Cantor seeks your governing help

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House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) doesn't excel when it comes to actual governing, but he's a big fan of "rebranding" -- so much so that he's launched four rebranding initiatives in the last four years.

There is, however, a fair amount of overlap between the projects. In 2010, for example, Cantor came up with a gimmick called the "YouCut" project -- House Republicans would come up with a list of government programs they don't like, and the public could go online and vote on which one GOP lawmakers would eliminate first. As is usually the case with so many of the Majority Leader's rebranding ideas, this caused a bit of a stir for a few days, before quietly fading away.

Cantor is nothing if not persistent (thanks to my colleague Tricia McKinney for the heads-up).

House Republicans are launching a new website aimed at engaging citizens in the legislative process by allowing them to "co-sponsor" bills introduced in Congress.

Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) touted the new site, cosponsor.gov, at a press conference Tuesday. "This is a program and a website designed to engender a national conversation online about legislation that we're considering here in Congress," Cantor said. "It is yet another example of our trying to live up to the commitment of transparency, the fact that this is a government that belongs to the people, and they ought to know what's going on."

Even as public-relations gimmicks go, I'm not entirely sure what the point of this is (unless voters have to register to participate and the Republican Party just wants to collect personal info). If John Doe likes a bill, he can go online and "cosponsor" it? That's nice, I suppose, but why bother? There already public-opinion polls that let policymakers know what proposals are popular (as a rule, Cantor and his caucus don't care what enjoys broad public support, and only pursue legislation that serves the GOP's ideological goals).

But there's a larger concern here: Congress generally doesn't function and struggles badly to complete basic tasks. House Republicans are deeply divided and can't pass any meaningful legislation. Federal lawmakers have important responsibilities and the nation has pressing challenges that require serious responses.

And the House Majority Leader is preoccupied with online gimmicks? Again?

If Cantor and House Republicans excelled in governing, had a compelling policy agenda, and wanted to occasionally have fun with Internet stunts, it'd be easy to overlook harmless distractions like these. But therein lies the point: the Majority Leader has abandoned the pretense of governing, taking his party's "brand" more seriously than his party's ability to get anything done.