Like the movie Groundhog Day, Washington lawmakers are in another time loop - but not from the shutdown battle of 2013. It's the April 2011 shutdown battle, where Republicans nearly succeeded in shutting down the federal government over their demand to defund Planned Parenthood. Although Republicans had campaigned on wanting to deal with the economy, the first thing they did was try to defund Planned Parenthood.
That year, Planned Parenthood’s top champion in Congress was Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington. While other Democrats debated signing away Planned Parenthood funding to avoid what they believed would be a catastrophic government shutdown, Murray galvanized other women in the Senate and told the leadership they would not stand for such a deal.
Murray: "The government was about to shutdown. We were within hours. Everything in the budget was decided except for one demand from House Republicans that we eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood. And that was late at night — 11, 12 o’clock at night. And I said, “Absolutely not. We are not going to let women’s health care be taken hostage by this demand.” The women [senators] went to the Senate floor … and said, “Absolutely not on our watch.” The Republicans backed down. They relented and we kept the government running."The fact that Republicans have lost this battle before would seem to be reason for them to not try to fight it again. But this year is different. In a well-timed gift to the Forced Birther crowd, allies of Operation Rescue released deceptively edited videos that they said showed Planned Parenthood profiting from fetal tissue donations. Key senators and congressional reps were given private showings weeks before the videos were released to the public, allowing them to sit back and gauge the public's reaction to see if this issue could be the cause célèbre they'd hoped for, the flag around which they could rally their forces for the budget battle of 2015.
Murray: "I think it is at the Republicans’ peril to once again use our economy and our management of our country to take women’s health care hostage — women are not going to stand for that. Men are not going to stand for that. It didn’t work for them then. It won’t work for them this time... This is a fight that the Republicans are visibly picking and saying loud and clear that they are going to hold hostage our government’s budget and our economy until they get what they want in terms of defunding Planned Parenthood. And we have a responsibility and we will say, “Not on our watch” and we will fight back."Excerpted from an exclusive interview with Yahoo News:
Sen. Patty Murray - Not On Our Watch Will Republicans Defund Planned Parenthood