Commentary: An Agenda for the GOP House

by Dov Fischer

Hopefully, it will prove easier for House Republicans to govern than it has been for them to elect a speaker. There is good reason for such hope because the enemy no longer will be Kevin McCarthy and the Ghosts of Republican Speakers Past but instead Joe Biden, the Ghost of Nancy Pelosi, and the specter of a Diversity-Equity-Inclusionary BIPOC-LGBTQIA+ Kamala-Buttigieg ticket. That should end the GOP divisions and even restore amicable relations between Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The Republicans now have a House majority. With power comes arrogance and madness. If they replay past foolishness when the opportunity to govern was theirs, they will pay heavily once again. Thus, no funding for bridges to nowhere. No excesses in pork. No mushy McCain–Bush compromises on border security but, instead, restoring immigration laws as though the United States actually were a real country like Mexico, Tuvalu, Palau, and Nauru. No forgetting that the corruption and perversion of elementary-school education are what motivated many fence-sitters to elect them.

The Republicans must not use their majority to forget that most of us do not live along the Beltway, do not speak its jargon, and do not care about its internecine squabbles. Rather, we care about eight things:

• Inflation and gas prices
• Chaos at the southern border
• Crime
• Corruption of public education and teaching perversion to children
• Importing filthy energy from Arab Muslim oil sheikhdoms and Russia while we suppress our home-based energy and raid our strategic petroleum reserves
• Baby formula
• Football players that get heart attacks on national TV (one in NFL history)
• What Kanye West has to tweet

Most Americans are not politically literate. They are willing to settle for sub-mediocrity. Need proof?  They elected a lifelong liar and cheat, an often doddering and confused gent who needs to be directed offstage by a costumed bunny rabbit, to be president.  When he goes anywhere, he presumably turns to Dr. Jill Biden and asks, “Eh, what’s up, Doc?” And, for his Numero Duo, they selected The Giggler.

More proof of American political illiteracy? Americans basically reelected all incumbent senators and governors in the midterms despite whining for two years about how badly America is on the wrong track. This is instructive, more so than analyses about Trump or abortion. People who vote as Americans did this past November did not manifest a change toward the left or right but toward their own continued political illiteracy: “We are miserable and seasick, so let’s continue, straight on course, aiming for that iceberg!” They elected a John Fetterman in Pennsylvania, knowing fully what he is and is not. And they elected a George Santos (assuming that is his real name) in New York not knowing fully what he is not or is.

The Republican House must understand that these are the people whom they represent and serve. And whose votes they will need again in two years.

Thus, voters do not care about the national debt. Thirty trillion, forty trillion, a trillion trillion. Talk to the hand. The debt does not impact average American voters in a way they can grasp because it has to do with numbers and commas and stuff. This willful ignorance has been true for decades. But they do care very much about knowing with certainty that their Social Security and Medicare will not be touched. A smart GOP will understand this, despite classical conservative fiscal principles. Make it clear that those two programs are sacred to Republicans, too.

Americans do not grasp the ramifications of China increasing her military strength and potentially threatening Japan and Taiwan. They have forgotten those murdered in Afghanistan during Biden’s botched withdrawal. But they do care very much about canceled Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s vacations because a puny small-town mayor runs a Department of Transportation that is sky-high above his pay grade. Two months’ maternal or paternal leave amid a paralyzing supply-lines crisis. Private jets for himself and his husband. Rising to the level of his incompetence: Call it the “Pete Principle.”

