With Republicans claiming control of the U.S. House of Representatives but failing to capture the Senate, the party is likely to move forward with a number of its “Commitment to America” initiatives — even if the measures never make it past the lower chamber.
House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy unveiled the four-pronged plan in the fall before Republicans had a less-than-stellar showing in the midterms. The policy pitch laid out the party’s top priorities should Republicans take control of the House: forge an “economy that’s strong, a nation that’s safe, a future that’s built on freedom,” and a government that is “accountable.”
House Republicans are now left to push through legislation that will serve as a message, but will have little to no hope of passing in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
McCarthy suggested in September that the first order of business in the new Congress will be to “repeal 87,000 IRS agents,” a reference to the so-called Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 that Democrats passed in August. The measure included an $80 billion infusion into the IRS that would allow the agency to hire nearly 87,000 new employees over a decade, with the expectation that increased enforcement would help subsidize the massive spending bill.
Representative Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.), the third-ranking House Republican, suggested at the time that one of the Republicans’ top priorities if they retook the chamber would be to support the hiring of 200,000 police officers across the country. She also said they would target “radical left prosecutors” who are “refusing to abide by the rule of law and are prioritizing the criminals rather than the law-abiding citizens” — both tenets of the four-point plan.
The “Commitment to America” proposal laid out instructions for hiring more police officers through recruiting bonuses and opposing all efforts to defund the police.
Immigration is likely to be another prime focus of Republican messaging bills.
McCarthy’s plan released in the fall vowed to “fully fund effective border enforcement strategies, infrastructure, and advanced technology to prevent illegal crossings and trafficking by cartels” and to “end catch-and-release loopholes, require legal status to get a job, and eliminate welfare incentives.”
Another major messaging bill Americans can expect to see from Republicans in the new Congress is the “Parents Bill of Rights.” Republicans first introduced the legislation last year to address parental concerns about school curricula and Covid-19 school closures. McCarthy touted the measure in the “a future that’s built on freedom” section of his four-step plan, saying the bill would “provide transparency” for parents.
The legislation would require school districts to publicly share curricula, and to allow parents to meet in-person with teachers twice a year. It would also require parental consent for any medical exam given at school, and would force schools to notify parents of any violence on campus.
In addressing the fight over fairness in girls sports, McCarthy has said the House will work to advance a bill to define sex “solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth” for purposes of Title IX in athletics.
Other, more vague priorities laid out in the plan include upholding free speech, protecting the lives of unborn children and their mothers, guaranteeing religious freedom, and safeguarding the Second Amendment.
Republicans also vowed to “Confront Big Tech and Demand Fairness,” including by providing “greater privacy and data security protections” and to “equip parents with more tools to keep their kids safe online.”
Democrats could respond in kind with their own set of messaging bills in the Senate.
“The Democrats should be aggressive in putting Republicans on the defensive, pressing hard on why they are blocking much-needed initiatives to help Americans,” Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) wrote in November after Democrats held on to control of the upper chamber.
Other top priorities for McCarthy include bringing about the end of proxy voting in the House, a pandemic-era policy that allowed House members to name another member to vote on their behalf. While the measure was intended to address health concerns over Covid-19, a number of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seemed to abuse the practice and use it for the sake of convenience instead.
More than 200 House members, or about half the chamber, voted by proxy on the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill in late December. McCarthy has argued that the proxy-voting policy “allows Members of Congress to get paid without ever needing to show up for work.”
The House GOP leader said in November that he also plans to follow through on his promises to remove several Democrats from their congressional committees, including Representatives Eric Swalwell (D., Calif.) and Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), who serve on the House Intelligence Committee, as well as Representative Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), who is on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. McCarthy cited Swalwell’s association with a Chinese spy, Schiff’s boosting of the now-debunked Steele dossier, and Omar’s criticism of Israel as reasons each lawmaker is unfit to serve on their assigned committee.
Additionally, Republicans are expected to focus a significant amount of attention on investigations into a number of subjects ranging from Hunter Biden’s laptop to Big Tech corruption and Chinese malfeasance.
The “Commitment to America” plan says Republicans will “conduct rigorous oversight to rein in government abuse of power and corruption, provide real transparency, and require the White House to answer for its incompetence at home and abroad.”