GOP Platform a' Contract With America' Says Pete Hoekstra

Thirty years after Republicans won the House and Senate on a 10-point agenda known as the "Contract With America," one of the key players in the adoption of the GOP's 2024 platform Monday hailed it as "today's 'Contract With America.'"

"It says who we are, who Donald Trump is, and what we will do upon assuming the presidency and majorities in Congress next January," Michigan State Party Chair Pete Hoekstra said of the party's 16-page platform (titled "Make America Great Again").  

Hoekstra, who served in the U.S. House from 1993-2011, was chair of the foreign policy subcommittee of the full platform committee. On Monday morning, after a three-hour discussion of what is in the party manifesto by Trump (who spoke via Zoom to the 102-member committee meeting in Milwaukee) and several policy experts, the Michigan man moved for adoption of the platform.  

After what he described as a "brief discussion," the committee voted to adopt the platform by a resounding 84-18. 

Recalling how he signed the "Contract With America" as a candidate for a second term in 1994, Hoekstra noted that the same manifesto that was the brainchild of Newt Gingrich "was signed by 430 of the 435 Republican House candidates and was decisive in our first majority in the House in 40 years."

Gingrich went on to be speaker of the House.

Like the contract, Hoekstra told us, "the MAGA platform spells out specifically what we will do next January."

As for criticism that it was too slim and simplistic, Hoekstra shot back that "people will read it. I'm not sure that was the case with the 60-page platforms we used to turn out in past election years. I sure don't recall them."

He noted that the platform's language includes such promises as ending "the socialist green agenda" and "stopping sanctuary cities" throughout the U.S. 

One part of the new platform that is sure to be noticed is its vow to "close the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., and send [education] back to the states where it should be run."

Beginning with the platform on which Ronald Reagan was first elected president in 1980 and when Republicans captured the Senate, the party document quadrennially included a call for abolishing the Education Department until 2000 when — reportedly at the insistence of nominee George W. Bush and campaign manager Karl Rove — it was removed on their belief it had become too controversial. 

Now, after 24 years, shutting down the Education Department is back. 

"Platforms should never be endless novels, but rather statements of principles that are succinct and meaningful," California GOP National Committeeman Shawn Steel told Newsmax. "The platform captures the essence of what most Americans want — advancing the economy for all Americans, restoring our borders and our standing in the world."   

Although Gingrich's role in crafting the platform is unclear, sources on the platform committee said that the former speaker's longtime legal counsel Randy Evans had a strong hand in sculpting the document — just as he did in the finalizing of the "Contract With America."

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.