WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet recently joined their Senate colleagues in sending a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray and Vice Chair Susan Collins urging the committee to reject all anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion provisions in Fiscal Year 2024 appropriations bills.
“The Senate has had tremendous success both passing bipartisan bills in committee and on the Senate floor because these bills are free of new poison pill riders. Unfortunately, the House appropriations bills are filled with new highly partisan provisions, including anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ riders, that should be removed from any final appropriations bills,” wrote Hickenlooper, Bennet, and the senators.
All 12 House appropriations bills currently include anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion provisions to:
- Allow the government to discriminate against married same-sex couples
- Ban access to gender-affirming care, which would deprive transgender people of medically necessary and often life-saving health care
- Force back in place medically unnecessary restrictions on medication abortion
- Stop the implementation of the Biden administration’s executive orders to protect access to abortion care
- Jeopardize access to essential postgraduate medical training in abortion care
In their letter, the senators emphasize that these contentious House provisions threaten Congress’ ability to pass bipartisan funding bills that are needed to keep the government open and working.
The letter is endorsed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Guttmacher Institute, Human Rights Campaign, National Center for Transgender Equality, National Council of Jewish Women, National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, National Women’s Law Center, Physicians for Reproductive Health, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America), Whitman-Walker Institute.
Full text of the letter can be found HERE and below:
Dear Chair Murray and Vice Chair Collins:
We write to urge you to keep the FY24 appropriations bills free of any new poison pill policy riders. Partisan, discriminatory, and harmful policy riders have no place in appropriations bills. The Senate has had tremendous success both passing bipartisan bills in committee and on the Senate floor because these bills are free of new poison pill riders. Unfortunately, the House appropriations bills are filled with new highly partisan provisions, including anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ riders, that should be removed from any final appropriations bills.
Our country is facing a reproductive health care crisis, one that has been accelerated by the Supreme Court’s extremist decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. As of November 7, 2023, 14 states are enforcing abortion bans at any point in pregnancy and seven states have imposed abortion bans with limits that range from six to 18 weeks. These bans leave 1 in 3 women, as well as transgender and nonbinary people, without access to abortion and disproportionately impact people of color, people with disabilities, young people, people living in rural areas, and people with low incomes.
Yet in the midst of this crisis, House Republicans have proposed several new anti-abortion policy riders. These riders include a provision to force back in place medically unnecessary restrictions on medication abortion, a measure to stop the implementation of the Biden administration’s executive orders to protect access to abortion care, and a measure that would jeopardize access to essential postgraduate medical training in abortion care. If adopted, these provisions would seriously undermine pregnant people’s ability to make decisions about their bodies and providers’ ability to provide necessary care.
At the same time, House Republicans have used the appropriations process to push extremist anti-LGBTQ+ measures, which threaten to disrupt the lives and fundamental dignity of the LGBTQ+ community. Anti-LGBTQ+ legislation is already on the rise; in 2023 alone, more than 575 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced across 41 state legislatures, and more than 80 of those bills have been signed into law.
Against this backdrop, House Republicans have introduced more than 50 anti-LGBTQ+ provisions across all 12 appropriations bills. These provisions include those allowing the government to discriminate against married same-sex couples as well as language to prevent the administration from enforcing laws to protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination. Seven of the House’s twelve appropriations bills also contain dangerous riders that ban access to gender-affirming care, which would deprive transgender people of medically necessary and often life-saving healthcare.
Controversial poison pill provisions like those riddled throughout the House appropriations bills will severely undermine Congress’ ability to push forward must-pass funding measures to keep the government open and working for the American people.
Sincerely,
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