Forget 1994. It's starting to feel like 1980.

Swept into office by the landslide victory of Ronald Reagan were a number of conservatives, including Jeremiah A. Denton Jr. of Alabama, Mack Mattingly of Georgia, Paula Hawkins of Florida, Steve Symms of Idaho and several others whose notion of the role of government and Congress was markedly different from those they succeeded.

They were labeled the “accidental senators,” candidates who won only by virtue of an extraordinary political environment. The culture of the Senate — and party control — changed overnight.

“It was a very weird time,” recalled Senator Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who narrowly won a second term that year. “A lot of those people had no idea what they were doing.”