Hopefully the GOP sticks to its guns and doesn’t let the Dems strip the rider out of the final bill. Personally, I’m not holding my breath.
Via Roll Call:
The District of Columbia will not be able to provide locally or federally funded abortions through fiscal 2012 if a policy rider currently included in House Republicans’ appropriations package goes through.
DC Vote, an organization that lobbies for expanded D.C. autonomy, is already moving to protest the rider. The group plans to draw allies, including local officials, to rally on Capitol Hill on Friday morning to urge lawmakers to remove the provision and to vote against any spending bill that contains the language.
“DC Vote urges everyone who is sick and tired of Congressional interference to attend,” wrote the group in a release announcing the rally, describing the rider as an infringement on home rule.
The nine-bill appropriations package released today reflects a compromise between House and Senate appropriators, according to House GOP leadership. But House Democrats maintained that they have not yet studied the package and were suggesting as late as Wednesday night that they were still grappling with the abortion provision.
Still, Rep. José Serrano (N.Y.), top Democrat on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government that has jurisdiction over the D.C. budget, told Roll Call on today that he believed discussions to strip the abortion rider were now “off the table.”