The New (Old) Guard

Who would have thought? A year ago 110 new representatives were elected to Congress, the largest such number in forty years. Faced with the double crisis of the problems of our nation and low public esteem, Congress was changing.

The earth resonated with the discontent of constituents! Washington quaked at the threat of invasion! The people had risen to the call of change! Democracy was alive and well in America!

Yeah, right.

Twelve months later it is apparent that the "revolution" is over, if it even even began. The rhetoric of the campaigns has given way to the reality of the aftermath. The newcomers quickly joined the rank-and-file members of the Hill and soon learned the ways of "the Beltway." In their first six months in office, these "babes-in-the-woods" pulled in a record $8 million in campaign contributions. Perhaps they could teach lessons to the incumbents defeated in 1992.

Indeed, many of them were seasoned politicians, close to three-quarters had prior political experience and were accustomed to the election cycle. In one notable case, Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) as a state legislator helped reapportion the district she now represents.

These new members of Congress could be more properly termed "first-term incumbents" as they quickly seemed to resemble those they replaced and prematurely focused on reelection. They are hardly to be blamed. Many of them were elected to open seats and any mandate they initially won may not carry over to next November.

But even an especially cynical interpretation of the actions of these representatives would have to concede that there were other factors in their failure to be new and different. Washington is a city unaccustomed to change. The last time it saw such a changing of the guard was the post-Watergate fallout of 1974. Two things were significant about 1974 that cannot be said of the class of 1992. First, many of the 1974 newcomers defeated incumbents; in 1992 many won open seats. Second, the 1974 incoming class were quickly swept up in the reforms that reshaped Congress during the 1970s, an earth-shattering moment in the institution's history. 1992 afforded no similar welcome for the first-term representatives.

It is also difficult to blame a group of representatives for their lack of focus when, a mile and a half down Pennsylvania Avenue, the President himself must grapple with a narrow mandate and astigmatic "vision." Clinton's footfalls have been many and often; why should those of junior members of Congress be sure and steady?

While perhaps failing to live up to high expectations, this incoming class must be duly lauded for maintaining their stand on one key issue: deficit reduction. They consistently rose above partisanship in favor of spending cuts. In addition, more than half of these newcomers supported $90 billion in deeper cuts as proposed by Rep. Tim Penny (D-Minn.). A larger percentage of novice Democrats supported the doomed bill than did veteran Democrats. And their support for a partial line-item veto for the president may eventually appeal to a majority in the chamber.

The current power of the legislative youngsters as expressed in their killing the supercollider marked legislative bravado in and of itself. But any assertion of their power as a unified political force will be limited by the sharp divide spanning party lines that surfaced over NAFTA.

The now-seasoned newcomers are willing and able to distance themselves from both the White House and chamber elders. The former may prove critical to their hopes in 1994; the latter perhaps hints at their future effectiveness as a potent political force. Their record--neither strikingly revolutionary nor seriously flawed--has not had the revolutionary impact that some had hoped. These babes-in-the-woods are still getting used to their toys.