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Former Vice President Mike Pence has unveiled a new policy platform for Republicans ahead of this year’s midterms elections, offering a framework for candidates—and possibly himself—ahead of a potential 2024 presidential run.
Pence’s “Freedom Agenda,” released Thursday, combines traditional Republican goals like increasing American energy production, cutting taxes and rolling back regulations with priorities pursued by former President Donald Trump on issues like trade and immigration. Pence also offers plenty of culture war red meat for the GOP base, pledging, for instance, to save women’s sports by “ensuring that sports competitions are between those who share their God-given gender” and calling for all high school students to pass a civics test.
“Elections are about the future, and I think it’s absolutely essential that, while we do our part to take the fight to the failed policies of the Biden administration and the radical left, at the same time, we want to offer a compelling vision built on our highest American ideals,” Pence said ahead of the plan’s release. “It really is an effort to put in one place the agenda that I think carried us to the White House in 2016, carried two Bush presidencies to the White House and carried Ronald Reagan to the White House in 1980.”
Much of the 28-page plan reads like the platform of a presidential campaign, underscoring Pence’s ambitions and providing a clear road map of the themes and policies he is likely to pursue if he moves forward with a 2024 run. While the former Indiana governor in recent weeks has worked to distance himself from his former boss as he begins to reintroduce himself to voters and develop a political identity of his own, he has also been careful to tie himself to the policies of the Trump-Pence administration, which remain extremely popular among Republican voters.
It’s part of what aides see as Pence’s unique opportunity, as a former talk radio host, congressman and Indiana governor, to merge the traditional conservative movement with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” agenda.
“There is a winning coalition for America that believes in the traditionally conservative values that the vice president has championed through his career,” said Marc Short, co-chair of Advancing American Freedom, the advocacy group Pence launched last year.
Pence’s plan comes as the GOP has been at odds over the wisdom of offering voters a concrete policy agenda ahead of the midterm elections this year. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has been pointedly opposed to such efforts, arguing that Republicans should keep the focus on President Joe Biden, whose popularity has slumped amid the highest inflation in 40 years and the Russian war in Ukraine, and make the election a referendum on him.
The risks came into stark relief last month when Florida Sen. Rick Scott, another potential 2024 contender and the chair of the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, unveiled his 11-point plan to “rescue America.” The effort drew immediate criticism from Democrats and even some Republicans, particularly its call for all Americans to “pay some income tax to have skin in the game” — a move that would amount to a tax hike for millions of people who pay no income tax because they earn so little.
House Republicans, meanwhile, have been working on their own “Commitment to America” plan with echoes of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America,” which Republicans unveiled in 1994 before sweeping the midterms that year.
“For the American public to join with you and support you, first they want to know what will you do,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said at the party’s annual retreat in Jacksonville, Florida, last week.
Candidates on the campaign trail have expressed similar sentiment.
At a Republican Senate primary debate in Ohio on Monday, several of the candidates applauded Scott for his effort, even as they said they disagreed with parts of his plan.
“I’m so sick of Republicans who say, ‘Well, we’re just going to push back against the Biden agenda.’ Well, of course we’re going to do that. But what are we gonna actually do for our voters?” candidate J.D. Vance asked. “There are a lot of problems out there. A lot of very serious problems. And we can’t just sort of stick our flag in the mud and say, ‘We’re against, we’re against, we’re against.’ We gotta be for stuff.”
Pence said that was part of his intention.
“As important as it is for us to criticize and to confront and to be the loyal opposition,” he said, it is “absolutely of equal importance that we offer a positive, compelling vision built on our highest ideals and frankly the successes that we were able to demonstrate during our administration.”
The economic plan unveiled Thursday calls for fast-tracking permits for oil and gas production, expanding drilling on federal lands and offshore and pursuing trade agreements that better protect American workers. On foreign policy, Pence calls on China to “establish a victims compensation and economic recovery fund” for “negligently unleashing and hiding the origins of COVID-19.”
On immigration, Pence’s agenda sounds much like a Trump press release. It calls on leaders to “oppose all forms of amnesty,” typically defined as a path to citizenship for those who entered the country illegally, and seeks an end to what he calls “chain migration” by limiting family reunification to an immigrant’s nuclear family. It also calls for promoting “the patriotic assimilation of immigrants” and finishing Trump’s border wall.
