The Republican record of achievement during the first session of the 105th Congress is an impressive one. Despite the frequent opposition of the Clinton Administration and Capitol Hill Democrats, the GOP Congress has piled up a list of accomplishments that have started to move America in the direction of lower taxes, less regulation, restoration of traditional values, and greater opportunity. Here is a listing of Senate accomplishments to date, listed alphabetically.

Adoption and Safe Families Act
Prepared for presentation to the President
Rewards state efforts to reduce the time a child spends in the foster care system, in part by placing greater priority on moving children toward permanent placement with a loving family.

Agriculture Research, Extension and Education Reform Act
Passed Senate
Makes significant reforms to the agricultural research system and provides new funding for research to address future food production and environmental protection to reduce risk, improve public health and enhance agricultural competitiveness.

Amtrak Reform and Modernization
Passed Senate
This agreement, years in the making, overhauls the national rail passenger corporation and reduces federal operating subsidies, putting Amtrak on the road to privatization.

Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction
Public Law: P.L. 105-12
Assures that federal funds and facilities will not provide or promote assisted suicides.

Balanced Budget Act
Public Law: P.L. 105-33
Sets spending levels for fiscal year 1998 and provides for a balanced budget by 2002 -- the first since 1969. It is estimated to reduce five-year spending by $270 billion. Congress presented the President with a balanced budget in 1995, but he vetoed it.

Balanced Budget Constitutional Amendment
Vote in Senate, 66-34 (67 needed to pass)
Although this constitutional amendment narrowly failed to obtain the required two thirds vote in the Senate, the vote was another sign of our intent to bring the federal budget under control.

Birth Defects Prevention Act of 1997
Passed Senate
Calls for the implementation of a variety of strategies to help prevent birth defects.

Cellular Telephone Protection Act
Senate Passed
Closes a gap in federal law by making it a federal crime to own or use so-called "cloning" software or hardware.

District of Columbia Restructuring
Passed Senate and House
Reflects a new and direly needed financial arrangement between the District and the Federal Government: the latter assumes responsibility for pensions, prisons, courts and other former city government functions, while city residents get tax cuts, and the Capital City's debt is reduced.

Dolphin Conservation Act
Public Law: P.L. 105-42
Resolves a major environmental issue by allowing only countries in compliance with the International Dolphin Conservation Program to export tuna to the United States.

Education Savings Act for Public and Private Schools
Passed House, and Senate (as amendment) but Democrats filibustered freestanding bill.
Expands the popular education savings accounts in current law to include expenses from grades K-12, and increases savings amount from $500 per year to $2,500 per year.

Escape from Dangerous Schools
Passed Senate
Provides that federal education funds be used to aid children who were victims of violent crime in transferring to another school, public or private (amendment to budget resolution).

Family Friendly Workplace Act
Democrats have filibustered
Revises a 50-year-old law that prevents any flexibility within the 8-hour-a-day, 40-hour-work-week schedule, by allowing employers and employees, on a voluntary basis, to agree on work schedules that better meet everyone's needs.

Food and Drug Administration Accountability Act
Sent to the President
Provides much-needed streamlining and accountability of the FDA, and reauthorizes the Prescription Drug User Fee Act governing drug safety and efficacy reviews of pharmaceuticals.

"Global Warming" Treaty Protections for U.S. Economy
Resolution passed Senate
Repudiates the President's position by expressly opposing (95-5 vote) any international Climate Change agreement that would cause "serious economic harm" to the U.S., or impose legally binding energy controls on us if similar restrictions are not placed on all other countries.

Government Shutdown Prevention Act
Vetoed by President Clinton
Would have ensured that the government continue to operate at current level even if the President shut it down by failing to enact regular annual funding bills.

Guaranteed Student Loan Protection
Senate defeated Kennedy amendment
Defeated amendment designed to kill the Guaranteed Student Loan Program, made up of private lenders that provide two-thirds of the loan volume for college students, and to replace it with a direct lending program run by federal bureaucrats.

Homeowners Protection Act
Passed Senate
Requires homeowners to be notified when their private mortgage insurance is no longer required, thus saving them the annual cost of unnecessary premiums.

Housing Reform and Responsibility Act
Passed Senate
Consolidates public housing funding and transfers primary responsibility for them to States and localities, and encourages greater residency self-sufficiency and economic independence.

Housing Reforms for Low-Income Americans
Public Law: P.L. 105-65
Saves scarce federal resources by reducing excessive housing subsidies, while at the same time preserving the availability of decent, safe, and affordable housing for low-income households.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act
Public Law: P.L. 105-17
Assures educational opportunities for Americans with disabilities, increases parental involvement, reduces excessive litigation and burdensome federal paperwork requirements, and makes it less difficult to suspend violent children posing a threat to other students and teachers.

