(cross-posted at Deny My Freedom and Daily Kos)
As election season approaches, the Republican Party is coming to face the ugly truth about their governing. Even with control of the White House and both houses of Congress (and arguably the judiciary), they have failed to pass any meaningful legislation for the average American. And that’s a bad sign for them, considering that the mainstream media is waking up and realizing that nothing is getting accomplished in Washington.
WASHINGTON – Could a Republican-controlled Congress pass a bill to protect the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance from court challenges? No problem, especially if proposed during the patriotic season leading up to the Fourth of July, Republican leaders thought. No way, it turned out.
The bill, the first item on the GOP’s election-year “American Values Agenda,” couldn’t get past a House committee. Even worse for the Republicans: They couldn’t blame the flameout on Democrats. One of the GOP’s very own, Rep. Bob Inglis of South Carolina, voted no. Seven other Judiciary Committee Republicans skipped the panel’s meeting entirely.
This piece, which is better than some past wankery that the AP has engaged in regarding Congress and Democrats in particular. First, they note the context that the GOP was bringing up these matters for a vote for. Set against the backdrop of Independence Day, the GOP hoped to use a day of celebration as a way to push public support of something that hardly affects anyone’s daily life. I am sure that kids and their parents will not have their worlds turned upside-down should two words in the Pledge of Allegiance…be affirmed. Hell, even enough House Republicans blew the vote off, killing the issue in committee. Perhaps the most important point is how the AP writer notes that this is an ‘election-year’ agenda. You can only bring up these kinds of issues every two years and make people believe that you’re doing it for a just cause, not simply to rally the base at a time when your poll numbers suck.
The most striking thing about this article is when it brings up just how little legislation has been passed at all:
With two-thirds of the 2006 legislative calendar spent, Congress has passed and sent President Bush only two pieces of major legislation. One renewed the terrorist-fighting USA Patriot Act while the other extended $70 billion in tax cuts, roughly divided evenly between investors and middle-income families.
So the GOP can boast of renewing a piece of legislation that intrudes upon civil liberties (not the best thing to do when you’ve been wiretapping the American public illegally) and for putting the government deeper in the red for a tax cut that most of us won’t see any part of. The GOP boasts of being the party of ideas, but they sure don’t seem to be able to pass any laws on them. Instead, they spend their time pushing the meme that Democrats are without ideas. Bullshit. Meanwhile, important pieces of legislation such as the renewal of the Voting Rights Act and immigration reform are stalled in Congress. And it’s not us being ‘obstructionists’. No, it’s the Republicans who shelved debate on the Voting Rights Act and immigration reform. This is something that the Democratic Party should be repeatedly bringing up – we are willing to work with the GOP on certain pieces of legislation where we have common ground, but it is the extremists (of which there are many) on their side (particularly in the House) that are indeed making the 109th Congress a do-nothing Congress.
To elaborate further on the types of legislation we will see the Republican Party bringing up as the fall comes, one needs to look no further than the American Values Agenda. Unlike the Contract With America, which arguably made some points about making the government run more efficiently, this new agenda is vacuous and without a single idea that will affect ordinary Americans. Below are a few of the bills on the agenda for the House of Representatives:
Freedom to Display the American Flag Act (HR 42; Rep. Bartlett)
Summary: Ensures an individual has the right to display the U.S. flag on residential property.The Public Expression of Religion Act (HR 2679; Rep. Hostettler)
Summary: Ensures local officials and communities do not face financial ruin to defend their rights to free speech under the Constitution (provides that when state or local officials are sued over public expressions of religion, no monetary damages, costs, or attorney’s fees may be awarded).BATFE Reform (HR 5092; Rep. Coble)
Summary: Reforms the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (BATFE) to protect citizens’ rights.
To be honest, I have no idea if there are even any laws to begin with that prevent someone from showing the American flag on residential property. It’s an act that is protected under the First Amendment, just like burning the flag. The second piece is playing to the fundamental base in attempting to legislate religion into public life, and the third one listed…it must have something to do with protecting various lobbying groups (tobacco, NRA). None of these will make a damn difference in the livelihood of Americans. Democrats are pushing for changes that will have a tangible, real effect on people’s lives. Raising the minimum wage and cutting down the cost of a college education – these are real issues people face. The GOP is relying on a pony whose one trick was used up a long time ago.
There is a real schism growing within the GOP, one that I would attribute largely to a split in governing ideologies between the House and the Senate. Although there are wingnuts like Tom Coburn in the Senate, the GOP there is not as extreme as it is in the House, where hardliners have been controlling the game for a long time. It may explain why Bill Frist, who dreams of being a presidential candidate, is going to bring stem cell research up for a vote, even though Bush says he will veto the bill. It may be a sign that he realizes that after a year of doing absolutely nothing for the American people, it’s the least he can do. But it still doesn’t change the fact that this is a bill that has been sitting around for a year after the House passed it. Doing something late is better than never doing it, but it still doesn’t change the fact that the Republican Party – not the Democratic Party – is the party of obstruction and the party of empty ideas.
