Kevin McCarthy will announce it in a red Pittsburgh suburb, not on the Capitol steps. In most other ways, though, his Friday GOP agenda rollout will mirror Newt Gingrich’s 28-year-old Contract With America.
The blueprint that the California Republican plans to unveil is designed to serve as a voter messaging guide for party incumbents and candidates. Just as Gingrich’s “contract” aimed to do, this year’s Commitment to America is expected to set out the GOP’s plans for addressing pressing national problems before a midterm election that’s likely to hand it the House majority.
And McCarthy planned for his framework to echo the eight-point document that Republican lawmakers released on the Capitol steps ahead of their 1994 House takeover, inviting their snowy-haired former speaker to this year’s conference retreat and asking for his input on the plan itself. But the current frontrunner for speaker next year is taking pains to do what 2010’s House GOP leadership class couldn’t fully achieve with its own nod to Gingrich’s contract: get the entire conference on board, from the right flank to centrists.
“From the first day I became leader, the whole job was: You got to unite before you can win. Unite the conference. And then, it’s much better to unite in the minority before you get there, so we’ve talked about the tough issues,” McCarthy said in an interview. “It is so you’re prepared on Day 1. This is the product of a work in a conference for the last year and a half.”
McCarthy’s four-part agenda has widespread buy-in among House Republicans, including high-profile GOP candidates, according to conversations with a dozen sitting members. That appears to include prominent members of the House Freedom Caucus who weighed in on the McCarthy-backed blueprint, even as other members of the Donald Trump-aligned group are still withholding their public support.
“I haven’t seen all the details, but I am excited about it. It’s something the conference has been working on, gosh, seems like forever now,” first-term Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said, adding that she’s been involved in one of the plan’s task forces. “I am really looking forward to a unified Republican conference. I really am. I want to see that happen.”
It’s not clear, though, whether McCarthy can manage to avoid any conservative grumbling about his Commitment to America. Not every Freedom Caucus member is openly backing the agenda, which he plans to release alongside Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.).
The pro-Trump group’s chair, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), as well as Reps. Bob Good (R-Va.), Barry Moore (R-Ala.), and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), …read more
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/21/mccarthy-brass-ring-unifying-agenda-00057886