When congressional Republicans started the process of crafting their soon-to-be released governing agenda, GOP aides solicited advice from a number of people, including one well-known Tea Party activist.
The person who came to Washington in May to meet with Republicans was Ryan Hecker, the brains behind the Tea Party-backed “Contract from America” — a list of ten specific legislative desires embraced by activists of the conservative movement.
When the GOP leadership unveils its official agenda, it will share several commonalities with that Tea Party manifesto, according to one GOP aide.
“We share a lot of the same principles and goals as these folks do,” Brendan Buck, a spokesman for the House Republicans’ legislative initiatives office, said of the Tea Party’s “Contract from America.” “So I think you’ll probably see some things that look familiar.”
Hecker told The Daily Caller that a member of the GOP House leadership recently told him the impending GOP agenda was “greatly influenced” by his “Contract from America,” often described as a “bottom-up” document voted on by Tea Party activists from across the country.
It appears that both documents will share at least one tenet: A recent news article reported that part of the GOP’s agenda will include a provision requiring legislators to specifically cite in a bill where in the Constitution they have the power to pass a certain law. That’s included as the first item in the Tea Party’s “Contract from America.”
Buck, in an interview, said the purpose of their meeting with Hecker was to “share notes.” But he also stressed that the GOP document “will certainly be a different document and have its own identity.”
“We’ve never wanted to co-opt what the Tea Party is doing,” Buck said. “But we wanted to have a conversation with them. That’s what this whole process was about, talking about ideas, what people care about, and they were able to engage us in a really productive way.”
While Tea Party activists tell TheDC that they welcome the GOP incorporating their ideas into their own agenda, they still hope members of the leadership sign on to the Tea Party document.
That desire was on display during the 9-12 Tea Party event in Washington earlier this month, when Indiana Rep. Mike Pence — a member of the House leadership who is also beloved by Tea Party activists — heard calls from several in the audience, one with a bullhorn, demanding during his speech that he “sign the contract.”
But Courtney Kolb, a spokeswoman for Pence, says while he supports the “Contract from America,” Pence “didn’t sign on because we are going to be releasing our own agenda with leadership.”
Buck didn’t name a specific date for when the agenda will be released, but said Republicans will roll it out within the next several weeks.
NEXT: Tea Party and Republican leadership using the Internet to engage Americans
Both Hecker and the GOP solicited ideas from Americans for their respective agenda lists online. Buck said it has long been desired by Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy — who is leading the “America Speak Out” project to do this — to use the Internet to engage with voters about their legislative desires.
“We don’t want to take over any of what they’re doing, we don’t want to step on their toes,” Buck said. “We also want to encourage them to be a part of what we’re doing.”