Picture credits: Rallypoint ​ WE PARTIED LIKE IT’S 1999: ELECTION 2000 TABLE OF CONTENTS Letter from the Committee Directors 3 The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal 3 Foreign policy of the Clinton administration 5 The Democratic Party 7 The Democrats in the House: 10 The Republicans in the House: 19 Letter from the Committee Directors In American politics, no two election seasons are the same. Each election is uniquely driven by the political climate of the time, the candidates running for the respective parties, the possibility of third-party candidates and of course, the ever-changing landscape of national and international relations. At the turn of the Millennium, the United States is once again shaping up for an election year of twists and turns. Sitting President William J. Clinton, or Bill Clinton as he is more commonly known, has had his two terms in office and has no more races to run. Fresh off of the unprecedented Lewinsky Scandal, the Republicans hold the majority in both the House and the Senate at this time and are looking strong for a new millennium. The Democrats, though they hold the highest office in the country and indeed showed a far stronger foot forward in the 1998 midterms than most pundits had anticipated, are definitely the underdogs going in. Which party comes out of 2000 as the winner is anyone’s game and up for you to decide. The Election 2000 Joint Crisis Committee will be run slightly differently than many JCCs. Time stops on February 23rd 2000, just a day after the South Carolina Republican Primary that would go down in infamy as some of the nastiest presidential campaigning seen in a primary. From there until Super Tuesday, March 7th, the committees will be mostly internally focused on finalizing a candidate. We anticipate that after Super Tuesday, the candidate from each party will be clear and the others will concede the race. After that, it’s all out cross-committee campaigning until November 6th. Best of luck delegates. Best, Lauren Meyers and Sourojit Ghosh Election 2000 Committee Directors The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal On November 5th, 1996, Bill Clinton acquired the historic privilege of being the first Democrat since the legendary Franklin D. Roosevelt to be reelected President of the United States as he defeated Republican candidate Robert J. Dole, or Bob Dole, by a vote of 379-159 in the electoral college. However, his re-election represented an immediate and recurring challenge to him, as the Speaker of the House of Representatives Newton “Newt” Gingrich persisted with sending welfare reform bills through Congress and to his desk. After having vetoed two such bills, Clinton finally signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), a bill aimed at substantially reconstructing the welfare system authored by Republican John Kasich. With the House and the Senate both in Republican hands as they retained their unified control of the Congress from 1994, the second term of the Clinton presidency looked to be long and arduous. In the summer of 1995, a young woman accepted an unpaid summer internship at the White House. This woman soon transitioned to a full-time, paid position in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs in December of that year. Monica Lewinsky soon caught the attention of President Clinton, as the two supposedly developed intimate relations. Perhaps wary of this development, Lewinsky’s bosses at the White House sought to distance her from the President. To this end, she was relocated to the Pentagon in April 1996. Looking back at those four months, Lewinsky would later testify that she and the President had nine sexual encounters in the Oval Office, performing fellatio and other sexual acts short of intercourse. At the Pentagon, Lewinsky worked under chief spokesperson Kenneth Bacon, and soon befriended a fellow employee by the name of Linda Tripp. The two grew close, with Lewinsky sharing details of her involvement with Clinton to Tripp. Sensing the gravity of the situation, Tripp asked Lewinsky to keep the gifts that Clinton had given her and famously, not to dry clean a semen-stained garment that would later be known as the “blue dress”. Unbeknownst to Lewinsky, Tripp began recording these details in their phone conversations since September 1997. In December 1997, Lewinsky left the Pentagon. At the time, President Clinton was involved in the Paula Jones case, where Jones had accused him of sexual harassment. Lewinsky’s involvement with Clinton was brought up in the course of this case in January 1998. On April 1, 1998, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Webber Wright granted summary judgment to Clinton. At the time, an independent counsel by the name of Kenneth Starr was investigating Clinton’s misconduct in office under the Whitewater controversy. Sensing the opportunity, Tripp handed over