NRLC affidavit refutes Rep. Driehaus criminal complaint against critics

Congressman Driehaus uses criminal complaint in attempt to gag critics;

NRLC refutes his claims with sworn affidavit and documents

WASHINGTON -- The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) has produced a sworn affidavit, submitted today to the Ohio Elections Commission, demonstrating that the Obama health care law does in fact provide federal subsidies for elective abortion.

NRLC's statement was filed at the request of attorneys for the Susan B. Anthony List ("SBA List"), a pro-life political action committee.   On billboards posted in the Cincinnati area, and in other public utterances, officials of the SBA List have asserted that Congressman Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio, First District) "voted for taxpayer-funded abortion" when he voted to enact the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the Obama health care law.

In reaction to the SBA List's statements, Rep. Driehaus on October 5 filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission, utilizing a peculiar Ohio statute under which it is a violation to make "a false statement concerning the voting record of a candidate or public official," or to "post, publish, circulate, distribute, or otherwise disseminate a false statement concerning a candidate, either knowing the same to be false or with reckless disregard of whether it is false or not . . ." [Ohio Revised Code 3517.21(B)(9) and (B)(10)]   If the Commission votes that the disputed SBA List's statements were "false," the statute gives the Commission the power to either issue a public reprimand or to refer the matter to a county prosecutor with a recommendation for criminal prosecution.  A criminal conviction under the statute is punishable by up to six months in jail and/or fine of $5,000.

A three-member panel of the Commission will hold an initial hearing on the Driehaus complaint on Thursday, October 14, at 8:30 AM in Columbus, Ohio.

In his complaint, Driehaus asserted, "Congressman Driehaus and like-minded pro-life Democratic members of the House of Representatives were successful in securing language in both the PPACA and Executive Order 13535, ensuring that the PPACA would not permit or be construed as permitting taxpayer-funded abortions. . . . Despite the fact that the PPACA does not permit and in fact prohibits taxpayer-funded abortions, the SBA List and other groups opposed to Congressman Driehaus's reelection have published and disseminated the false statement about Congressman Driehaus . . ."

At the request of the SBA List, NRLC submitted a 23-page affidavit, prepared and sworn to by veteran Federal Legislative Director Douglas Johnson, consisting of 65 numbered paragraphs, refuting Driehaus's claims.  Paragraph 15 explains that the law that Driehaus voted for "contained multiple provisions that do in fact authorize (i.e., create legal authority for) taxpayer funding of abortion, and that predictably will result in such funding in the future -- unless the law itself is repealed, or unless the law is revised by a future Congress to include statutory language long the lines of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment."  Paragraph 32 explains, "Some of these provisions are entirely untouched by any limitation on abortion in existing law or in the PCACA itself, and others are subject only to limitations that are temporary or contingent."

The affidavit provides detailed discussion of four specific programs under which abortion coverage is authorized by the PPACA -- the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Program (PCIP), the program of federal tax-based subsidies to purchase private health plans, the appropriation of $7 billion in new funding for Community Health Centers, and the section creating "multi-state" health plans to be administered by the federal Office of Personnel Management.  The affidavit notes that these examples are not exhaustive.

In paragraphs 56-62, Johnson dismisses Driehaus's reliance on Executive Order 13535 as "highly misleading," noting, "There are no directives in the Order that apply to all, or even to most, of the provisions of the PPACA.  The operative provisions that are actually contained in the Order are extremely narrow and highly qualified. . . Executive Order 13535 has the hallmarks of a primarily political document."   Johnson also notes that the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America characterized the Executive Order as "a symbolic gesture."

NRLC attached 16 documents to the affidavit as exhibits, including a legal analysis of the abortion-related components of the law issued by the Office of General Counsel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; documentation on state PCIP plans for Pennsylvania and New Mexico that were initially approved by DHHS although they covered elective abortions; a Congressional Research Service report that confirmed that nothing in the PPACA or the Executive Order prevented the use of PPACA-authorized PCIP funds from being used for abortions; and the texts of the Stupak-Pitts and Nelson-Hatch Amendments which were proposed to prevent any part of the legislation from subsidizing abortion -- but which were opposed by President Obama and congressional Democratic leaders, and which were not part of the law as enacted.

Both the NRLC affidavit and the collection of 16 documents can be viewed at or downloaded from the NRLC website at www.nrlc.org/AHC/DvSBA.

Beyond the contents of the affidavit, NRLC's Johnson offered these additional comments on the subject: "It is outrageous the Ohio law allows an incumbent politician, like Steve Driehaus, to haul citizens before an appointed government tribunal, under threat of potential criminal prosecution, for expressing an opinion about the public policy implications of a vote that he cast in Congress.   This is an incumbent-protection law that is intended to intimidate critics, reminiscent of the methods used to chill criticism in certain countries run by presidents-for-life.  In America, anyone should be free to express their views on the effects of the bills that Mr. Driehaus voted for, without fear of criminal prosecution or fines.  Mr. Driehaus enjoys full freedom to dispute his critics, with the voters as the ultimate judges about whose claims are most credible.  Mr. Driehaus apparently does not trust the voters to see things his way, and so he attempts to utilize criminal-law strong-arm tactics in a pathetic effort to intimidate and gag his critics."