Increase Competition in Electricity Supply
Likely Senate passage prevented by Democrat objection
Would repeal a 32-year-old law (known as PUHCA) that has hampered some electric companies' ability to provide innovative and competitive electric rates; the bill also transfers more regulatory authority to the states.

IRS Oversight
Senate Committee Reveals Extent of IRS's abuse of power
The IRS hearing this year in the Senate Finance Committee was the most extensive review of the federal agency since its inception and will be followed-up by an extensive IRS reform bill next year.

Line-Item Veto
Congress Authorized New Tool for President Beginning This Year
In the last Congress, a law was passed to give the President the line-item veto, a budgetary control tool that almost all governors have, and which became effective this year. Although Congress disagrees with the President on a number of his particular vetoes, we are proud to have enacted this six-year experiment in budgetary reform.

Local Control of Education
Passed Senate
Return control to local school districts by block granting to them most federal dollars for K-12 (amendment to Labor-HHS Appropriations).

Medicare Reform
Public Law: P.L. 105-33
The Balanced Budget contained important provisions to preserve, reform, and improve Medicare. Medicare's Trust Funds are now solvent for 10 years.

National Defense War-Fighting Enhancements
Public Law: P.L. 105-56
Once again the Republican Congress added funds to the President's procurement budget to ensure soldiers have upgraded weapons systems and equipment to face an uncertain world.

Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1997
Passed Senate and House
After years of forethought, this bill allows the consolidation of high-level nuclear waste into a single, secure and safe storage repository, thus eliminating environmental and national security dangers inherent in the current storage of these wastes in 80 different sites nationwide.

Partial-Birth Abortion Ban
Vetoed, override vote pending
Defends the sanctity of innocent human life by prohibiting a heinous procedure known as partial-birth abortion.

Paycheck Protection Act
Democrats filibustered
Requires labor unions and corporations to get the voluntary consent of their members and workers before using the workers' money for political purposes.

Protecting Americans' Freedom of Speech
Senate agreed to debate campaign restructuring bill next year.
Republicans favor enforcing current laws and making necessary changes, but do not favor incumbent protection legislation (a.k.a. "campaign finance reform"), or the hijacking of the First Amendment by those who think Americans talk too much about politics.

Protecting Americans from Ballistic Missile Attack
Presented to the President
Continued proliferation of ballistic missiles and concerns about their secure treatment in other nations mandates this to be high-priority: this Congress added $474 million to the President's budget for a national missile defense system in order to begin developing a deployment system.

Religious Persecution in Foreign Nations
Hearings held, legislation offered
After years of neglect in the face of the Clinton Administration's inaction, the Republican Congress has held several hearings and next year is expected to enact legislation designed to address widespread persecution of Christians and other religious believers, primarily in Communist and Muslim countries.

School Choice for Low-Income Students
Passed Senate
This bill provides a pilot program for the District of Columbia that allows low-income students the chance to escape from failing and dangerous schools, and, with opportunity scholarships, attend a public or private school of their choice that better serves their educational needs.

Senior Citizens Home Equity Protection Act
Passed Senate
Prevents the funding of unnecessary or excessive costs for obtaining a home equity conversion mortgage (also known as "reverse mortgage"), a financial tool that has become increasingly popular among senior citizens.

Small Business Reauthorization
Passed Senate and House
Reauthorizes loan programs, creates a HUB Zones Program to encourage small businesses to provide welfare-to-work opportunities, and adds an outreach program for disabled veterans.

Soldiers' Quality of Life Enhancements
Public Law: P.L. 105-45
Added $800 million for military construction, more than half of which is dedicated to quality of life enhancements, such as upgrading military housing, for our uniformed personnel.

Taxpayer Browsing Protection Act
Public Law: P.L. 105-35
Imposes penalties for the unauthorized access of tax return information by federal employees.

Taxpayer Relief Act
Public Law: P.L. 105-34
Provides tax relief for taxpayers at every stage of life, and does so in the context of a balanced budget by 2002.

Telemarketing Fraud Prevention Act
Passed Senate
Strengthens criminal law to require the forfeiture of any profits made from telemarketing fraud; requires the review of sentencing guidelines to determine whether the mandatory minimum sentences for such crimes should be increased; and requires restitution in some cases.

Transportation Funds for Roads, Bridges, and Highway Safety
Prepared for the President's signature
While Democrats prevented passage of reauthorization for highway spending despite the bill's widespread support, robust environmental protections and its flexibility provided to state and local governments, Congress did pass a short-term extension allowing states that have exhausted their highway money to draw against next year's spending.

Volunteer Protection Act
Public Law: P.L. 105-19
As a part of the Republican agenda to provide much-needed legal reforms, this law protects volunteers from unjust lawsuits based on the simple negligence of volunteers. The law was needed because people were being deterred from volunteering because of concerns about liability risks, and this reduction in volunteerism in turn hurt nonprofit organizations and governments and the persons they serve.