As conservative lawmakers look to the fall spending negotiations to defund Planned Parenthood, Republican leaders may dash their hopes by arguing it can’t be done effectively in a government funding bill, at least in the short term, as they work to avoid the politically damaging threat of a government shutdown.
Instead, the move to defund the group may be addressed in another standalone bill.
“We are going to be doing a lot of different things, not just dealing with the funding,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday.
Cornyn said the effort to defund the organization in the annual government spending legislation “is a little more complicated,” because much of the organization’s share of $538 million in federal funding comes from Medicaid, which is mandatory spending not annually appropriated by Congress.
He suggested that efforts to defund the group might not happen until November, when Republicans engage in talks with President Obama and Democrats over legislation that would keep the government funded for the remainder of the fiscal year.
But the current fiscal year ends Sept. 30, a matter of days after the Senate and House return from the August recess.
At that point, Cornyn said, the Senate is likely to take up a short-term funding measure, and it may not include any language to strip funding from Planned Parenthood, he said, although he added, “It’s premature to say,” what the short-term spending measure will include.
But he pledged that no matter what, there would no threat of the government running out of money thanks to a congressional impasse over spending.
“We are not going to go there,” Cornyn said. “There will be no government shutdown. We were elected as a majority to govern, not to shut down the government.”
A strategy that shifts away from stripping federal funding from Planned Parenthood could rattle GOP conservatives, who have been stepping up demands for congressional action in the wake of a series of undercover videos showing organization officials discussing the sale of fetal body parts.
Many Republicans have already pledged they’ll vote against any funding measure that does not move to end federal funding of the group.
But a Senate GOP aide said it wasn’t possible since most of it comes from the government pot of mandatory spending.
“If you try to do it through the appropriations process, you can’t,” the aide said. “You’d have to take up a separate bill to do that.”
House committees are investigating the Planned Parenthood videos and plan to take some kind of action as early as September, but have not made any announcement.
Republican leaders used a similar tactic to dodge a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, when conservatives tried to defund President Obama’s executive actions expanding immigration by withholding agency funds.
Republican leaders argued the program authorized by Obama was funded by fees and not taxpayer dollars and was thus not under Congress’ power over the purse.
When it comes to stripping the majority of federal funding from Planned Parenthood, options are limited.
“Most of the Planned Parenthood patients are on Medicaid,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine., said. “When people look at the $538 million that Planned Parenthood gets, a large percentage of it is from the Medicaid program. It’s a joint program that is federally funded and state funded.”
A Republican aide said separate legislation could stop all federal funding to the organization, but that route has been unsuccessful so far.
Senate Democrats this week blocked a standalone measure in the Senate, arguing that the move would make it harder for women to access affordable health care.
Cornyn said Republican lawmakers are committed to finding a way to accomplish the defunding.
“We are not going to give up until we’ve exhausted every effort,” Cornyn said.
