Boehner, other Ohioans at odds over Planned Parenthood defunding tactics

WASHINGTON – Two Ohio Republicans - House Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Jim Jordan - are on a collision course over funding for Planned Parenthood, a clash that could lead to another government shutdown this fall.

The two men are front-and-center in a dispute that has divided Republicans as the party seeks to respond to explosive allegations about Planned Parenthood’s handling of tissue from aborted fetuses –with GOP leaders seeking to burnish their anti-abortion credentials without appearing to target women’s health care programs.

Jordan has positioned himself as Boehner’s chief antagonist on the issue, said Gregory Koger, a political science professor at the University of Miami. And the outcome could be “unimaginably awkward” for one or both Ohio lawmakers, depending on how the stalemate is resolved, he said.

That awkwardness was already apparent this week, after Boehner huddled with 10 pastors from his home district to discuss the issue. The West Chester Republican listened to the pastors’ pleas to strip money from Planned Parenthood and he explained his strategy to them.

Little did Boehner know, however, that the pastors also met with Jordan and another fierce Boehner critic, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who has sponsored a resolution to oust the speaker from his leadership post.

One of the pastors, Dale Christian, of the First Baptist Church in Troy, then told an online political news site that Boehner refused to commit to defunding Planned Parenthood if it meant risking a government shutdown.

Boehner’s aides deny that the speaker ruled anything in or out during the meeting. And they felt blindsided when they learned the pastors had met with Meadows, whose anti-Boehner resolution has become a rallying point for conservatives pushing a hard-line on the Planned Parenthood issue.

"His message to the pastors from our area, to his colleagues and to the American people has consistently been that he is working to hold abortion providers accountable for their horrific practices and advance the pro-life cause," said Boehner's spokeswoman, Olivia Hnat.

Planned Parenthood has come under scrutiny after the release of undercover videos claiming to show the organization profits from providing tissue and fetal parts from aborted fetuses for medical research. Planned Parenthood officials say the group does not profit from tissue donation, which is legal.

Both Boehner, R-West Chester, and Jordan, R-Urbana, have called for stripping Planned Parenthood of the $500 million in annual federal money it receives through federal health care and family planning programs for low-income Americans. But the two Ohio Republicans have different ideas about how to achieve that goal.

In a tactic that mirrors the failed GOP effort to kill Obamacare in 2013, Jordan says GOP leaders must attach a provision defunding Planned Parenthood to any government spending bill that comes to the House floor in the coming days. That’s must-pass legislation because the government will run out of money on Sept. 30 unless Congress passes a new measure to keep federal programs funded.

“Sometime in the next 13 days, everyone’s going to have to face a pretty fundamental question: Are we going to continue to allow taxpayer dollars to go to this organization?” Jordan said in an interview Thursday. “The right thing is they should not be getting another dime.”

Jordan is chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, a conservative faction inside the GOP conference. Last week, the caucus issued a statement saying its members would vote against any funding bill that did not defund Planned Parenthood.

It’s not clear how many votes the Freedom Caucus can produce, but other Republicans may join in Jordan’s push.

“I am one who wants to defund Planned Parenthood, and I will go to virtually any lengths to do that,” said Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Westwood, who is not a member of the Freedom Caucus.

But Senate Democrats would try to block any spending bill that undermines Planned Parenthood’s health care services, and President Obama could also veto such a measure. That impasse could trigger a shutdown--a risk Jordan says Republicans should be willing to take.

“No one wants a shutdown,” Jordan said. But if Republicans pass a spending bill that funds the government and shifts Planned Parenthood funds to other health care groups, Jordan said, that would put Obama and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in an untenable position.

“If the president says ‘No, we insist, we demand … that money” go to Planned Parenthood, Jordan said, “that is indefensible. Our position is so logical, so common sense. If we’re willing to fully commit to it and to having the debate, then we’ll win.”

Not everyone agrees.

“The president of the United States is not going to sign this, and all we’re gonna do is shut the government down,” said Ohio Gov. John Kasich in Wednesday night’s GOP presidential debate. “And then we’re gonna open (it back) up and the American people are gonna shake their heads and say, ‘What’s the story with these Republicans?’”

Boehner has not been that blunt in public, but he has been through two previous government shutdowns and clearly doesn’t want to preside over a third.

“The goal here is not to shut down the government,” Boehner told reporters last week. “The goal is to stop these horrific practices of organizations selling baby parts. So that’s the goal.”

At a closed-door House GOP meeting Thursday, GOP leaders reportedly showed members polling data suggesting Republicans would be blamed for a shutdown.

Koger, the University of Miami professor, said Republicans would almost certainly lose public support in a government shutdown over Planned Parenthood.

“What starts out as an abortion fight will almost certainly become a broader conversation about women’s health issues and how lower-income women get access to birth control” and other services, he said. “It is very dangerous to get ensnared” in that kind of fight, he said, which could “intensify the (GOP’s) disadvantage with the female voters, which they are already worried about.”

So perhaps it’s no surprise that for now, Boehner is pushing to separate Planned Parenthood funding from the broader government spending bill. On Friday, the House will vote on legislation that would put a one-year ban on federal funding for Planned Parenthood and shift the group’s funding to other women’s health providers.

Boehner told reporters Thursday those bills would “stop these grisly practices that we’ve seen from some abortion providers.”

It could also clear the way for GOP leaders to move a “clean” government funding bill, without the Planned Parenthood provisions, later this month, although Boehner said no decision has been made yet on how to proceed.

Jordan said he supports the two stand-alone bills, but they do not go far enough. “They don’t involve us using the ultimate power that we have at the legislative branch, and that is the power over spending,” he said.

The Planned Parenthood showdown is unfolding as some conservatives--including Meadows--are considering another effort to oust Boehner. Meadows has said he is not planning to push for a vote on his anti-Boehner measure in the near term.

But his resolution to strip the speaker's gavel from Boehner is mentioned regularly in news stories about how Boehner will deal with conservative demands in the Planned Parenthood fight. And Boehner’s allies are concerned enough that two of his possible successors, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Ways and Means Committee Chair Paul Ryan, R-Wis., issued statements this week saying they would oppose any effort to topple Boehner.

In the interview Thursday, Jordan sidestepped questions about whether he would vote for Meadows’ resolution if Boehner does not push to defund Planned Parenthood in the must-pass spending bill.

But he said the Meadows’ bill has “heightened” the focus on how Congress handles this and other high-profile issues. “I think the whole country is watching,” Jordan said.