Exclusive: Women’s Health as Budget Bartering Chip is ‘Déjà Vu,’ Says Sen. Patty Murray
As Sen. Patty Murray describes it to Yahoo Health, this year’s government shutdown drama — with Planned Parenthood and women’s reproductive rights squarely in the crossfire — is nothing new. It’s a veritable Groundhog Day, happening in 2011, in 2013, and now again, in 2015. (Photo: Susan Walsh/AP)
“It’s the same story, just running with a different title,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., told Yahoo Health in an exclusive interview on Tuesday afternoon.
Murray was speaking of the choice of her Republican colleagues to use the Senate’s critical time before the federal budget deadline on Oct. 1 to attack women’s health — such as Tuesday’s failed attempt by Senate Republicans to pass a federal 20-week abortion ban — instead of working on a budget deal to avert a looming shutdown.
“To me this is déjà vu,” Murray said, “In 2011, every item of the budget was agreed to except this one issue. They held out until we had hours to go [until a shutdown]. But women in the House and Senate fought back and were loud and clear — and they backed down.”
Here’s what happened in 2011…
In April of 2011, a little more than an hour before the midnight deadline that would have forced a partial shutdown of the federal government, congressional leaders and President Obama were able to reach a budget agreement that included $38 billion in across-the-board spending cuts, but did not, as Republicans had previously demanded, eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
At the time, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, noted that his Republican colleagues could either “keep their word and significantly cut the federal deficit or they can hold their ground and shut down the government over women’s health. If that sounds ridiculous, it’s because it is ridiculous.”
Related: Senate Blocks 20-Week Abortion Ban Bill
During the looming shutdown in 2011 over Planned Parenthood, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, vocally supported Republican efforts to eliminate federal funding to Planned Parenthood. Almost a year after a shutdown was averted, he told a reporter that when it comes to his plans for reducing the deficit: “Planned Parenthood, we’re going to get rid of that.”
Romney went on to lose to incumbent Barack Obama, who won female voters by 12 points, 56 percent to 44 percent. Romney won among men by 8 points. Gallup said the “total 20-point gender gap is the largest Gallup has measured in a presidential election since it began compiling the vote by major subgroups in 1952.”
And it happened again in 2013…
Murray notes that when there was an actual shutdown after a budget deal failed to be reached in 2013 — at the time, Republicans were refusing to move forward on a budget without the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), known colloquially as Obamacare — women’s health was also a key component.
Regarding the ACA, she says, “Much of that has really helped women” — indeed, critical pieces of the legislation pertained to mandated coverage of well-woman and preventative health care services for women, as well as full coverage without a co-pay for contraception — “So that was a personal affront too.”
“What the Republicans are doing is putting women’s health as hostage to everything else they’re doing — and today’s vote shows that they don’t have the votes to do it,” Murray says, referring to Tuesday’s Senate block of the bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks.
Murray was so confident that Republicans would not be able to secure the 60 votes needed to pass the abortion ban legislation on Tuesday that she skipped the vote.
Murray instead honored a preexisting commitment to the president of China, Xi Jinping, who arrived in Seattle this morning to meet with technology industry leaders and state elected officials as the first stop in his six-day visit to the United Stated, in advance of his state visit with Obama in D.C. later this week.
“We have really important issues to talk about, and it’s really important that I be here to meet the president and discuss the economic issues that are important to us and to China, said Murray of her meeting with Xi. “I didn’t feel that partisan posturing should trump the ongoing relationship between the U.S. and China.”
And so while Murray made the decision to spend today doing critical economic policy work, she notes that when it comes to what’s continuing to happen regarding women’s health care in the Capitol, “It’s just unbelievable to me, that they would hold the whole economy and budget up over these issues. It’s really shocking that in the 21st century, we’re still debating women’s rights,” Murray adds.
“The budget is important to the economy — and that is what they should be doing,” says Murray.
Indeed, there are only eight days remaining until a potential government shutdown should a budget deal not be achieved — critical work that needs immediate attention “instead of holding political votes regarding women’s rights to make their own health care decisions. When it comes to the federal funding for Planned Parenthood, this is for basic health care women need — whether it’s Pap smears, contraceptives, or a wide array of issues that women go to the doctor for that are provided by Planned Parenthood. That’s something I can’t understand why they would want to stop.”
Related: Murray — ‘Not on our watch’ will Republicans defund Planned Parenthood
And if tea party adherents such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a hopeful for his party’s nomination for the presidency in 2016, do force a shutdown over Planned Parenthood, Murray notes that, “I can’t understand what they’re going to say to the country if they actually shut everything down. If there are furloughs for civilians and for military folks. If they leave early childhood education programs without funding. If we see our national parks closed again. How will they say, ‘Well we won because we’re fighting over women’s right to make their own health care decisions?’”
Murray isn’t alone in her sentiments, as even some Republicans are asking questions.
Last week, Cruz’s fellow Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire sent him a letter, asking, “Since we only received 53 votes on the previous vote to redirect money away from Planned Parenthood, what is your strategy to succeed in actually defunding Planned Parenthood?
“How do we get 60 votes?
“And if for some reason there were 60 votes, how do we get 67 votes in the Senate to overcome a Presidential veto?”
In other words, Ayotte — who adds in the letter that while she supports an investigation into Planned Parenthood she opposes risking a government shutdown “particularly when it appears there is no chance of achieving a successful result” — seems to be wondering why some colleagues in her party are unable to let the Judiciary Committee continue to investigate Planned Parenthood while they give the economy the critical attention it deserves.
On Thursday, the Senate will vote on a bill to defund Planned Parenthood.
And some Republicans insist that a federal budget will not pass that continues to allow for funding to the nonprofit women’s health care provider.
Murray adds that, like with today’s vote regarding the abortion ban, “I do not think they will be successful on Thursday in attaching Planned Parenthood to a funding resolution. Women will stand up in the House and Senate and say, ‘We will not be held hostage. We will not be told that we will not get our health care in order for a budget to pass.’”
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