Do Jim Jordan's rants actually accomplish anything meaningful?

"You're ranting again." — Dr. Anthony Fauci "I'm not ranting." — U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan "Yes, you are." — Fauci Of course Jim Jordan was ranting. That's what the Republican congressman from Urbana does. His exertions at a hearing Thursday of the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis even earned him a gaveling from the Democratic chairman of the committee when he exceeded his time limit and an admonition from another Democratic member "to respect the chair and shut your mouth." Still, he persisted and eventually got Fauci to provide useful parameters for assessing whether and when measures intended to limit the spread of the virus can be lifted. Jordan's sparring with Fauci over what Jordan characterized as "one year of lost liberty" and an assault on First Amendment freedoms was just one example from last week of his extremist views. He also joined an effort to strip Major League Baseball of its antitrust protections as punishment for moving this year's All-Star Game out of Atlanta to protest a new voting law in Georgia, and he demanded that the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee call the U.S. secretary of homeland security to testify about what Jordan said he'd observed at the Mexican border the previous week: "the dire consequences of President Biden's radical immigration policies." From Jordan's perspective he is fighting to protect Americans from the radicalism of Democrats and anyone who sees issues the way they do, and he almost always portrays their views in apocalyptic terms. As with his questioning of Fauci, however, he sometimes serves a democratic, small "d," purpose. "What measure, what standard, what objective outcome do we have to reach before Americans get their liberty and freedoms back?" Jordan asked Fauci, the nation's top expert on infectious diseases. "I don't look at this as a liberty thing, Congressman Jordan," Fauci responded. "I look at this as a public health thing. I disagree with you on that completely." Jordan's portrayal of an assault on liberty ignored the care that the governor of his own state, Mike DeWine, a fellow Republican, has taken to ensure that his administration's health orders do not abridge First Amendment freedoms. On April 9, for example, his office announced a clarification of the state Health Department's latest order: "Other than the facial covering requirements, the social distancing, congregating and capacity requirements of the order do not apply to religious observances and First Amendment activities, including activities by the media, as has been the case since the beginning of the pandemic." Further, courts across the country have ruled against health orders they considered unwarranted under the First Amendment. In another example from April 9, by chance the same day that the Ohio Health Department updated its order, the U.S. Supreme Court lifted limits that California had placed on religious gatherings in private homes. So Fauci was justified in rejecting Jordan's hysteria about loss of First Amendment freedoms, but he also provided important benchmarks for easing health orders: when the daily number of new infections drops from the roughly 60,000 of the present, which could presage a new surge, to "well below 10,000," and when the "overwhelming majority" of Americans get vaccinated, perhaps by early to midsummer. Likewise, Jordan's demand Thursday that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas appear before the Judiciary Committee could provide the nation with answers to important questions about the surge of migrants at the border, although, of course, it also would allow Jordan, the committee's ranking member, to preen again. Democrats have resisted him. On the other hand, Jordan's cosponsorship of a bill to revoke Major League Baseball's antitrust exemption was without small "d" democratic merit. It was strictly a partisan display of outrage with virtually no chance of going anywhere in a Democratic-controlled Congress. "Big Tech, Big Media and now Big Sports are working feverishly to 'cancel' conservative voices," Jordan said Wednesday in a news release. So much for MLB's First Amendment right to speak and act against legislation passed under the pretense that voting needs to be more secure and whose effect will be to limit minorities' rights. Jeffrey Sites, a Democrat from Lima who plans to challenge Jordan for his 4th Congressional District seat next year, attacked him over the bill, asking, "Why is the self-proclaimed enemy of 'cancel culture' trying to 'cancel' baseball?" Sites, who finished second in last year's Democratic primary in the district, which includes Elyria, Amherst and Oberlin, probably has as little chance of unseating him as last year's primary winner, unless the district is un-gerrymandered. He might do as well to hope secretly that the bill passes because it likely would limit MLB's power to block owners from moving franchises. If the Indians left Cleveland, Democratic, Republican and independent voters alike might be eager to oust a congressman who helped make it possible and not regret in the least the little bit of small "d" democracy he engendered. Andy Young is editor emeritus of The Chronicle-Telegram. Contact him at (440) 329-7111 or ayoung@chroniclet.com.