Under a section dedicated to “protecting American culture,” Pence calls for the promotion of “patriotic education” by ending “radical political indoctrination—including the teaching of anti-American racist ideologies like Critical Race Theory,” which views racism as systemic in the nation’s institutions. There is little to no evidence that critical race theory is being taught to K-12 public school students.
Pence also calls on states and local jurisdictions to require that all high school students pass a test on the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Federalist Papers to graduate. And he seeks limits on mail-in voting and early in-person voting, as well as mandatory voter identification, among other election measures.
The plan comes as Pence has been raising his public profile, making frequent media appearances, headlining political events and delivering policy speeches. He has traveled in recent weeks to South Korea, Israel and the Ukrainian border with Poland, where he greeted fleeing refugees. And he has paid numerous visits to early voting states, including New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina, which he’ll return to next month.
Meanwhile, his advocacy group is spending millions of dollars on ads and filing amicus briefs opposing vaccine mandates and abortion rights, and he’s working on a pair of books in addition to projects with the conservative Heritage Foundation and Young America’s Foundation.
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Policy Point #1: I (Pence) quit pretending like I’m relevant.
Coming out against immigration as we find ourselves paying more for everything due to not having enough workers takes a special kind of delusion. And it’s out of step with what Americans want.
In the last two years, for the first time in modern history, more Americans state a preference for increased immigration than for decreased immigration.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1660/immigration.aspx
Embarrassing Dummy!!!!!
👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎
Pandering still to the radical right. Actually, these awful references should end — radical left, radical right — as they seek to enrage the reader rather than focus on issues for which each side of the aisle should address.
This foolishness about CRT is another rallying cry for then the GOP base, yet CRT is not taught anywhere. Much ado about a false narrative — again pandering to an agitated based about a made-up crisis. And, one must ask if it is truly divisive to acknowledge that race, or gender, or ethnicity-based discrimination is wrong. However, the discussion should focus on how to achieve positive outcome for all US citizens — be they in educational facilities or in the workplace. Being racist is not a crime but allowing racist actions to erase rights of citizens is.
Yes, Civics should [once again] be taught in schools. That would allow all to understand how elections work and how the peaceful transfer of power must occur. Apparently, many were not aware between November 2020 and 6 January 2021. Civics teaching and discussions would allow students to critically review government structures and ask if those current are actually the best or most appropriate, for instance, to elect representation for state and federal offices. One might just question the need for the Electoral College to remain in a nation well connected for split-second communications. One might ask if in the land of the free and home of the brave, why direct election of the president actually does not exist. One might ponder if the US is a real democracy or seek details about weak points of the constitutional republic. Civics, yes please.
Pence acted correctly on 6 January 2022.
Looking toward 2024, might Pence define a plan to establish decorum and civility and a code of ethics to direction actions and antics on both side of the aisle. Direction is sorely needed as the run-amok bi-lateral disrespectful, nasty and unbecoming behaviour rife with innuendo, falsehoods, misinformation and threats has rendered governance to a tired sit-com.
Could Pence effect an administration where each member of Congress could vote per party, per state, but also per conscience for what each may consider the best outcome for their constituents and for the Union without fear of [party-based] reprisals and reprimands.
We The People realize that radicals exist on each side, yet those members of Congress that may be considered moderate or somewhere between the two extremes are not empowered or have chosen not to be engaged to seek sound compromises that would benefit all citizens. We The People basically are stuck with two and four-year campaigns waged by Congress to ensure they maintain a nice salary along with taxpayer paid lux healthcare, transportation and dining.
Maybe term limits might not be a bad idea. Maybe a ‘my-rep-rated’ report should accompany every ballot. One opines that the structure of Congress — senate and house districts — do not appropriately represent the population distribution vis-à-vis urban and rural areas, gerrymandering notwithstanding. The agrarian US structure reflecting the Jeffersonian ideal is not reflective of today’s highly urbanized nation. The GOP has espoused and touted local control as key; if that indeed is what is desired, then free urban areas from excessive overreact by Statehouses nationwide so that locals can control.