APUSH Chapter 40

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

(1993) Free-trade zone encompassing Mexico, Canada, and the United States. A symbol of the increased reality of a globalized marketplace, the treaty passed despite opposition from protectionists and labor leaders.

Family and Medical Leave Act

(1993) mandated job protection for working fathers as well as mothers who needed to take time off from work for family-related reasons.

Contract with America

(1994) Multipoint program offered by Republican candidates and sitting politicians in the 1994 midterm election. The platform proposed smaller government, congressional ethics reform, term limits, greater emphasis on personal responsibility, and a general repudiation of the Democratic party. This articulation of dissent was a significant blow to the Clinton administration and led to the Republican party's takeover of both houses of Congress for the first time in half a century.

World Trade Organization (WTO)

(1995) An international body to promote and supervise liberal trade among nations. The successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, it marked a key world trade policy achievement of the Clinton administration.

Welfare Reform Bill

(1996) Legislation that made deep cuts in welfare grants and required able-bodied welfare recipients to find employment. Part of Bill Clinton's campaign platform in 1992, the reforms were widely seen by liberals as an abandonment of key New Deal/Great Society provisions to care for the impoverished.

Proposition 209

(1996) prohibited affirmative-action preferences in government and higher education. # of state's public universities temporarily plummeted (in California).

Lewinsky Affair

(1998-1999) Political sex scandal that resulted in Bill Clinton's impeachment and trial by Congress. In 1998, Clinton gave sworn testimony in a sexual harassment case that he had never engaged in sexual activity with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. When prosecutors discovered evidence that the president had lied under oath about the affair, to which Clinton admitted, Republicans in Congress began impeachment proceedings. Although Clinton was ultimately not convicted by the Senate, the scandal put a lasting blemish on his presidential legacy.

William Jefferon "Bill" Clinton

42nd president of the US (1993-2001). He promoted centrist politics and distanced his policies from traditional Democratic programs. He signed the Welfare Reform Act in 1996 to fulfill a campaign promise to "end welfare as we know it." He was the first Democrat to be reelected since Franklin Roosevelt and the first president to be impeached since Andrew Johnson.

Whitewater

A series of scandals during the Clinton administration that stemmed from a failed real estate investment from which the Clintons were alleged to have illicitly profited. The accusations prompted the appointment of a special federal prosecutor, though no indictments.

Joseph Lieberman

Al Gore's running mate in 2000. Outspoken critic of Clinton's behavior in Lewinsky affair and first Jew nominated to major national ticket.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Clinton seized the opportunity in 1993 to nominate her to the Supreme Court, where she joined Sandra Day O'Connor to make a pair of women justices.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Democratic senator from New York who, in 2008, became the first highly competitive female candidate for president. A lawyer and political activist, she was first First Lady to serve in elected office when she was elected to the Senate. She tried unsuccessfully to win the Democratic nomination for president in 2008 and then served as secretary of state in the Barack Obama administration from 2009 to 2013.

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

From 1993 to 2010, the policy affecting homosexuals in the military. It emerged as a compromise between the standing prohibition against homosexuals in the armed forces and President Clinton's push to allow all citizens to serve regardless of sexual orientation. Military authorities were forbidden to ask about a service member's orientation, and gay service personnel could be discharged if they publicly revealed their homosexuality. At President Obama's urging, Congress repealed DADT in 2010, permitting gays to serve openly in uniform.

Branch Davidian Cult

Fundamentalist sect. 1993 standoff in Waco, Texas between federal agents and this religious sect. Showdown had ended in destruction of the sect's compound and the deaths of many, including women and children.

Albert Gore

Loyal vice president. Democratic nominee in the 2000 election. Faced tricky challenge - linking himself to Clinton-era peace and prosperity while at the same time distancing himself from boss's personal foibles. Proposed small tax cuts, targeted at middle- and lower-class people, strengthening Social Security.

Democratic Leadership Council (DLC)

Nonprofit organization of centrist Democrats founded in the mid-1980s. The group attempted to push the Democratic party toward pro-growth, strong defense, and anti-crime policies. Among its most influential early members was Bill Clinton, whom it held up as an example of "third way" politics.

George W. Bush

Republican challenger of Al Gore in 2000 election. Won nomination of strength of his father's name and years as governor of Texas. Surrounded himself with Washington insiders - including Dick Cheney. Promised to "restore dignity to the White House."

Newt Gingrich

Republican congressman from Georgia who served as Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999. As the author of the "Contract with America," he led the Republican "revolution" of 1994.

Robert Dole

Republican senator from Kansas who ran unsuccessfully against Bill Clinton in 1996. He had previously been the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 1976 and served as Senate minority leader during the 1980s and 1990s.

H. Ross Perot

Texas billionaire businessman who ran populist campaigns for the presidency in 1992 and 1996. In 1992, he garnered 19 percent of the popular vote, probably throwing the election to Bill Clinton. His campaigns represented anti-establishment sentiment and desires for "common sense" governance.

Oklahoma City Bombing

Truck-bomb explosion that killed 168 people in a federal office building on April 19, 1995. The attack was perpetrated by right-wing and antigovernment militant Timothy McVeigh, who was later executed by the U.S. government for the crime.

Monica Lewinsky

White House intern with whom President Bill Clinton had an extramarital affair in the late 1990s. Lewinsky was the center of a protracted scandal during the second Clinton term that led to the president's impeachment.

Hopwood V. Texas

federal appeals court decision had similar effect as the Proposition 209, but in Texas.

O.J. Simpson

former football "hero" whose trial was a televised spectacle. Allegedly murdered his white former wife, fed white disillusionment with the state of race relations. Jury acquitted him, presumably because certain Los Angeles police officers involved in the case had expressed racist sentiments.

Postmodernism

generally referred to a condition of fragmented perspectives, multiple truths, and constructed identities. Rejected rational, totalizing descriptions of the self or the world, and replaced modernism's faith in certainty, objectivity, and unity with an eclectic celebration of diverse and overlapping outlooks.

Multiculturalism

this new mantra celebrated diversity for its own sake and stressed the need to preserve and promote, rather than squish, a variety of distinct ethnic and racial cultures in the US.