“American Values Agenda”

That’s the theme of this year’s GOP election year agenda according to CNN.

Billed as the “American Values Agenda,” the measures range from legislation that would “protect the Pledge of Allegiance from attacks by activist federal judges seeking to rule it unconstitutional” to a constitutional amendment “declaring marriage to be between a man and a woman.”

Otheres are seeing this as an election year stunt. Democrats are crying that they won’t put up with it and will lead the way for a better America.

Really?

Tim Grieve, in his piece on Salon.com’s War Room, says this about the so-called values agenda progress:

The GOP set to work right away Wednesday [June June 28] on the Pledge Protection Act, a bill that would strip federal courts of jurisdiction over Pledge of Allegiance litigation. The idea is to keep federal judges from taking the words “under God” out of the pledge, at least as it’s recited in the public schools, and that’s not something with which a lot of Republicans in the House would want to quibble.

But when the Pledge Protection Act came up for a vote in the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday, Republicans failed to muster the simple majority needed to get the bill to the House floor — despite the fact that they enjoy a 23-17 advantage on the committee.

The problem? Seven Republicans weren’t there for the vote, “showing up for the job you’re getting paid to do” apparently not being much of an American value for them. When an eighth Republican — South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis — joined 14 Democrats in voting no, the measure was stalled with a 15-15 tie. Inglis said he was voting no out of fear that if Republicans strip the courts of jurisdiction over the pledge, Democrats might adopt jurisdiction-stripping legislation on issues dear to Republicans if they ever win back control of Congress. Of course, that just means that Inglis didn’t get the message: The whole point of the American Values Agenda is to ensure that Democrats don’t win back the Congress.