AZ Congressional Delegation

Mr. Anti-Choice goes to Washington

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HuckabeeHello, ladies…

Anti-choicers – who ought never be thought of as less-than-assiduous in their quest to rid America of the scourge of ladies refusing pregnancy – are really going to town these days!

Per the inimitable Sally Kohn:

“Serious adults are in charge here,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) added for good measure, “and we intend to make progress.”

And then they introduced no fewer than five restrictions on abortion on the first day of the new Republican-controlled Congress. Because, you know, priorities.

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GOP bill to delay Dodd-Frank fails on procedural vote

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Wall.StreetThe TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner, must have been feeling his oats after being reelected Speaker. He was cocky and used a procedural rule for the GOP’s attempt to delay the “Volcker Rule” under Dodd-Frank regulations on financial services, requiring a two-thirds majority to pass. Oops! It blew up in his face.

From Bloomberg, Republicans Lose House Vote on Bill Easing Dodd-Frank:

On the second day of Congress’s new session, U.S. House Republicans lost a bid to quickly pass legislation to relax some requirements under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulatory law.

The measure would delay until July 2019 a provision of the law’s Volcker Rule intended to limit risky investments by banks, and make other changes.

The package was defeated because Republican leaders used a voting procedure usually reserved for non-controversial measures, requiring two-thirds support for passage.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urged Democrats not to support the measure, which failed on a 276-146 vote with 282 needed. She called the legislation “an 11-bill Wall Street wish list” in an e-mailed statement. After the vote, she said in a statement that she “was proud Democrats had stood together to protect critical Wall Street reforms.” [35 Democrats did not.]

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Kyrsten Sinema votes with the GOP to gut the employer mandate under ‘ObamaCare’

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ObamacareOn Thursday, Congress voted to gut the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act aka “ObamaCare” with a bill to define full-time work at 40 hours a week (from the current 30 hour standard).

The bill passed largely along party lines on a 252-172 vote, with Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema voting with the Arizona GOP delegation (Congressman Ruben Gallego was not present for the vote, as he was with President Obama touring his district in Phoenix on Thursday).

Teresa Tritch at the New York Times explains, The New ‘Obamacare’ Bill Would Hurt Workers and Increase the Deficit:

House Republicans are expected to bring to the floor an anti-“Obamacare” bill that is, from start to finish, an exercise in dishonesty.

The health reform law requires employers with at least 50 full time-equivalent employees to offer health insurance to those who work at least 30 hours a week, or pay a penalty. The bill seeks to limit the employer requirement to employees who work at least 40 hours a week. Its supporters, mostly Republicans and a handful of Democrats, are counting on winning over the public with the argument that a 30 hour threshold will cause employers to cut back work hours and that a 40-hour threshold  will foster more full time work. But that’s wrong.

First, there is little evidence that the law, as is, is causing employers to cut hours. Worse, a higher threshold would actually increase the number of employees at risk of having their hours cut.

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Martha McSally’s first substantive vote in Congress sets up a fight over social security

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Congressman Ron Barber hammered Martha McSally with her previous statements on social security and Medicare during the campaign. Martha McSally swore up and down during the campaign that “I would never do anything to undermine social security,” really.

Yet her very first substantive vote in Congress, vote No. 6 on H.Res. 5 for House Rules Changes, passed 234-176 on a party-line vote, sets up election-year battle over Social Security’s finances in 2016:

McSallyBuried in new rules that will govern the House for the next two years is a provision that could force an explosive battle over Social Security’s finances on the eve of the 2016 presidential election.

Social Security’s disability program has been swamped by aging baby boomers, and unless Congress acts, the trust fund that supports it is projected to run dry in late 2016. At that point, the program will collect only enough payroll taxes to pay 81 percent of benefits, according to the trustees who oversee Social Security.

To shore up the disability program, Congress could redirect payroll taxes from Social Security’s much larger retirement fund — as it has done in the past.

[Reallocating revenue from the much larger Social Security retirement benefits fund to SSDI would cover the shortfall, and trust fund managers have performed such reallocations 11 times since the late 1950s.]

However, the House adopted a rule Tuesday blocking such a move, unless it is part of a larger plan to improve Social Security’s finances, by either cutting benefits or raising taxes [not going to happen in a GOP controlled Congress.]

Long the third rail of American politics, tinkering with Social Security has never been easy. Throw in election-year politics and finding votes in Congress to cut benefits or raise taxes could be especially difficult.

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On the first day of Congress, radical Tea-Publicans gave to me . . .

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Wasting no time in pursuit of a radical agenda, Tea-Publicans took some bold moves on the first day of the 114th Congress.

Remember when Tea-Publicans campaigned on a “jobs agenda” and the economy? Yeah, they lied.

Abortion

Arizona’s most extreme ideological congressman and anti-abortion zealot, Trent Franks, is back again with yet another version of his anti-abortion bill. Congress Introduces A National Abortion Ban On Its Very First Day Back:

Republicans in Congress are wasting no time following through on the anti-abortion agenda the GOP laid out after winning significant gains in the 2014 midterm elections.

Trent_FranksOn Tuesday, the very first day of the 114th Congress, two lawmakers introduced a measure to ban abortions after 20 weeks, in direct violation of the protections afforded under Roe v. Wade. Reps. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) reintroduced the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, the same legislation that successfully passed the House last year.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — who introduced a companion 20-week abortion ban in the Senate last year that was stalled by Democratic leadership — has already indicated that he plans to re-introduce his own measure in the next few weeks, too. Now that the Senate is GOP-controlled, Republicans are anticipating that they’ll have enough support to pass the ban in both chambers this year, helping the anti-choice community gain momentum for this particular tactic to limit reproductive rights.

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