BORROWING a page from Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Sen. Frank Blas last week issued a “Contract with the People of Guam” to bolster his effort to become our non-voting delegate in Congress, replacing Madeleine Bordallo.

Unfortunately for the Republican challenger, his two-page “contract” was mostly a re-hash of efforts in the last 10 or 20 years to get certain things accomplished in Washington. It wasn’t anything new.

He outlined a “three-pronged approach” to making Guam’s representation in Congress more effective. The first prong, the contract says, “will be to introduce and invite congressional representatives to explore the economic opportunities that Guam provides” because of its proximity to Asia. That’s been done by every delegate since Tony Won Pat. Congressman Underwood’s office sponsored several economic opportunity conferences during the 10 years he held office; Ben Blaz before him and Madeleine Bordallo since did the same.

The second prong “will be to establish relationships with the various Chamorro communities throughout the United States.” Here again, the objective is not new or innovative. Every delegate has done this. In fact, Bordallo is an honorary member of several of those groups and has visited many of their Liberation Day and other special events. Some of those people remain absentee voters on Guam. Campaigning for actual votes from relocated Guamanians has become standard practice.

“The third prong will be to establish a Caucus Group with the representation from the other territories to address territorial concerns that are crucial to Guam yet touch on concerns shared with the areas, such as veterans issues, political relationships, Compacts of Free Association and the impact of Obamacare on the territories.”

Nothing new here either. The territorial delegates have something better than a “caucus group.” They’ve got their own sub-committee, on which they all sit and through which they can propose legislation, suggest modifications to bills, and solicit support from fellow members of Congress for issues of particular concern.

Since that sub-committee has existed for some time, it seemed a bit odd that the candidate pledges to seek the creation of such a sub-committee. But perhaps each successive Congress needs to specifically establish it. Sen. Blas says he will pledge to make it a “STAND-ALONE insular territories subcommittee,” which puzzles us since a sub-committee by definition must be subsidiary to a larger committee, so it doesn’t exactly stand alone.

Ticking off a number of concerns such as war survivor recognition, tourism concerns, Compact impact and health care, among others, Sen. Blas signed the contract and inserted it into the campaign. We don’t have any problem with him doing that, but we didn’t see anything in the two-page document that wasn’t already being pursued by his opponent and other delegates before her. The voters will have to decide whether the challenger can get more accomplished on those issues than the incumbent can.