Conservative Agenda for 2005 — January 2005

Here are leading conservative priorities for 2005.

Curb Supremacist Judges 
Congress should restore self-government by limiting the jurisdiction of the out-of-control judges. As the U.S. Constitution says, laws must be made by our elected representatives – not by judges. Candidate George W. Bush campaigned against activist judges who legislate from the bench and try to remake our culture, and we expect him and the 55-44 Republican majority in the Senate to deliver on those promises.

We expect Bush to use the Supreme Court litmus test he announced in his St. Louis debate: “I wouldn’t pick a judge who said that the Pledge of Allegiance couldn’t be said in a school because it had the words ‘under God’ in it.” He should nominate and the Senate should confirm only judges who meet the standards of the Republican Platform: “judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life.” Bush’s constituency will not accept another mistake like Justice David Souter, whose lack of a paper trail made him vulnerable to capture by judicial activists.

The President and the Senate should require nominees to make clear whether they believe in the Constitution as written or believe that the Constitution can evolve into whatever Supreme Court Justices say it is — a heresy first enunciated by the Warren Court in the 1958 case of Cooper v. Aaron. All candidates should be rejected who admit to the latter view.

Congress should pass a law providing that federal judges have no power to hear a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act, or to hear a federal challenge to state marriage amendments, or to change the definition of marriage to something other than one man and one woman, or to give unmarried persons the legal benefits of husbands and wives. The House of Representatives passed John Hostettler’s (R-IN) bill in the fall of 2004, but the Senate took no action, so it must be reintroduced and passed again in 2005.

The November 2nd election proved that defense of marriage is more popular than George W. Bush. In ten of the eleven states (all except the very pro-Bush Utah) that passed marriage amendments, the marriage amendment received more votes than President Bush. It’s not only right, it is good politics to push ahead on protection of traditional marriage at every level and with all possible legislation.

Congress should pass a law providing that federal judges have no power to ban the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments, and other public acknowledgments of God by public officials or on public property. Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) bill to protect the Pledge of Allegiance passed the House in the fall of 2004, but the Senate took no action, so it must be reintroduced and passed again in 2005. We also support Rep. Robert Aderholt’s (R-AL) bill to protect the Ten Commandments from federal judges.

Congress should amend a Watergate-era law, the Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Awards Act, to prevent the ACLU and others from collecting attorney’s fees for lawsuits claiming that the public acknowledgment of God is an “establishment of religion” prohibited by the First Amendment. Congress should cut off this taxpayer subsidy for ACLU lawsuits.

The Senate and House Judiciary Committees should hold weekly hearings on various proposals to reform the judiciary, to review and debate court decisions that declare laws or traditional practices unconstitutional, to limit the jurisdiction of federal judges on matters where we don’t trust them, to take away the power of a single federal judge to use an injunction to block enforcement of a referendum during the years that a case winds its way through the court system, to limit consent decrees to one or two years, and to impeach judges who base decisions on foreign law instead of on the U.S. Constitution. Phyllis Schlafly’s book The Supremacists should be used as the citizen’s handbook for action.

Protect American Sovereignty 
The biggest threat to U.S. sovereignty at the present time is the Bush Administration’s attempt to lock the United States into a 34-nation Western Hemisphere economic union called the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA). This plan is to be implemented by first rushing CAFTA (U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement) through Congress early in 2005.

FTAA and CAFTA would subject U.S. sovereignty and commerce to panels and tribunals dominated by other Western Hemisphere countries. President George W. Bush approved this goal when he signed the Declaration of Quebec City on April 22, 2001, which is a “commitment to hemispheric integration” larded with favorite UN doubletalk such as “interdependent,” “greater economic integration,” and “sustainable development.”

The United States is an oasis of freedom and prosperity in the Western Hemisphere — that’s why people from other countries are risking their lives to come here, legally or illegally. Americans have everything to lose if we subject ourselves to tribunals dominated by the socialist pro-gay country to our north and the corrupt and Communist governments to our south. The real purpose behind FTAA and CAFTA is to integrate low-wage workers in other Western Hemisphere countries into the U.S. economy. This will make U.S. citizens compete with millions of workers willing to work for pennies a day.

