Quick, name three bills the Senate has voted on this year that made religious conservatives happy. Let’s see, there was the Terri Schiavo debacle … and that’s about it. Unfortunately for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the far-right has noticed.
It’s worth remembering that religious conservatives expected 2005 to be their watershed year ever for legislative successes — particularly in the Senate. While the chamber was evenly divided during Bush’s first term, the 2004 elections expended the GOP majority to its largest margin in decades. The James Dobsons of the world took credit for Republican gains and planned to call in the favor in the form of a legislative agenda. A constitutional amendment on gay marriage, abortion restrictions, maybe some Ten Commandments and school prayer provisions thrown in for good measure — it was the moment they’ve been waiting for.
Except it hasn’t happened. The Senate has taken care of their corporate benefactors (they passed outrageous bankruptcy and class-action “reform” bills), but the religious right has been left wanting. Not surprisingly, they’re blaming Frist.
The Family Research Council (FRC), one of the most prominent pressure groups representing Christian evangelical voters, dropped the Senate from its annual congressional scorecard because the chamber voted on not one bill the group cares about.
“This was the first time since we looked at both houses that we had to leave the Senate off,” said Tom McClusky, the FRC’s director of government affairs.
“They didn’t have anything that we saw as family votes,” he added. “Sometimes it seems like we got more done during the Reagan administration when [Republicans] didn’t have control [of Congress] or during the Clinton administration when we didn’t have the administration on our side. There is a level of frustration especially among our grassroots.”
A lobbyist for another prominent conservative advocacy group said conservative voters, who believe they delivered control of the government to the GOP last year, are so disenchanted that many may not vote next November.
Frist has a plan to restore confidence with the same far-right groups he’ll need for his presidential campaign, but I don’t think it’ll work.
A senior Frist aide said the Senate would soon vote on two items high among social-conservative priorities: a provision in the defense appropriation bill that would protect the Boy Scouts from being sued for using Department of Defense property and an item in the defense authorization bill that would allow prayer at the nation’s military academies.
I obviously can’t speak for the religious right, but I have a hunch they won’t be terribly impressed with this. School-sponsored prayer at military academies isn’t even up to the Senate; it’s up to courts, which have been consistently supporting church-state separation in this area. And what does that leave for Robertson, Falwell, and Dobson? A bill that lets the Boy Scouts onto Defense Department property. Yeah, just what they’ve always wanted.
“There are so many issues that could be acted on,” said Paul Weyrich, a prominent conservative leader who heads the Free Congress Foundation. “There are issues that the House has acted on that could be taken up in the Senate. Nothing has been taken up in the Senate. It’s evident nothing is going to get done in this session because we only have a couple of weeks to go.”
“For a good period of time he was very receptive to the [conservative] social agenda,” said Weyrich of Frist. “It seems after the Schiavo case that he hasn’t been as interested. I don’t know whether a connection is there or not.”
Note to religious right groups and activists: are you going to take this lying down? After all you’ve done for the GOP? It sounds like these guys just take you for granted and only call when they want money or foot soldiers. I say you teach them a lesson — leave the Republicans behind and form your own party that won’t compromise and won’t ignore the issues you really care about.
If not, GOP leaders will just assume they can ignore you without consequences. You don’t want that do you?