A misleading bulletin from Politico today:
PELOSI CONCEDES ABORTION, IMMIGRATION — Roll Call’s Emily Pierce and Jennifer Bendery report: “Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made a major concession, signaling Tuesday that she may be ready to accept the Senate’s language on two issues that have divided her Caucus — immigration and abortion — in the name of getting an overhaul passed. Neither issue can be addressed under a reconciliation bill because stringent rules governing such bills require provisions to have a direct budgetary impact. ‘This is not an immigration bill. It is not an abortion bill. It is a bill about affordable health care for all Americans,’ she said.”
Pelosi is not conceding anything to pro-lifers on the abortion issue, because the Senate’s language is far more permissive than the House bill’s when it comes to abortion funding.
After all, the House bill includes the Stupak amendment, which Pelosi strongly opposed. She is getting her way now that the Stupak language will be trumped by the Senate language.
Don’t be fooled by the spin; Pelosi is only “conceding” in the sense that the Senate language is not as permissive in explicitly subsidizing abortion as she would personally like to see it written.
Meanwhile, in a foreign land where the rest of us live — I call it “reality” — it is the provisions of the long-standing Hyde amendment that are really being conceded.
– Thomas Peters is the communications director of the American Principles Project, where he also blogs.