoused a strong antigovernment, social, and economic conservatism. They shared an allegiance to the reformist “Contract with America,” the ten-point policy platform that all but three of them had ceremoniously signed on the Capitol steps. Most of them interpreted their election triumph as a mandate to turn provisions of the contract into legislation. And most of them believed, too, that the new freshmen class had been elected to spearhead that legislative mission.1