1. At least initially, avoid all investigations except for two:
2. First, investigate what, how, and why Alejandro Mayorkas knowingly has perjured himself before Congress for two years about the border. Mayorkas is a brazen liar who, at best, has failed miserably in protecting our southern border in his role as secretary of Homeland Security — and, at worst, has not “failed” but in truth deliberately and calculatedly has engineered and acquiesced to the chaos and anarchy there in order to import millions of illegal immigrants so as to change demographics of state electorates, as has happened in California and, a bit less so, in Nevada and Arizona.
3. Second, investigate Hunter Biden with an eye toward revealing corruption by “the Big Guy” and possibly impeaching him. The key is Joe, not Hunter, and Republicans must help ignorant Americans grasp this. Every step from Burisma to flights to China to White House meetings points toward incredible economic corruption by Joe Biden as well as toward his lifetime of pathological lying about his biography and everything he has touched. Hunter’s taxes and Joe’s taxes need to be obtained and released, using the recent Trump precedent. Goose-gander principle.
4. Graciously receive the report of the Jan. 6 Committee. Thank Liz Cheney for having revealed herself just in time before she became the GOP’s compromise candidate for speaker of the House. Reject the committee’s findings on procedural grounds, namely, that the committee was not properly balanced in bipartisan manner with proper Republican representation and, hence, was illegal. File it with the two impeachment resolutions that were rejected by the Senate.
5. Pass a solid bill to seal off the southern border and to finish the wall. Do not include or address DACA. First, the wall gets funded and built — and the border gets secured. Allocate extra funds to reimburse Texas, Florida, and Arizona for the extra steps and expenses, including bus fare and airfare, that they have needed to employ and expend in dealing with the federal government’s failure to protect the border. Deny federal funds to sanctuary states and sanctuary cities whose policies have induced those costs.
6. Pass a bill to save Social Security and Medicare by extending the retirement age from 67 to 69. Importantly — very, very importantly — the change must apply only to those age 54 and below. Those above 55 or 57 are getting close to 67 and will be unable to cope psychologically with such a change and will take it out on Republicans. But those below age 55 will not grasp or care how the extension of two years will impact them 12 or more years later. Likewise, change retirement to age 70 for those ages 45 and below. Same thinking. The savings for Social Security and Medicare will be astronomical and can help save the systems.
7. Pass a bill to unleash American oil-and-gas exploration again, to encourage and promote hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), and to ban releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for economic or any other reasons except for those concerning national security. The bill likewise explicitly should reopen the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and reinstate the Keystone XL Pipeline.
8. Vote to repeal Section 230 of Title 47 of the United States Code, legislation that was enacted as part of the United States Communications Decency Act. That section protects social media from most defamation lawsuits and immunizes it with other extraordinary safeguards. Section 230 was passed during the gestational era of the internet to encourage that new international digital forum to breathe and prosper. Congress wanted to ensure robust discussion. No one foresaw what would unfold. No one contemplated a Facebook and Twitter combining to throw a presidential election or swarms of tweeting and posting vermin to destroy the name of a kid like Nick Sandmann from Covington, Kentucky, who became the butt of internet scorn after a Washington, D.C., pro-life rally when he was accosted by a character in an Indian costume beating a drum in his face.
9. The House should pass resolutions declaring the sense of Congress that transgenderism and sexuality should not be taught to children in lower grades and that every government-funded school must document that it has taught a requisite number of hours per school year in subjects like real math (not woke math); real history (not 1619 history); real science, information-technology, and computer-programming skills; and real reading and writing skills. Although education policy historically was reserved to the states and not delegated to Congress, the federal government has federalized education with its own Cabinet-level Education Department.
10. Antifa should be declared a domestic terrorist organization, and federal funds should be denied to any agency or other entity that cooperates with the corrupt “Black Lives Matter.” No government contracts should be permitted with any corporation that donates to “Black Lives Matter.”
11. A large plaque should be hung on the wall of the House, directly behind the seat where the speaker sits, inscribed with the words “In G-d We Trust.”
12. Pass a bill that makes it illegal to lie knowingly about one’s biography as part of campaigning for federal elective office. Make the law apply retroactively to all currently serving and to future federal-office holders. Make the law sound as though it is a bill of attainder directed at George Santos but draft it broadly enough to apply to Joe Biden. Then let the chips fall where they may.
13. Nancy Pelosi’s abuses must be addressed. She denied Marjorie Taylor Greene her rightful committee assignments. Therefore, overt racists and bigots Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib should be denied committee assignments. Hold public hearings to learn who paid for the personalized pens distributed after the first Trump impeachment, who paid for the white dresses worn by all the Democrat females at Trump’s 2019 State of the Union address, and whether federal funds were disbursed to Democrat sweetheart recipients from any of the Biden spending programs that Joe Manchin, Jon Tester, and Sherrod Brown supported. Reveal the costs to the American taxpayers.
14. There are limits on what Congress can do to fight crime because criminal law mostly is reserved to the states. However, there are more than 40 people on federal death row, and Merrick Garland has imposed a moratorium on executing justice and them on behalf of their victims’ families. Congress can signal a change in the national mindset toward punishing brazen criminals by acting to bring the matter to public attention and holding public hearings featuring the victims’ families as witnesses.

House Republicans must begin sending one bill after another to the Senate and to Joe Biden’s desk. Of course, Senate Democrats will filibuster them, Biden will veto any that get through, and House Republicans will not have the votes to override. That all is fine. That is perfect. Put Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Jon Tester of Montana, and Sherrod Brown of Ohio on record as often as possible. Arizona will take care of itself.  This practice will educate Americans in the clearest of terms as to where the parties stand and how they differ on the issues of the day. Republicans not only will honor their promises to the public and advance their declared agenda but also will earn the right to govern in 2024 and beyond.

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Rabbi Dov Fischer, Esq., is Vice President of the Coalition for Jewish Values (comprising over 2,000 Orthodox rabbis), was adjunct professor of law at two prominent Southern California law schools for nearly 20 years, and is Rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, California. He was Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review and clerked for the Hon. Danny J. Boggs in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit before practicing complex civil litigation for a decade at three of America’s most prominent law firms: Jones Day, Akin Gump, and Baker & Hostetler. He likewise has held leadership roles in several national Jewish organizations, including Zionist Organization of America, Rabbinical Council of America, and regional boards of the American Jewish Committee and B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation. His writings have appeared in Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Federalist, National Review, the Jerusalem Post, and Israel Hayom. A winner of an American Jurisprudence Award in Professional Legal Ethics, Rabbi Fischer also is the author of two books, including General Sharon’s War Against Time Magazine, which covered the Israeli General’s 1980s landmark libel suit. Other writings are collected at www.rabbidov.com.
Photo “U.S. Capitol” by JamesDeMers.