It's no secret that the House has been a bit chaotic given that floor votes can't move forward and even had to be canceled. House Freedom Caucus members really wanted to make sure they let House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) know how they really felt about the debt ceiling plan passed earlier this month. But reports from the mainstream media don't have it quite right when it comes to also trying to gin up this narrative of disarray from centrist members on other topics, namely abortion.
On Thursday afternoon, POLITICO published "‘Why the hell are we doing this?’ McCarthy’s fractured leadership team faces new abortion tension." Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who is something of a moderate on the abortion issue, is featured prominently in the beginning of the article when it comes to her reported displeasure about the House considering the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.
Here's how the piece begins:
As conservatives continue to snarl the House floor in protest, centrists are taking their turn to squeeze Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Behind closed doors on Wednesday, McCarthy’s No. 2 and No. 3 briefed about a dozen Republicans — mostly battleground-seat members — on their plan to take up two bills next week: Rep. Andrew Clyde’s (R-Ga.) bid to nix a Biden administration gun regulation and a separate proposal bill to strengthen limits on taxpayer funding for abortion.
The meeting didn’t go smoothly.
“Why the hell are we doing this?” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) asked Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), according to two House Republicans familiar with the meeting.
...
Yet that blame game could continue as centrists push back against the abortion bill, which would make permanent the abortion limits often shorthanded as the Hyde Amendment. It also extends funding restrictions to all federal funds, rather than certain agencies.
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On another matter, the report also tries to sow disputes among House leadership, including Speaker McCarthy and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) claiming that there's been "renewed long-running questions about tension between McCarthy and Scalise, who once openly eyed the speaker’s gavel." That article in question is from March 2018, though. More recently, last November, Scalise made it quite clear that he was supporting McCarthy.
It took two reporters, plus a contributing reporter to put this one out there. The piece does not mention if Mace's office was contacted.
Mace spokesperson Will Hampson provided a statement for Townhall explaining that "Congresswoman Mace is disappointed that a closed-door meeting was inaccurately reported on, but she is proud to be a co-sponsor of this legislation and will continue to support prohibitions against using federal tax dollars to pay for abortions."
Congress.gov shows that Mace is indeed one of the 158 current co-sponsors for the bill.
News also came out on Friday, though, that Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer's (R-OR), a freshman who presently has a 100 percent pro-life voting record, is against the bill, based on a matter of states' rights.
"I will not support federal action on limiting taxpayer funding for abortion and will continue pushing back against efforts to bring a proposal to the House floor. The Dobbs decision made clear that it's an issue that should be decided at the state level, and Oregonians recently rejected efforts to limit taxpayer-funded abortion overwhelmingly," she said in a statement for Townhall.
Earlier this year, she did, however, vote for the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. Such a bill mandating medical care for babies born alive from failed abortions passed the House in January on a mostly party-line vote. Chavez-DeRemer also joined all of her Republican colleagues and three Democrats in voting for a resolution "Expressing the sense of Congress condemning the recent attacks on pro-life facilities, groups, and churches."
Chavez-DeRemer's opposition, with Axios' Juliegrace Brufke tweeting out the congresswoman's statement, was enough to earn the notice, and the ire of, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
This betrayal is exactly why so many voters – especially the GOP base – distrust politicians in Washington.https://t.co/nL1H56XnYM
— SBA Pro-Life America (@sbaprolife) June 9, 2023
A press release from SBA Pro-Life also included a tweet from the congresswoman from last May expressing her pro-life values, though they used that against her to claim she was "flip-flopping on taxpayer funding of abortion."
As a statement from the organization went on to read:
“As a candidate, Lori Chavez-DeRemer decried taxpayer funding of abortion as ‘extreme’ and pledged to ‘always be on the side of life in Congress.’ Now Chavez-DeRemer is doing the opposite, blocking a bill that would permanently stop taxpayer funding of abortion across the federal government. This betrayal is exactly why so many voters – especially the GOP base – distrust politicians in Washington.
“Opposition to taxpayer-funded abortions has been a mainstay GOP position for decades and reflects the consensus of 60% of Americans. Because of the Hyde Amendment, approximately 2.5 million Americans are alive today who otherwise would have been aborted with taxpayer dollars. This should be an easy vote for the GOP majority to take and defend politically. Pro-life voters across the nation are watching.”
With regards to the measure from Oregon, voters in 2018 rejected a ballot measure that would have prohibited taxpayer funds from going towards abortions in the state, "except when determined to be medically necessary or required by federal law." The vote was 64.48 percent to 35.52 percent.
Oregon may be a blue state, but more pro-life measures have failed even in red states, especially following last year's Dobbs v. Jackson decision officially handed down last June. This is perhaps due to how Democrats were thus able to turn to fear-mongering about abortion bans so as to distract from how their party supports abortion on demand throughout pregnancy without legal limit.
This was the abortion question on the ballot that was asked to Kansas yesterday.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 3, 2022
It literally makes no sense and they spelled "circumstances" wrong for good measure. pic.twitter.com/ZDxBM1Ilzv
(4/7) Tonight the first condition held, but the second one did not. The implications of "Value them Both" were unclear and that made it easier for our opponents to distort the measure.
— Michael New (@Michael_J_New) August 3, 2022
Another possible reason has been that pro-lifers could be better coordinated and more clear in their measures, This was especially the case with a measure out of Kansas last August. The pro-abortion movement is also better funded and better supported by the mainstream media.
(2/7) First, a good body of academic research shows that money plays a large role in who wins statewide ballot propositions.
— Michael New (@Michael_J_New) August 3, 2022
Since abortion is a multi-billion dollar industry subsidized by taxpayers, our opponents can almost always outspend us.
(5/7) It is also important to note that the mainstream media coverage of abortion post-Dobbs has become more biased and more partisan than ever.
— Michael New (@Michael_J_New) August 3, 2022
That did not help.
As the statement from SBA Pro-Life mentioned, protecting taxpayers from having to fund elective abortion is popular with the American people, as evidenced by multiple other polls beyond this year's Knights of Columbus poll released in January. Year after year that poll has shown such support, including among various demographics.
So, while some Republicans members maybe drift away from the party line on abortion, even and including on issues of taxpayer funding, this doesn't have to show the party is in such disarray--at least not on abortion--as the mainstream media would like us to think. It does still likely mean, however, that Republican leadership may have to do more to keep their caucus together. With such a narrow majority, it's at times a tall order.
Then again, we knew that going in this 118th Congress, especially after the failure for a red wave to truly materialize, and the fact that it took 15 rounds for McCarthy to become speaker.
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