WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans say the revamping of Social Security is their top legislative goal of 2005, with further tax cuts, energy independence, and lawsuit limits listed as other issues that will get their attention in the coming months.

Democrats also revealed yesterday their top 10 priorities for the 109th Congress just getting under way, a list that emphasizes health, education, and jobs. It omits many of the issues, including Social Security, that President Bush and his GOP allies want this Congress to enact.

Senate Majority Leader Frist, a Republican of Tennessee, said at a news conference that S.1, the first Senate bill to be introduced in the new session, “has been reserved for what is probably the most important domestic legislation we will address in this Congress, and that is modernizing and strengthening the Social Security program.”

Democrats said they would look at what Republicans have to offer but disputed the need for urgency in changing a system that will be financially solvent for decades to come. “This is no crisis, so why should we be lurching forward?” asked the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada.

Amending the Constitution to ban gay marriage was not on the GOP’s top 10 list, but Mr. Frist said he was hopeful the measure, defeated in the last Congress, will pass in this one. He did not give a timetable for considering it.

The GOP list included one measure to limit abortion, a bill – defeated in past years – that would bar transporting a minor across state lines to obtain an abortion so as to avoid parental consent laws in the state where the minor lives.

Mr. Frist said the first major bill that could come up for a vote this year is legislation limiting class action lawsuits, a bill that came close to passing last year.

Other items include making permanent the tax cuts of recent years that dealt with the marriage penalty, the estate tax, and capital gains taxes. Health savings accounts are among health matters that will draw attention.