Tell your Members of Congress that you consider a vote for CAFTA or FTAA to be a vote against America, against our sovereignty and independence, and against jobs for U.S. citizens.

Stop Entry of Illegal Aliens 
The U.S. Constitution makes it the duty of the Federal Government to “protect each of [the states] against invasion,” so it’s the duty of Congress and the President to close all our borders to illegal entry by using increased personnel, technology, aerial surveillance, and military troops. At least 4,000 illegal aliens enter daily across the Arizona border alone, and the government has no way of separating out Middle Easterners; persons who committed crimes in the United States, returned to Mexico, and then are reentering our country; and persons with communicable diseases.

The border patrol estimates that over the last year it apprehended 55,890 people who are OTMs (Other Than Mexicans), that 190,000 have melted into the U.S. population, including aliens from Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Russia, China, Egypt, Iran and Iraq. Let’s have an accounting of who is responsible and what Homeland Security is doing about this.

The overwhelming success of Proposition 200 in Arizona, which requires a valid I.D. in order to vote or to receive benefits paid by state taxpayers, shows that the grassroots are demanding that our government enforce our laws against illegal aliens. It passed by 56% to 44% even though it was opposed by Big Government (all public officials of both parties), Big Business (the Chamber of Commerce), Big Labor (the Service Employees International Union), and Big Church (the Catholic Bishops). Even 47% of Arizona Hispanics voted in favor of Prop 200. The immigrants who had stood in long lines to come here legally see no reason to allow their tax dollars to go to people who come here illegally.

A major national security issue is driver’s licenses granted to illegal aliens by eleven states. Congress should pass a law to cut off highway funds to states that grant driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. Surely it is a more important use of the federal spending power than cutting off highway funds from states that don’t nag drivers about wearing seat belts. It is a disgrace that the big Intelligence Act passed by Congress just before adjournment failed to plug this hole in our security, and we thank Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) for his valiant effort to remedy this mistake.

Congress should prohibit the Bush Administration from going forward with a Social Security “totalization” agreement with Mexico. Totalization would enable the illegal aliens to join our Social Security system with credit for time spent working illegally and/or under a stolen Social Security number. President Bush is planning a media blitz to convince Americans that Social Security should be reformed by creating private accounts. It’s ridiculous to talk about saving Social Security while going forward with a secret plan to include illegal aliens.

Disease is one of the most important reasons to stop the traffic of illegal aliens. They put an enormous burden on our health care system at the same time that so many Americans lack health insurance. Legal immigrants are required to be free from disease, but no one examines the 4,000 illegals who enter our country every day and disappear into our population. They are bringing diseases that we never had before in the United States or which we eradicated decades ago.

Tuberculosis had virtually disappeared from the United States, but is now expanding rapidly, particularly a drug-resistant variety until recently endemic only to Mexico. Chagas, for which there is no effective cure, infects 18 million people in Latin America, causes 500,000 deaths annually, and was unknown in the United States until recently, has now infected our blood supply. Suddenly, 7,000 cases of Leprosy have appeared brought in by illegal aliens from India, Brazil, the Caribbean, and Mexico. West Nile Virus, which comes from Africa, was unheard of in the United States prior to 1998 and now infects tens of thousands of people in 21 states. Malaria had been obliterated from the U.S., but is now reemerging. Since 1991, the U.S. hasn’t had a case of a native-born American getting polio (except from the oral polio vaccine) but aliens are bringing back polio, too.

Congress should stiffen its backbone against the Bush Administration plan to grant amnesty to illegal aliens under the euphemism of giving “the millions of undocumented men and women now employed in the United States . . . a new temporary-worker program that will match willing foreign workers with willing American employers when no Americans can be found to fill the jobs.” Billions of foreigners are “willing” to work for a few dollars a day (the average wage in China is 64 cents an hour) and Americans are not willing to work for Third World wages.

