Republicans see an opportunity to set a governing agenda to contrast with what they say is an increasingly rudderless Democratic-run Washington, but the effort has not yet coalesced.
They are still hammering out the details of what is intended to be a broad-based platform, lawmakers leading the effort told The Washington Times.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy created seven policy task forces back in June to craft that legislative agenda for Republicans to run on in the 2022 midterm elections and to govern on in 2023.
The outlines of the platform so far include: opposing vaccine mandates, curbing the power of tech oligarchs, strengthening the U.S. defense systems to compete with China and reviving get-tough immigration policies.
Six months into the endeavor, what the lawmakers described were more akin to themes and goals than detailed policy proposals.
Mr. McCarthy, California Republican, promised that the seven policy teams will identify and develop legislative solutions to the biggest issues facing Americans.
These are the task forces:
• Jobs and Economy headed up by Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina.
• Big Tech Censorship led by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington.
• Future of American Freedoms led by Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio.
• Energy Climate and Conservation led by Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana.
• American Security, which includes border and immigration issues, led by Rep. John Katko of New York.
• Healthy Future headed up by Reps. Brett Guthrie of Kentucky and Devin Nunes of California, the latter of whom is retiring from Congress in a matter of days.
• China Accountability led by Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas.
Each task force has nearly 20 members who are soliciting input from Republican conference members.
From there, a final product drawn from each task force will be created and rolled out before the conference at the Republican retreat early next year.
Mr. Jordan said it is still a work in progress.
“I know on the freedom task force, we’re focusing on freedom from government, like IRS agents looking at your bank account. Freedom for parents to pick the school that’s going to give their kids the best education,” Mr. Jordan said in an interview. “And of course, protecting the constitution, specifically the First Amendment.”
He added, “So we talk a lot about that, and then frankly, there’s some overlap with a task force on Big Tech with what’s happening via Big Tech going after conservatives.”
Ms. McMorris Rodgers said that the Big Tech accountability task force she heads up focuses on three pillars to “hold Big Tech accountable.”
The first is censorship and Section 230, a portion of the Communications Decency Act, gives website platforms legal immunity for third-party content. The second is big data and the importance of a privacy law that could lead to a national standard.
The other pillar is antitrust issues.
“The third is just their power, the antitrust provisions. There’s not a silver bullet, but we’ve been having outside experts come and sit down and talk with us,” she said. “We’re sitting down with [state attorneys general]. We’ve had a number of meetings.”
Mr. McCaul, who leads the China accountability task force, said China is the biggest foreign adversary and national security threat, and he lamented that the issues with China were not more bipartisan.
“It’s mystifying to me how the Democrats don’t want to get tougher about China,” said Mr. McCaul, Texas Republican. “We’re gonna update the report that we did last Congress. We updated our origins of COVID-19 report. That was not received well by mainland China and President Xi.”
He warned that China’s growing nuclear capabilities, which was demonstrated months ago when it launched a hypersonic missile that went around the world, need to be dealt with.
“This hypersonic weapon has, if anything, demonstrates why we got to wake up to China’s threat. We don’t have that capability in the United States and our missile defense systems can’t stop it and it can carry a nuclear payload,” he said. “And that’s just one of many. They’re competing with us economically, militarily. The great competition is with China.”
While the House GOP’s quest for a solid legislative agenda is applauded throughout conservative circles, some activists already fret that the policies crafted for the campaign trail will be watered down or eventually shelved if the party wins majorities in the House and Senate.
Richard Manning, president of the conservative activist group Americans for Limited Government, said that if Republicans take control of the 118th Congress, GOP leaders will need to take a page from Speaker John Boehner’s first two years of leadership. That’s when the Ohio Republican reeled in spending by the Obama administration by helping institute federal spending caps.
“Too often when Republicans are in the majority, they spend all their time cutting taxes for the wealthy clients of K Street and ignore everything else,” Mr. Manning said. “Specifically, it would be my expectation that they would use the funding power of Congress to reverse and defund Biden’s egregious policies and force the president to actually enforce our border laws and end any remnant of his failed vaccine mandates.”
Mr. McCarthy, who is likely to run for speaker if Republicans win the House next year, told The Times that the GOP is committed to their policy agenda from their task forces.
“If you look at our task forces that we put together with the whole conference that we’re going to roll out, we’re going to be very clear on our commitment to America and about exactly what we’re gonna do, so the country can see a clear contrast,” he said.
Conservative critics caution that Republican Senate leadership or key GOP lawmakers may slow down or dump policies the party previously ran on. Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, Republicans ran on a pledge to “repeal and replace” President Obama’s health care law.
By the time the GOP had the opportunity to finally repeal it in 2017, three Republican lawmakers — Sens. Susan M. Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and John McCain of Arizona — voted to save it.
“There’s the process of governing that is different than the process of campaigning. So, when you get out there, you realize that some things you can do, and some things you have to keep pushing,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican. “You got to be patient. You got to pick your battles.”
Republican lawmakers caution that even if they take both chambers, they will face the same challenge Democrats are tackling presently, which is overcoming the 60-vote threshold in the Senate to pass most legislation. Additionally, Republicans will have to contend with a Democrat president.
A Republican House member said privately: “What’s going to be really important is that we focus on oversight and holding this administration accountable and we’re obviously going to stop all the garbage that they’re doing. The spending and the social policy — we’ll stop the garbage and then we’ll use our power of oversight. And I think you’ll see it exercised like it hasn’t been in a long time.”
“It’s all about party unity and selling a conservative vision to voters, even if some goals can’t be achieved overnight,” said the lawmaker, who works closely with leadership and didn’t want to be identified discussing legislative strategy.
“We got to lay out that case by showing what we’re doing with our majority. We don’t want to tell our base, ’Give us a Republican House and we’re going to pass this law and that law.’ It’s not going to happen,” the GOP lawmaker said.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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