Democrats are no better than Republicans in making sure women play a prominent role in the process when it comes to Senate working groups.
Senate Republicans are fielding criticism for establishing what is so far an all-male working group to write a proposal to repeal and replace Obamacare.
“To not have women in the smaller working group, that we know is making the real decisions, is very, very bad,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said. “They are half the population. It is so wrong.”
But Senate Democrats have often left women out of their own back-room negotiations as they drafted major legislation, including Obamacare.
In the spring of 2009, as the Democratic-led Senate embarked on healthcare reform, Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee convened a working group that became known as the “gang of six.” The group, which met privately, drafted a healthcare reform proposal that eventually evolved into Obamacare.
The group was made up of three Republicans and three Democrats. There was just one woman in the group: Olympia Snowe of Maine, a Republican.
Another Senate “gang of six” surfaced two years later, in July 2011, this time to try to work out deal to raise the debt ceiling with a proposal to both raise taxes and cut spending. The group included three Republicans and three Democrats, and none were women.
There was also the all-male “gang of eight,” made up of four Democrats and four Republicans who wrote the 2013 comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed the Senate, but not the House.
One Democrat, Sen. Mary Landrieu, of Louisiana, was a member of the 2009 Gang of 14 that helped find a compromise over Senate confirmation of judges. She was outnumbered by two GOP women, Snowe and Sen. Susan Collins, also of Maine.
While the special committees may lack Democratic women, Democrats on Tuesday pointed out that their leadership includes many. The highest ranking female Democrat is Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who ranks third after Schumer.
Murray was a member of one of the most exclusive working groups in recent congressional history. As then-chair of the Senate Budget Committee, she negotiated 2013 Bipartisan Budget Act with then-House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., that raised mandatory budget caps and helped smooth the way for future bipartisan spending deals.
The lower Democratic leadership ranks include four women.
On the GOP side, all six elected leaders are men. But there are typically fewer women on the GOP Senate roster.
Of the 21 women in the Senate this year, 16 are Democrats and five are Republicans.
The GOP healthcare group met Tuesday for about an hour, after which they were condemned by Democrats for failing to include women in the group. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., attended the GOP working group on Tuesday, but she is not an official member, according to her office.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., downplayed the importance of the working group and said the entire GOP conference, including all Republican female lawmakers, would meet every day to discuss how to move forward on healthcare.
“The group that counts, all 52 of us, have lunch every day, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday,” McConnell said. “Everybody’s at the table.”
Special working groups and gangs are not typically picked by GOP leaders. Rather, they are formed by the interested lawmakers.
The 2009 healthcare working group came from the Finance Committee, which had jurisdiction over the tax aspects of healthcare reform.
The current healthcare working group was formed by a small group of senators who were interested in working on a healthcare proposal long before the House passed a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare last week. The group has grown from about half a dozen members to 14 members. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Pa., said he joined in the discussion on Tuesday.
Those lawmakers who don’t want to be included in the working groups make sure they are not officially included, as appears to be the case with the Senate healthcare working group.
After media outlets reported Capito attended Tuesday’s working group meeting, Capito staff was quick to point out she is not a member, but merely stopped by to discuss Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.
