The Hill reports that Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said this morning that the GOP should “move on” from defunding Planned Parenthood in the current spending bill:
Toomey said it would be his preference to defund Planned Parenthood, but acknowledged that Democratic control of the Senate meant that such a measure, attached to the House-passed spending bill, made it unlikely to pass. To that end, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that it would be nearly “impossible” to prevent a shutdown unless the riders are dropped.
Relatedly, ABC News says that Republicans made an offer to Democrats to drop the Planned Parenthood restriction and instead offer “family planning aid” in the form of block grants to states. That was deemed unacceptable to the Democrats, ABC reported.
Meanwhile, Speaker John Boehner is emphasizing that the difference between the House GOP and Senate Democrats is “about the spending”, not Planned Parenthood.
