Senate stopgap measure on move

Bill would avert U.S. shutdown

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, shown in a photo from Aug. 6, said the spending bill passed Monday by the Senate with a vote of 77-19 was “the only viable way forward in the short term. It doesn’t represent my first, second, third or 23rd choice when it comes to funding the government, but it will keep the government open through the fall.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, shown in a photo from Aug. 6, said the spending bill passed Monday by the Senate with a vote of 77-19 was “the only viable way forward in the short term. It doesn’t represent my first, second, third or 23rd choice when it comes to funding the government, but it will keep the government open through the fall.”

WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Monday delivered a strong vote of confidence to a bipartisan spending bill that's needed to head off a government shutdown at midnight Wednesday.

photo

AP

The Senate’s passage of the spending bill after stripping away language that would have taken away federal funding for Planned Parenthood has rankled conservatives such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and tea partyers in the House.

The 77-19 vote powers the measure past a filibuster by some of the chamber's conservatives, who were angered that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., stripped a provision that would cancel federal funding of Planned Parenthood in exchange for keeping the government open.

Arkansas Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton, both Republicans, voted against the motion to move the bill toward a final vote.

McConnell is under fire from tea partyers who demand that he fight harder against Planned Parenthood -- even at the risk of a partial government shutdown.

Last week, Democrats led a filibuster of a Senate stopgap measure that would have defunded Planned Parenthood. Eight Republicans did not support that measure, leaving it short of a majority, much less the 60 votes required to overcome the filibuster.

The current bill is "the only viable way forward in the short term," McConnell said. "It doesn't represent my first, second, third or 23rd choice when it comes to funding the government, but it will keep the government open through the fall."

The Senate is expected to approve the bill today and send it to the House.

The House has set up a procedure allowing members to vote on the measure the same day it arrives from the Senate. The Obama administration backs the bill.

"We're fortunate cooler heads are prevailing," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

The White House endorsed the measure since it would allow "critical government functions to operate without interruption, providing a short-term bridge to give the Congress time to pass a budget for the remainder of the fiscal year."

The Planned Parenthood fight helped topple House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who announced his resignation last week after informing several conservatives that he would not use the must-pass spending measure to take on the group.

The measure would keep the government's doors open through Dec. 11, but the fight is likely to be rejoined then.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz served notice that he will be part of that fight.

The Texas lawmaker assailed his GOP leadership, saying it "reflexively surrenders at the outset," while complimenting Democrats for their willingness to "crawl on broken glass with a knife between their teeth" to fight for their policies.

Republicans have targeted Planned Parenthood for years, but the release of secretly recorded videos that raised questions about its handling of fetal tissue provided to scientific researchers has outraged anti-abortion Republicans.

The group says it is doing nothing wrong and isn't violating a federal law against profiting from such practices. The organization has said it doesn't sell fetal tissue for profit and instead receives the cost of collecting and delivering it.

In the House, two key committees have released a draft of budget legislation that would defund Planned Parenthood and keep a promise made during this spring's budget debate to repeal key elements of President Barack Obama's health care law. Panel votes are expected today and Wednesday.

The proposal would permit Republicans to deliver to Obama a measure to take away about $350 million in taxpayer funding Planned Parenthood now receives through the Medicaid program to provide health services to low-income women.

Most of the money would be redirected to community health centers. It would also, after dozens of attempts, send a partial repeal of the Affordable Care Act to Obama's desk for the first time, under fast-track rules for budget legislation known as reconciliation.

The measure would repeal requirements for most individuals to buy health insurance, as well as a mandate that employers of more than 50 people offer their workers coverage.

New taxes on medical devices and generously subsidized "Cadillac" health insurance plans would be repealed, too.

But popular provisions such as allowing parents to keep their children on their health insurance plans until they turn 26 and subsidies for lower-income people to buy health insurance through federal and state markets would be retained.

Obama has threatened to veto the measure, and Senate Democrats could keep Congress from overriding his veto.

GOP candidates

Earlier, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush warned that shutting down the federal government "will have no effect on funding for Planned Parenthood."

Moreover, Bush signaled his disapproval of the tactic, promoted by some Congressional Republicans, of shutting down the federal government unless a spending bill strips funding for Planned Parenthood.

"That's not the way democracy works," the former Florida governor said, appearing on Fox's Fox News Sunday. "It's better to elect a conservative president who pledges to do it and work with Congress."

On NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, fellow Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina did not explicitly call for a shutdown, but did call for action in defunding Planned Parenthood.

"I believe there are a variety of ways to deal with this," Fiorina said. " I believe this is something we must stand up and fight for because it is about the character of our nation."

The push to defund Planned Parenthood has also been championed by Cruz, although he has deflected the idea that he and other Republican lawmakers would be shutting down the government if they refused to pass legislation that didn't strip funding from the organization.

"We can expect President Obama and many of the congressional Democrats to cry loudly that if Congress uses its authority, Congress will be quote 'shutting down the government.' That, of course, is nonsense," Cruz said in August, according to The Washington Post.

Republican front-runner Donald Trump said in August that he would shut down the government over funding to Planned Parenthood.

The other leader in the Republican field, Ben Carson, earlier this month called for lawmakers to stand up to Obama, who has said he would veto any bill that denies funding to the organization.

"Congress needs to call his bluff on that," Carson said, according to The Hill, though he did not specifically call for a government shutdown.

Information for this article was contributed by Andrew Taylor of The Associated Press and by Terrence Dopp, Kathleen Miller, Billy House and Ali Elkin of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 09/29/2015

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