Two dozen Congressmen wrote a letter to the President opposing his plan, primarily for national security reasons, but Bush brushed them off with elitist disdain. “I get letters all the time from people who are trying to steer me one way or the other,” he said; “I’m going to move forward.”

Congress should terminate H-1B visas. It was a betrayal of American workers when Congress in 2004 increased the number of allowable H-1B visas to import 20,000 more foreign workers at the same time that the U.S. has more than a hundred thousand unemployed American engineers and computer specialists.

Congress should take many other actions to protect Americans, such as: abolish the Diversity Visa Lottery Immigrant Program; pass the CLEAR Act, which empowers local police to enforce immigration laws and share information with Homeland Security; and enforce the law that forbids states to grant the subsidy of in-state college tuition to illegal aliens.

Rep. Ray LaHood (R-IL), said, “If the President wants to maintain credibility with House Republicans, he has to be engaged and willing to pass immigration reform that conservatives want. If he’s missing in action on that issue, he’s going to have big problems.” The cover story in the December 31 issue of National Review warns that President Bush’s guest-worker proposal “threatens to do irreparable damage” to the Republican coalition because there is a storm of grassroots anger on this issue and “there’s no issue where the beliefs and interests of the party rank-and-file diverge more radically from the beliefs and interests of the party leaders.”

Tell your Member of Congress to join the Immigration Caucus led by Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO). It would be a political blunder of the first magnitude if President Bush remains silent while Senator Hillary Clinton sounds off daily against illegal aliens and makes herself the national champion on this popular issue.

The Federal Spending Power 
Of course, conservatives expect Congress to stop the runaway federal spending that plagued George W. Bush’s first administration. It’s the job of the House of Representatives to reduce the bloated federal budget and to stop funding institutions that spend our money to oppose American values.

U.S. colleges and universities are some of the biggest enemies of the values of red-state Americans. Congress can’t order colleges what to teach or to fire their tenured Marxist professors, but since universities are among the largest recipients of federal handouts, Congress should use its power of the purse to teach them a lesson. Judicial supremacists recently nullified the Solomon Amendment, which requires universities that take taxpayers’ money to allow access on their campuses to military recruiters. The congressional response in 2005 should be to eliminate from the federal budget those universities that exclude the military.

Bush’s Feminist Mischief 
Women in combat? The Bush Administration is moving fast to force female soldiers, including mothers, into ground-combat units for the first time in U.S. history. A November 29 briefing to senior Army officers at the Pentagon presented a plan to scrap the military’s ban on collocation (the deployment of mixed-sex noncombat units alongside all-male combat-units). This radical change is being done without public announcement and despite the law which requires that Congress receive formal notice 30 legislative days in advance when both Houses are in session.

The Army claims it needs women including mothers in battle because of a shortage of male combat troops. If there is a shortage, the reason is the sex-based recruiting quotas which produce about a 15% quota of female recruits. For years, the military has been concealing these quotas, as well as the different standards in training which disguise the physical differences between men and women.

We have a volunteer army, but the women who volunteered did so in the belief that our government would obey regulations and the law and not put women in land-combat. Surveys of military women show that about 90% of them oppose putting women in land-combat positions because they know they are not the physical equal of men.

Putting women in all combat positions has been a longtime goal of the radical feminist movement, including advocates of the Equal Rights Amendment, the tax-funded feminist lobby called DACOWITS, and feminist spokespersons such as (now Supreme Court Justices) Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Of course, the feminists who are pushing this uncivilized goal are not the ones who will be on the ground in Iraq.

After all our years of fighting against irrational feminist “equality,” will George W. Bush — the conservative we just elected — be the one who sends women and mothers out to fight his war? Governor Schwarzenegger invented the best label for men like this: girlie men.

