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September 18, 2015 12:32 PM UTC

Republicans Vote to Defund Planned Parenthood; Budget Deal at Risk

  • 27 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Liberal group ProgressNow Colorado slams Coffman with the Planned Parenthood logo he used in an ad last year:

“Just a year ago, Mike Coffman was so desperate to run away his right-wing image that he misleadingly used Planned Parenthood’s logo in a campaign ad,” said ProgressNow Colorado executive director Amy Runyon-Harms. “Today, Coffman proved that his claims that he stands with women and their families were nothing more than a smokescreen to protect his political career.”

“The far right’s latest assault on women’s reproductive rights following the release of heavily-edited, consistently debunked videos is just the latest attempt by anti-abortion extremists to ban reproductive choice with no exceptions for the life of the mother, or cases of rape or incest,” said Runyon-Harms. “For too long, Mike Coffman has tried to play both sides of this issue in order to please his right-wing donors while scrambling to keep his competitive congressional seat. With today’s vote, Coffman proves to everyone that he doesn’t stand with women at all. He stands in the way.”

—–

Ugh
Ugh

Congressional Republicans have voted in favor of stripping federal funding from Planned Parenthood, with Colorado’s delegation splitting their vote equally across party lines.

The House vote was not entirely unexpected, though it remains unclear how today’s vote will ultimately affect the federal budget. But first, the Washington Post reports on two anti-choice votes:

One bill passed Friday, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, would impose criminal penalties on medical personnel who fail to aid an infant born after an attempted abortion. The other, the Defund Planned Parenthood Act, imposes a one-year moratorium on federal funding for the group, which Republicans say will allow for a thorough investigation of its practices. Any funding, supporters said, would be redirected to clinics that do not offer abortions…

…Democrats pointed out that Planned Parenthood has long been prohibited from spending federal money on abortions, thanks to appropriations riders dating back to the 1970s. And in a floor debate Friday, they called the bill an attack on women’s health care and noted that other health-care providers would be unable to absorb all of Planned Parenthood’s hundreds of thousands of patients.

“This bill is dumb, it’s foolish, and it’s mean-spirited,” said Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.). “The bill is based upon lies and exaggerations. If you want to have a truthful debate, then let’s talk about the 400,000 Pap smears, the 500,000 breast exams, the 4.5 million STD and HIV tests that Planned Parenthood does each year.”

We’re all in favor of a “truthful debate,” though we’d rather not discuss Pap smears at length in this space. Instead, we’ll direct you to Politico and the ramifications of the larger federal budget deal:

Republican leaders who are eyeing a rarely-deployed, fast-track budget procedure as a way to defund Planned Parenthood and stave off a government shutdown appear to be in for a rude awakening.

The idea is aimed at placating conservatives by giving them a way to pass legislation to strip Planned Parenthood of its funding and decouple the issue from the entire federal budget. But conservatives are balking at the proposal to use the majority-vote reconciliation process, calling it a “ruse” that, in the end, would leave Planned Parenthood’s federal funding intact and amount to little more than a feel-good exercise.

In a nutshell, this has turned into one hell of a political clusterfuck for the Republican Party. Vulnerable incumbents such as Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Aurora) are now on record seeking to defund Planned Parenthood entirely, and it looks like none of this will avert the second federal shutdown in three years.

Solid work, Boehner.

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27 thoughts on “Republicans Vote to Defund Planned Parenthood; Budget Deal at Risk”

  1. Coffman should have "bucked the party" and voted the other way. It would have meant nothing in reality but given himself huge cred with the media.

    Huge missed chance to be a moderate, and now the Dems are gonna barbecue him.

        1. If Udall's campaign had focused on GOTP penchant for for gov'the shutdowns, sequestration instead of budgeting and R inability to run the government responsibly, he might have had more succes.

          1. But his advisers saw women as the key (true enough) and didn't think we could wrap our flaky little heads around anything not specifically lady parts related.

      2. I agree.  Coffman seems pretty skilled at skating away from previous controversial votes and packaging himself as just enough of a "moderate" to turn a key percentage or two in the elections.  Look at how Coffman used that "hey, I support over-the-counter sales of birth control pills" gimmick in the last election to avoid discussion of his otherwise hard-line voting record on abortion.   And the voters shrugged.  They bought the packaging.

        Same issue with Coffman's votes on immigration, the debt limit, etc.

        And that's reflected in Coffman's two-tier approach to engaging with his constituents. The GOP faithful and activists get to talk to him face-to-face, in closed events. Outside the party circle, pretty much everyone else hears from Coffman through his mailings and his media purchases, plus the occasional distant public appearance.  And the different groups get different messages.

         

  2. I just hope Carroll's campaign is taking notes, item by item. Udall's mistake was to get stuck in a groove. Coffman's giving Carroll a buffet of bad policy to choose from

  3. According to the roll call, three Rinos from NY, PA and IL, voted "no" while two of the  last of the pro-life Dems voted "yes."  Stephen "Cantaloupe Calves" King voted "present." What's up with that?

  4. Now I understand why Rs invest so much energy in vilifying Pelosi. She's very good at her job whether her party is in the majority or the minority. She got things through as Speaker that never would have gone through without her and as minority leader she holds enough of her troops together in opposition to make a real difference as she did with the whole Iran deal dust up. She knows how to count. She doesn't say she has the vote until she knows she does, unlike the GOP congressional leadership who tend to give ]themselves extra wishful thinking (possibly inspired by daily Merlot intake in Boehner’s case) votes and then suffer embarrassing defeats after promises of victory. Nobody believes him anymore. Everybody knows you can believe Pelosi.

    Rs must be terribly envious and resentful. Traditional leadership techniques aren't working with the Tea Party wing and Boehner's got nothing else in his tool box. Every time he fails to deliver he seems every bit as baffled as he was the first, second, third, fourth …… umpteenth time. He just looks sadder and oranger and boozier and more defeated every day.  Bet they wish they had a Pelosi to call their own.

    1. Door bell. My editing time ran out. Relieved it's no worse than that little bracket thingy. Wanted to add that they also fail to think things through to anticipate possible moves by their opponents or unintended consequences to themselves. This was perfectly illustrated in the way it seemed never to occur to them that Dems could stop their anti-Iran proposal from forcing a presidential veto. But hey, if they think forcing a government shut down over Planned Parenthood going into 2016 or losing another game of chicken over it is a good idea…..

          1. If their brains were lard they couldn't grease a skillet. Speaking of brains, what's the latest on their hero Cliven?  Does he still have Oathkeeper protection, or have they all flocked to Kentucky?

              1. I have an aunt that used that phrase on her kids from time-to-time way back when. With due credit, even though my cousins weren't beyond peeing on electric fences, they were/are still smarter than these TeaBillies running the House.  Glad it brought a smile – after watching that debacle in front of the Gippers magic carpet ride on Wednesday its nice to laugh at something other than the clown car. 🙂

      1. I'm sure AC has no interest in comparing what Reid and Pelosi achieved when they were in charge with what McConnell and Boehner achieved on their watch. Not to mention how successful Dems under their leadership as a minority have been at mitigating potential damage threatened by the GOP leadership. The GOP is still trying to repeal and undo their accomplishments with no success. And 2016 isn't going to be another Republican advantage year.

      2. Speaking of "teh ghey," Obama nominated Eric Fanning today to become our first openly gay Secretary of the Army. I'm wondering how the GOP-controlled Senate will react to that…..

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