{"id":7805,"date":"2006-06-29T09:44:41","date_gmt":"2006-06-29T13:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7805"},"modified":"2006-06-29T09:44:41","modified_gmt":"2006-06-29T13:44:41","slug":"the-american-values-agenda-cant-get-out-of-the-starting-blocs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-american-values-agenda-cant-get-out-of-the-starting-blocs\/","title":{"rendered":"The ‘American Values Agenda’ can’t get out of the starting blocs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The House Republicans’ “American Values Agenda<\/a>,” a sop to the party’s far-right base, includes some unusually vapid ideas, including a uniquely pernicious proposal called the “[tag]Pledge Protection Act[\/tag].”<\/p>\n

Here’s the idea: some people believe Congress violated the separation of church and state when it changed the Pledge in 1954, adding the phrase “[tag]under God[\/tag].” Worried that some federal courts might agree with this analysis, the House GOP wants to strip the judiciary<\/a> of the ability to hear cases involving the Pledge, whether the case has merit or not.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee was scheduled to help get the ball rolling on the measure, but Republicans suddenly ran into a problem: they didn’t have the votes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

House Republicans failed Wednesday to advance a bill protecting the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. Only a day earlier, the GOP had placed the measure on its “[tag]American Values Agenda[\/tag]” in hopes of bolstering the party’s prospects in the fall election.<\/p>\n

But Republicans could not muster a simple majority on the issue in a committee where they outnumber Democrats by six. […]<\/p>\n

A simple majority is required to report a bill to the House floor with a favorable committee recommendation. The House Judiciary Committee split 15-15 on the pledge bill Wednesday; Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C., joined 14 Democrats to oppose it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And why would Inglis, a far-right lawmaker from South Carolina, buck his party on this? Because, as he told reporters, once Congress starts down the “court-stripping” road, maybe some future-Congress led by radical liberals could start denying courts jurisdiction on issues conservatives care about.
\n
\nNow, this may seem like procedural trivia. It’s a fairly obscure bill stuck in a House committee. But a) it’s amusing to see Republicans unable to advance their own “American Values Agenda”; and b) Judiciary Committee Chairman James [tag]Sensenbrenner[\/tag] (R-WI) tried to play fast and loose<\/a> with the rules to get his bill through anyway, but failed.<\/p>\n

Can’t anybody here play this game?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The House Republicans’ “American Values Agenda,” a sop to the party’s far-right base, includes some unusually vapid ideas, including a uniquely pernicious proposal called the “[tag]Pledge Protection Act[\/tag].” Here’s the idea: some people believe Congress violated the separation of church and state when it changed the Pledge in 1954, adding the phrase “[tag]under God[\/tag].” Worried […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7805\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}