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GOP Weighs Dropping Contraception Restrictions in Zika-Budget Talks

Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill are debating privately whether to keep pushing contraception restrictions and other reproductive health-care riders—poison pills for Democrats.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has already “started discussions” with members of his conference, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), and the White House on a CR through December 9. Should they reach a deal, the Senate will turn to a CR next week, McConnell told reporters during a Wednesday press availability. Alex Wong/Getty Images

Congressional Republicans returned to Washington this week with their talking points focused on a stopgap budget measure that may include funding to address the mounting Zika crisis. They are debating privately whether to keep pushing contraception restrictions and other reproductive health-care riders—poison pills for Democrats.

The U.S. Congress will again turn to a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the federal government in the absence of viable appropriations bills. Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate must pass a final CR by September 30, the end of the fiscal year, in order to prevent a government shutdown.

Much contention remains among Democrats about a host of passed, pending, and failed fiscal year 2017 appropriations amendments that target family planning services, LGBTQ rights, and reproductive health-care access in Washington, D.C., among others, all of which would be non-starters in a funding catchall.

Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, outlined some of the problematic provisions in an op-ed for Roll Call last month.

House Democrats are not optimistic that the amendments will disappear with the prospects for appropriations bills, even if House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) pushes for a clean CR.

“I don’t have any doubt that the Freedom Caucus will seek to add language that are poison pills to Democrats—I’m not sure specifically what form that will take,” a House Democratic aide said in an email. “It’s a decision for the Republican leadership as to whether to accommodate such divisive and ideological provisions. And Republican leadership should know by this point that they cannot enact [a]ppropriations bills without Democratic votes and the signature of a Democratic [p]resident.”

Fault lines are growing between the House and Senate, in addition to the parties.

Ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus members have indicated that they want a CR through early March, effectively eliminating the need for a lame-duck session of Congress after November’s presidential election. The Freedom Caucus may also be pushing for the CR to include an end to President Obama’s Syrian refugee resettlement program, according to a Politico report.

Ryan said during his weekly press conference he would not make any decisions on a CR until meeting with fellow Republicans. Members will discuss the CR Friday, a Ryan spokesperson said in an email.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), however, has already “started discussions” with members of his conference, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), and the White House on a CR through December 9. Should they reach a deal, the Senate will turn to a CR next week, McConnell told reporters during a Wednesday press availability.

Republicans Hedge on Zika Contraception Restrictions

Complicating the CR machinations: the increasing likelihood that the measure will include a Zika funding package with its own baggage.

Democrats object to the contraception restrictions in a $1.1 billion Zika funding package that passed the House in July. In the Senate, Democrats this week blocked the measure from advancing to a vote for the third time since Republicans included the restrictions, which reproductive health-care advocates say would disproportionately impact women in Puerto Rico.

More than 50 organizations, including People for the American Way, NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, signed a letter Thursday urging bipartisan congressional leaders and appropriators to eliminating such “ideological policy riders.”

McConnell indicated an openness to doing so.

“We’re in discussions about how to work out some of the differences that we had that led to the Democrats’ filibustering Zika funding on multiple occasions,” he said during his press availability.

McConnell’s rhetoric marks a step back from last month, when one of his spokespeople blasted Democrats for overstating the impact of the contraception restrictions and, more generally, the need for reproductive health-care and family planning services. “Access to contraception isn’t really an issue in America in 2016,” McConnell rep Antonia Ferrier told Rewire at the time.

Rank-and-file Republicans in the Senate may be falling in line with McConnell. Republicans eager to get a Zika deal done have approached Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), a member of the chamber’s Democratic leadership team, she said during a Wednesday press conference with Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Murray also referred to public statements that some Republicans, including Sen. Susan Collins (ME), have made about dropping the restrictions. Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) reportedly told The Miami Herald earlier this week that Republicans might have to concede to reach a deal, even as Rubio continues to oppose abortion care for pregnant people who contract Zika.

Democrats hope that’s the case, especially after the Obama administration transferred a final $81 million to the development of a Zika vaccine. As of August 30, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control was almost out of money to combat Zika.

“The process is really up to Republicans at this point,” a Senate Democratic aide told Rewire. “The best guess is that they will want to combine Zika with the CR and do it as soon as they can, but that depends on them being willing to come to the table and drop their Planned Parenthood poison pill rider.”

On the House side of the Capitol, Ryan’s intentions for Zika contraception restrictions are less clear.

“First of all, there’s no ‘Planned Parenthood’ in this bill,” he said, echoing a common defense among congressional Republicans. “And to put an earmark for Planned Parenthood is something that we won’t do.”

Though Planned Parenthood is not named in the Zika funding package, the restrictions would nevertheless impact reproductive health-care access and family planning services. Republicans’ plan would restrict patients to obtaining contraception from the limited number of public health departments, hospitals, and Medicaid Managed Care clinics in Puerto Rico, according to a Democratic summary Rewire obtained in June.

The plan also prohibits subgrants to outside groups, such as Profamilias, the Puerto Rico partner of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, “that could provide important services to hard-to-reach populations, especially hard-to-reach populations of women that want to access contraceptive services.”