Faced with the prospect of losing their majority in the fall midterm election, House Republican leaders are accommodating vulnerable Republicans by force — and pressed two unlikely allies to cooperate on legislation addressing the jump in gasoline prices.

GOP leaders suggested that House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas) to work with Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.), who is facing a tough reelection race, on a bill to impose heavier fines on any energy company caught price gouging, said top GOP sources.

The bill passed yesterday by a 309 to 34 vote.

The alliance between Barton and Wilson is unusual because the two lawmakers have a strained relationship. In 2004, Barton tried to oust Wilson from his prestigious committee because she voted with Democrats on a motion that would have forced the Bush administration to release internal cost estimates of the Medicare prescription-drug law. ~The Hill

The leadership must really fear for Wilson’s seat if they are going to such lengths to encourage the passage of this hysterical legislation about price gouging. It is just revealing Wilson and the GOP to be as bereft of ideas as I have assumed them to be for many years.