November 23, 2010
Social Issues On The Backburner For Congress
By Scott Conroy & Erin McPike
In another election year and under different economic circumstances, Republican Rep.-elect James Lankford of Oklahoma's 5th District might have arrived in Washington with a to-do list highlighting social issues at the very top.
Before launching his House campaign, Lankford was the director of the largest Christian youth camp in America, and his socially conservative positions helped attract the high-profile endorsements of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Oklahoma Rep. J.C. Watts.
Although he made his leadership of Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center a focal point of his campaign biography and did not shy away from talking about social issues when asked about them in an interview with RealClearPolitics, Lankford was clear that his priorities were elsewhere. His immediate focus, he said, was on tackling the national debt -- a task he framed in moral terms.
"I don't know of another generation of leaders that has said, ?Times are tough. I'm going to make it tougher on my kids to make it easier on me,'" said Lankford, a first-time elected officeholder who looks younger than his 42 years. "As weird as it sounds, I think people that I'm interacting with see debt as a moral issue, and they think if you will go aggressively after debt, that is the moral issue of our day."
Lankford is not the first politician to talk about reducing the debt as a moral cause. But it is perhaps indicative of the reach that the tea party movement's tenets had in this past election that an incoming congressman who spent the better part of his professional life working at a religious institution remained so focused on spending.
Though he called himself "tenaciously pro-life" and said that he did not believe Roe v. Wade to be settled law, Lankford indicated that he was unaccustomed to even talking about the abortion issue with a reporter.
"I wasn't asked often on the trail; I mean I just wasn't even asked," he said.
As he ate a hurried lunch between freshman orientation presentations, Lankford said that although he and other new Republican House members with backgrounds outside of politics had been seeking one another out, topics like abortion, gay marriage, and abstinence education had not been discussed.
"I'm not sure I've been in a conversation this week when those issues have even come up," Lankford said.
As the new Republican leadership prepares an agenda focused squarely on jobs, taxes and limiting the federal government's reach, social issues indeed seem poised to remain on the backburner in the next Congress.
Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King explained that in addition, legislation involving social issues might be futile in a Washington with a divided Congress and Democratic president.
"Whatever we might move will be faced with the opposition of the Senate and the president," he said.
King continued, "Here's what I think on the social issues side that has a reasonable chance of succeeding, and that is to shut off all funding to Planned Parenthood and similar organizations."
He added, "I think we have the votes to do that; I think we have a reasonable chance to get that done. That would be no funds going to any organization that provides abortion services or counseling."
Pressed on whether that would satisfy Republican voters who cast their ballots based on social issues, King, a staunch conservative himself, figured that it would. But he couched it as an economic issue.
"I think that we're going to start this Congress out, it will be about debt, deficit, jobs and the economy, but part of that is un-funding Planned Parenthood through the appropriations process," he said. "I think that would satisfy a lot of social conservatives. If we ended public funding for abortion in America, that would be a huge step in the right direction."
But socially conservative leaders outside of government are not buying the idea that their agendas have become mere afterthoughts in Washington. Gary Bauer, the president of American Values, wrote an op-ed in USA Today last week urging the new Congress to "restore America's sense of moral responsibility."
"If our politicians want to regain the trust of the American people, they will need to address not just matters of the pocketbook - but matters of the heart, too," Bauer wrote.
Bauer cited a poll conducted by his non-profit organization on Election Day, which showed that 58 percent of voters believed that the country was on the wrong track and that "at least part of it is due to the decline of moral and family values in society." But the poll did not seem to indicate any particular eagerness on the part of the American public for Congress to take up social issues while the economy remained such a pressing concern.
In the interview with RealClearPolitics, Lankford said that abortion, for instance, was simply not a topic that was often addressed at the federal level. Asked to name a policy idea that he was particularly enthusiastic about bringing to the table, the soon-to-be Oklahoma congressman, who has a Master's degree in divinity, gave an answer that sounded as though it had come straight from the tea party playbook.
"I would love for us to find ways to slow down the growth of our regulations," Lankford said. "And I do have a couple ideas buzzing around in my head of saying how do we wrap around all agencies in saying you can't continue to add things that no one's checked. It drives our business folks crazy."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/printpage/?url=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/11/23/social_issues_remain_on_the_backburner_for_new_congress_108043.html