the tapes of her conversation with Lewinsky to Starr in what later was the basis for the Lewinsky Scandal. With evidence of Lewinsky’s relationship with Clinton, Starr broadened the scope of his investigation to include Lewinsky and her possible perjury in the above-mentioned case. Clinton initially denied the allegations, saying in a January 26 speech while standing beside his wife Hillary Clinton, “I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” However, this outright denial would come under fire when Lewinsky was granted transactional immunity on July 28th in an exchange for a grand jury testimony and the handing over of the famous “blue dress”. With the DNA analysis from the dress, there was irrevocable evidence of the affair. Soon after, in a taped grand jury hearing on August 17th, Clinton admitted to having an "improper physical relationship" with Lewinsky. In December 1998, Clinton was deemed to have committed obstruction of justice and perjury when he lied in his testimony in the Jones case that he had no relations with Lewinsky. Since both Houses of Congress were controlled by the Republicans at the time, these two offenses were deemed as impeachable. The House of Representatives voted to issue Articles of Impeachment against him which was followed by a 21-day trial in the Senate. However, the Senate failed to convict him as all Democrats and 10 Republicans voted for his acquittal. An attempt to censure his powers was also pursued by the House, but that too was unsuccessful. Thus, Clinton retained both his office and the full powers that came with it. His actions were, however, not without consequence. Judge Wright held him in civil contempt of court in April 1999 due to misleading testimony about the affair in the Jones case, fining him $90,000. With under a year left until the next Presidential election, campaign trails were starting up, and the scandal could be playing a part in how people voted. Foreign policy of the Clinton administration The Oslo Accords The Oslo Accords were a set up agreements between the state of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1993 and 1995 that aimed to create a peaceful future between these two conflicting groups. The Oslo Accords reflected efforts of mediation, communication, and negotiation between the Palestinian Liberation Organization in efforts of fostering peace and security for both Palestine and Israel as well as settling the disputed areas of West Bank, the Gaza Strip for Palestinians and gradually withdrawing Israeli force from these regions as well as the creation of a Palestinian interim self-government called the Palestinian Legislative Council. Regardless of their long-term success, the Oslo Accords have been considered to be a momentous event in Israeli-Palesitnian history as it has been the first time through decades of conflict that the two have formally recognized each other and made formal agreements to strive for peace in the future. Although the Oslo Accords were an agreement between Israel and Palestine, the United States played an instrumental role in making this feat possible. Bill Clinton’s administration played an instrumental role in both formalizing and sponsoring these peace agreements. Clinton had meetings with many of the key players in writing up the Oslo Agreements and his actions symbolized positive relations with both Palestine and Israel by representing the needs and desires of both. Additionally, the successful signing of the Oslo Accords reflected skills of communication, mediation, and knowledge on the regional politics on the part of Clinton as he was a part of orchestrating the agreement. The iconic photo of Bill Clinton standing proudly behind Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin as they shake hands in Washington D.C. upon signing the peace accords leave a positive image around Bill Clinton and his accomplishments in being an instrumental piece of this unprecedented step towards peace. The Rwandan Genocide The Rwandan Genocide was a mass genocide occuring during the Rwandan Civil War in 1990 between the ethnic groups of Hutus and Tutsis. The genocide went on for one hundred days, leaving an estimated amount of between 500,000 and one million dead, constituting 70% of the minority Tutsi population. The genocide reflected a long-building conflict and hatred between the Rwandan Hutus who held the majority and government power over the Tutsis. The genocide was brutally carried out with machete’s being the main weapon and little safety for the targeted peoples. The Clinton Administration faced huge backlash for the Rwandan Genocide for having not intervened while thousands of civillians were being slaughtered. The failure of Bill Clinton to direct any U.S. involvement in Rwanda throughout the one hundred days of mass genocide continues to be considered one of his largest foreign policy failures while in office.