Editorial: House of cards

Saturday, July 1, 2006 | 8:09 a.m.

In a shameless ploy to shore up votes among those who constitute the party's right wing, House Republicans plan to waste the rest of the session pandering to their base by introducing legislation related to gay marriage, guns, flag burning, abortion and religion.

The fact that the so-called "American Values Agenda" would do little to constructively improve our daily lives - and the fact that its legislative tenets stand little chance of passage - makes no difference to House Republican leaders. They are perfectly willing to waste America's time in a transparent attempt to keep control of Congress.

Polls show that Americans don't care much about what House leaders unveiled this week as their priorities for this summer and fall. In order, these were the issues voters said were "extremely important," according to a June 23-25 Gallup poll: the situation in Iraq, government corruption, terrorism, the economy, health care and gas prices. Those GOP "American Values" don't even start to rate until No. 9: abortion, with 27 percent saying it was extremely important.

When it comes to election-year politics, all political parties are careful not to alienate their respective bases of support. The key for parties is making sure that at the same time, they advocate meaningful policies that address the truly important issues facing the nation.

While the GOP serves up a feast of red-meat issues that the far right loves, Democrats seem committed to an agenda that could actually improve the lives of those Americans - many of whom struggle to get by from paycheck to paycheck - who have been forgotten by the GOP-controlled Congress. For instance, Senate Democrats are pushing for a vote on raising the minimum wage. House Democrats launched legislation this week designed to make significant improvements to the Medicare prescription drug program.

House Republicans don't appear to care that much of their agenda is dead on arrival, as long as it energizes their party's base. Some of the bills tread on the trivial, relative to the weighty issues America faces.

The Washington Post reports that one GOP bill would ban the confiscation of legal guns during national emergencies. At least one bill is patently unconstitutional, a measure that would remove the authority of the Supreme Court and federal courts to rule on Pledge of Allegiance cases. Aren't there supposed to be three equal branches of government in America?

Radical courts have tried to "redefine the value system on which America was built," Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said this week. "We hope to restore some of those basic values through passing this legislative agenda and renewing our country's commitment to faith, freedom and life."

Empty election-year pandering doesn't get more plainspoken than that. Republicans should be ashamed of wasting their time and ignoring the real issues that most Americans are rightly concerned about.