of their Senate counterparts. The eleven freshman Republicans in the
Senate during the 104th Congress received relatively little attention,
but they did effect some potentially significant institutional changes in
that body. Moreover, the comparison between the experiences of the
freshmen Republicans on either side of Capitol Hill does provide some
interesting insights into the persistent differences between the institu-
tional norms and culture of the contemporary House and Senate.

The third and final theme is that the story of the Republican fresh-
men in the 104th Congress provides us with an excellent demonstra-
tion of American government in action and the constraints on change
within the modern political system. In effect, the experiences of the
freshmen are a perfect late twentieth-century illustration of the pre-
cepts set out by James Madison in the 1780s in The Federalist #10 and
#51. A new popular majority is elected to control of the branch of
government closest to the people, the House of Representatives, re-
flecting widespread popular demands for change and reform in Wash-
ington. To a considerable extent the new majority is able to fulfill its
mandate by confirming the shift in the direction of American public
policy toward economic and social conservatism, and by implementing
significant institutional reforms of Congress. As the Republican pro-
gram began to encounter significant popular resistance, however, the
constitutional checks provided by the other branches of the federal
government--the U.S. Senate and the presidency--arrested the "Re-
publican revolution." Furthermore, as the 104th Congress began to
approach reelection in 1996, some of the most characteristic behavior
of the pre-1994 Democratic Congresses--preoccupation with reelec-
tion, obsessive fund raising, and assiduous attention to state and district
interests--began to reassert itself among the 1994 Republican fresh-
men. The Republicans effected significant change in Washington, but
many of the fundamentals of the preceding era remained in place. And
while most of the freshmen accommodated themselves to this situa-
tion, for many of them it was a painful and sobering experience.

The book is divided into seven chapters. Chapter 1 places the elec-
tion of the Republican freshmen in the context of the long-term erosion
of public confidence in Congress that contributed to their triumph in
1994. Chapter 2 analyzes the 1994 election campaign and results, in-
cluding a discussion of the motives that inspired the successful fresh-
men to run in 1994, and the role played in the Republican victory by
Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America. Chapter 3 examines the

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