Democrats reject GAB's proposed recall timeline - msnbc.com

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Democrats oppose a timeline that would put any primary for Gov. Scott Walker's recall election on May 15 with the general election on June 12. Those dates were recommended Friday by the head of the state elections board. They are two weeks later than is required now and any extension would need approval by a judge. Democratic attorney Jeremy Levinson calls the requested extension "totally unreasonable and unnecessary." Levinson says he will fight against the additional time in court. Representatives of Walker's campaign and the Republican Party did not immediately return requests for comment. Government Accountability Board director Kevin Kennedy says there is no way the board can finish its review of the roughly 1.9 million signatures seeking the recall of Walker and five others any sooner than March 30.

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Democrats hear from woman snubbed by GOP lawmakers - msnbc.com

Washington — Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke was given her chance to talk to Congress Thursday, even though lawmakers were on a break and just a few Democratic allies were there to cheer her on.

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But what a difference a week makes.

Last Thursday the Republican-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee rejected Democrats' request that Fluke testify on the Obama administration's policy requiring that employees of religion-affiliated institutions have access to health insurance that covers birth control.

This week she received almost rock-star treatment as the lone witness at an unofficial Democratic-sponsored hearing. While the rest of the Capitol was mostly empty, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, three other Democrats and dozens of mainly young women supporters crowded into a House office building room to applaud Fluke as she spoke of the importance of reproductive health care to women.

Prominently displayed by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., was a photo of five religious leaders, all men and all appearing at the invitation of the Republican majority, testifying last week with Fluke visible in the background, sitting in the visitors' section.

Democrats pounced on that image of a hearing discussing contraceptive rights being dominated by men while the one person Democrats had asked to appear on the witness stand, a woman, was turned away. Pelosi, D-Calif., said they had since heard from 300,000 people urging that women's voices be heard on the issue.

"We almost ought to thank the chairman for the lack of judgment he had," in denying a seat to Fluke, Pelosi said.

Committee chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., had said at last week's hearing that the panel's focus was on whether the administration policy was a violation of religious freedom. He said at the time that Fluke, invited by Democrats in her capacity as former head of Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice, was not qualified to speak on the religious rights question.

"I'm an American woman who uses contraceptives," Fluke said, when asked Thursday by Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., about her qualifications to speak on the issue.

The Health and Human Services Department ruled earlier this year that, under the new health care law, religious-affiliated institutions such as hospitals and universities must include free birth control coverage in their employee health plans.

That raised a storm of protests from Catholic leaders and other groups that disapprove of contraception on religious grounds. Two weeks ago President Barack Obama modified that policy so that insurance companies, and not the organization affiliated with a church, would pay for birth control coverage.

The religious leaders at last week's hearing said that Obama's concession was too little. Republicans in the House and Senate are pushing legislation to let insurance plans opt out of any mandate on contraception coverage if they have moral objections.

Fluke, a third-year law student, said that Georgetown Law, a Jesuit institution, does not provide contraception coverage in its student health plan and that contraception can cost a woman more than $3,000 during law school. She spoke of a friend who had an ovary removed because the insurance company wouldn't cover the prescription birth control she needed to stop the growth of cysts.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Who is blocking a grand debt deal? Democrats, too, have limits - msnbc.com

WASHINGTON — Republicans who refuse to consider tax increases aren’t the only obstacles to President Obama’s bid to get a significant debt deal through Congress in time to avoid default as early as Aug. 2.

Democrats, too, have a point beyond which they will not go — cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits — and want the president to keep it in mind as he prepares for a new round of negotiations at the White House on Sunday.

The White House has asked that congressional leaders lay out their bottom line negotiating positions at the Sunday meeting.

For that reason, a closed caucus meeting on Friday was a last chance for many Democrats to signal the White House and their own leaders what it will take to win their votes, once a deal comes to the floor.

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“I came to Washington to protect Social Security and Medicare, not to dismantle them,” says Rep. Jim McGovern (D) of Massachusetts. “These aren’t just programs, they represent core values of the Democratic Party. You shouldn’t be balancing the budget on the backs of seniors and poor people.”

Democrats say they don’t know what’s been discussed in closed meetings so far, but are alarmed by what they’re hearing in the corridors or reading in press reports. Republicans, too, say they are in the dark. The White House and congressional leaders have deliberately avoided discussing details before the deal is done.

But the rank and file in both parties want to make it very clear to their leaders what will fly on the floor, when it’s necessary to find a majority of 218 House votes. Democrats say they expect that Republican Speaker Boehner will need at least 100 votes from Democrats to pass a debt deal. That, they say, gives them some clout.

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“The know-nothing wing of the Republican Party is going to vote against a debt ceiling agreement no matter what is in it,” says Rep. Gerald Connolly (D) of Virginia, alluding to freshmen Republicans who campaigned on a pledge to never raise the debt ceiling. “Speaker Boehner is going to need the Democratic caucus to pass this. That means that, whether he likes it or not, taxes are on the table.”

From the start of the debt talks, Boehner has said that tax increases are off the table, because it hurts jobs to raise taxes when the economy is struggling to recover from a recession. At a press briefing on Friday, he said that his aim from the start of the process was “the big deal that would fundamentally solve our spending problem and our debt problem in the near to medium term.”

“But at the end of the day, we’ve got to have a bill that we can pass through the House and the Senate,” he added. “In all honesty, I don’t think this problem has narrowed at all in the last several days.”

Back in the days when she was House speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D) of California was the president’s essential partner on Capitol Hill, but as the House minority leader recently has been less a presence in closed White House negotiating sessions, displaced by Boehner.

Now, she’s a player again, if only because Democratic votes may be needed when it comes time to pass a debt deal in the House.

Democrats want to reduce the budget deficit and grow the economy, but not “on the backs of America’s seniors and working families,” Pelosi said Friday. That means “no benefit cuts in Medicare and Social Security,” she said. “And we have serious concerns about what is happening with Medicaid as well.”

“I'm still optimistic that we can find a place where we can come together, I don't like to have a situation where we're saying, well, you need our votes, so you better have this in the bill,” she added.

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House Republicans have taken a pounding in public opinion polls over their budget plan for FY 2012, which reduced the federal role in Medicare. They lost a special election in New York they had been expected to win that turned on GOP Medicare cuts.

Democrats are gearing up to use the issue in the 2012 campaign – a strategy that would be undermined if Democrats wind up voting for a debt deal that includes Medicare cuts.

“A lot of Democrats thought they were going to run [in 2012] as guardians of Medicare and Social Security, but for the White House to tell them that both are going to be chopped puts their reelection plans in jeopardy,” says Thomas Ferguson, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

© 2011 Christian Science Monitor

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