Title IX. The Bush Administration and Congress should fix the injustices caused by the feminist-enforced Title IX quotas, which specify that the proportion of men to women who participate in competitive sports cannot exceed their proportional enrollment in college. This quota system (not created by the law, but by Carter and Clinton feminists) has caused the senseless elimination of hundreds of men’s college teams (such as 171 wrestling teams), and unless Bush or Congress takes action to stop this nonsense, high school sports are next on the feminists’ hit list.

In his first Administration, President Bush appointed a commission to deal with the Title IX injustices, but he foolishly put feminists on it, and that mistake prevented any action to remedy the problem. Now, the Bush Justice Department is before the Supreme Court trying to get activist judges to expand the mischief of Title IX by creating a new cause of action to allow lawsuits to be filed against high schools.

Federal Education Problems 
Mental Health. A radical plan to subject all children to mental health screening originated in the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (NFCMH) created by President George W. Bush in 2002. The NFCMH recommends “routine and comprehensive” testing and mental health screening for every child in America, including preschoolers. President Bush has instructed 25 federal agencies to develop a plan to implement the Commission’s recommendations.

The NFCMH recommends “linkage” of these mental examinations with “state-of-the-art treatments” using “specific medications for specific conditions.” This means prescribing more expensive, ineffective and dangerous patented anti-depressants and anti-psychotic drugs. Will parents face coercion and threats of excluding their child from school, or child-neglect charges, if they refuse privacy-invading interrogations or unproven medications? How will a child remove a stigmatizing label from his records?

In 2004, Congress voted $20 million to fund the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health’s recommendations. Parental consent language was deleted by the Senate. Eagle Forum supports Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-TX) “Let Parents Raise Their Kids Act,” which would forbid federal funds from being used for any universal or mandatory mental-health screening of students without the express, written, voluntary, informed consent of their parents.

Most parents will do anything to avoid having their child labeled as mentally unfit. But liberal educrats control the new mental screening tests, and conservative views about religion, marriage, homeschooling, drug medication, government, guns, and immigration will eventually be considered signs of mental problems. Unless we act now, parents will be compelled to steer their children away from conservative values just to pass the mental screening exams and avoid a hurtful label.

Drug Coercion. The overprescription of drugs for children, and the coercive way that parents of public school students have been induced to put their children on drugs, is a national scandal. Eagle Forum has worked for years to prevent such coercion. Eagle Forum members have supported state school boards and state legislatures in adopting policies to prevent such coercion.

In 2004, Congress’s reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) included language sponsored by Rep. Max Burns (R-GA) that forbids drug coercion of children in order to attend public schools. However, this law only protects special-needs children under IDEA, and it only covers psycho-stimulants (Ritalin-type drugs), not anti-depressants or anti-psychotic drugs. Eagle Forum supports a federal law to forbid coerced drugging with psychotropic medicine of children in all schools that receive federal money (which is nearly all public schools).

Federal Curriculum. Despite Eagle Forum’s vigorous opposition, Congress in 2004 passed the American History and Civics Education Act, which sets up student and teacher academies to teach students key elements of history, such as events, ideas, people, and documents, and to instruct teachers how to teach it. Grant money from U.S. taxpayers will flow to university history professors, most of whom are trying to rewrite history according to their leftwing, anti-American, multiculturalism, diversity, race- and gender-obsessed biases.

Eagle Forum seeks congressional hearings on this project and on the activities of the Center for Civic Education, including its book We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution, which federal law has designated the standard for civics education in public schools, but whose bias has been eloquently exposed in Fed Ed: The New Federal Curriculum by Allen Quist.

National Science Tests. Eagle Forum supports repealing the language of the No Child Left Behind Act which mandates science standards beginning in 2005-2006, and science testing beginning in 2007-2008 for grades 3 through 5, grades 6 through 9, and grades 10 through 12. The science testing requirement, which was inserted into the law at the very end of conference negotiations without debate, opens the door for national test standards to enforce the teaching of evolution. The version that passed the House did not include this requirement, and most Congressmen believed that the law would require testing only for reading and math. The Daschle-Kennedy Senate inserted the harmful science testing provision, which could compel new evolution indoctrination for eight-year-olds nationwide.