Republicans see an opportunity to set a governing agenda to contrast with what they say is an increasingly rudderless Democratic-run Washington, but the effort has not yet coalesced.

They are still hammering out the details of what is intended to be a broad-based platform, lawmakers leading the effort told The Washington Times.

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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy created seven policy task forces back in June to craft that legislative agenda for Republicans to run on in the 2022 midterm elections and to govern on in 2023.

The outlines of the platform so far include opposing vaccine mandates, shearing the power of tech oligarchs, strengthening the U.S. defense systems to compete with China and reviving get-tough immigration policies.
Six months into the endeavor, what the lawmakers described were more akin to themes and goals than detailed policy proposals.

Mr. McCarthy, California Republican, promised that the seven policy teams will identify and develop legislative solutions to the biggest issues facing Americans.

These are the task forces:

• Jobs and Economy headed up by Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina.

• Big Tech Censorship led by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington.

• Future of American Freedoms led by Rep. Jim Jordan.

• Energy Climate and Conservation led by Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana.

• American Security, which includes border and immigration issues, led by Rep. John Katko of New York.

• Healthy Future headed up by Rep. Devin Nunes of California and Rep.Brett Guthrie of Kentucky.

• China Accountability led by Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas.

Each task force has nearly 20 members who are soliciting input from Republican conference members.

From there, a final product drawn from each task force will be created and rolled out before the conference at the Republican retreat early next year.

Mr. Jordan said it is still a work in progress…

A Republican House member said privately: “What’s going to be really important is that we focus on oversight and holding this administration accountable and we’re obviously going to stop all the garbage that they’re doing. The spending and the social policy — we’ll stop the garbage and then we’ll use our power of oversight. And I think you’ll see it exercised like it hasn’t been in a long time.”

“It’s all about party unity and selling a conservative vision to voters, even if some goals can’t be achieved overnight,” said the lawmaker, who works closely with leadership and didn’t want to be identified discussing legislative strategy.

“We got to lay out that case by showing what we’re doing with our majority. We don’t want to tell our base, ‘Give us a Republican House and we’re going to pass this law and that law.’ It’s not going to happen,” the GOP lawmaker said.

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(Excerpt from The Washington Times. Photo Credit: Getty Images)