As far as we know, Driehaus is the only incumbent, so far this year, to employ a criminal statute against his pro-life critics, but a number of other House Democrats are trying hard to suppress pro-life groups' criticism of their votes in favor of the health care law.  For example, recently attorneys for Rep. Kathleen Dahlkemper (D-Pa., Third District) sent a letter to local radio stations suggesting that a radio ad charging that she voted for "taxpayer-funded abortions" was "slanderous."

The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) is the nation’s largest pro-life group with affiliates in all 50 states and over 3,000 local chapters nationwide.

NRLC Urges Senators to Oppose Kagan Confirmation

NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE
LETTER OPPOSING KAGAN CONFIRMATION

The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), representing the affiliated Right to Life organizations in all 50 states, today sent a letter urging members of the U.S. Senate to oppose the confirmation of Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The letter is posted on the NRLC website here:
http://www.nrlc.org/Judicial/NRLCletterToSenateOnKaganJune232010.pdf

NRLC Urges House to Reject "Corrupt" DISCLOSE Act

NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE COMMITTEE URGES U.S. HOUSE TO REJECT "DISCLOSE ACT" AS "A CORRUPTION OF THE LAWMAKING POWER"

WASHINGTON (May 27, 2010) -- The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of right-to-life organizations in all 50 states, today urged the U.S. House of Representatives to reject the "DISCLOSE Act" (H.R. 5175), which it called a "bullying political power grab," which is "not a curb on corruption, but itself a type of corruption -- a corruption of the lawmaking process, by which incumbent lawmakers employ the threat of criminal sanctions, among other deterrents, to reduce the amount of private speech regarding the actions of the lawmakers themselves." NRLC said that it would include the dispositive roll calls on the measure in its scorecard of key votes for the current Congress.

The four-page letter, signed by NRLC Executive Director David N. O'Steen and Legislative Director Douglas Johnson, said that the bill "has been carefully crafted to maximize short-term political benefits for the dominant faction of one political party, while running roughshod over the First Amendment protections for political speech that have been clearly and forcefully articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court." The letter discusses a number of ways in which the legislation is designed to "to discourage, as much as possible, disfavored groups (such as NRLC) from communicating about officeholders, by exposing citizens who support such efforts to harassment and intimidation, and by smothering organizations in layer on layer of record keeping and reporting requirements, all backed by the threat of civil and criminal sanctions." The letter suggests that the bill be amended to clarify that “DISCLOSE” actually stands for “Deterring Independent Speech about Congress except by Labor Organizations and Selected Elites.”

The House Democratic leadership had apparently intended to bring the bill to the House floor tomorrow (May 28), but -- faced by a rising chorus of protests from a broad array of organizations -- has now postponed floor action until the week of June 7.

The letter is available here: http://nrlcomm.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/nrlcletterondiscloseact.pdf

NRLC - Update on Fight to Defeat Pro-Abortion Senate Health Care Bill

U.S. HOUSE TO VOTE WITHIN DAYS ON WHETHER TO MAKE PRO-ABORTION SENATE HEALTH BILL "THE LAW OF THE LAND," AS HOUSE MEMBERS STUDY COMMUNICATIONS FROM NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE, U.S. CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS, AND OTHERS

WASHINGTON -- In a significant development this week, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) made it clear that the House Democratic Leadership will force a vote soon on the Senate-passed health bill (H.R. 3590), including multiple abortion-related provisions strongly opposed by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) and other pro-life organizations, and will not include pro-life language in any followup legislation.

In addition, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) intends to go forward on the basis, reportedly articulated by the Senate parliamentarian, that H.R. 3590 must be enacted into law before the Senate can consider any followup bill under fast-track "reconciliation" procedures.  The Washington Post reported (March 13), "Pelosi shrugged off the ruling, accepting that the Senate bill would have to move first, and independently.  'It isn't going to make any difference except maybe in the mood that people are in,' she said Friday.  'The fact is that once we pass it [H.R. 3590] in the House, it's going to be the law of the land."

House members have received a March 5 memorandum from NRLC, posted here, which summarizes NRLC substantive objections to multiple provisions of the Senate bill, and sketches the political implications of the upcoming roll call.  NRLC said in part:  "When all of the pro-abortion provisions are considered in total, the Senate bill is the most pro-abortion single piece of legislation that has ever come to the House floor for a vote, since Roe v. Wade.  Any House member who votes for the Senate health bill is casting a career-defining pro-abortion vote.  A House member who votes for the Senate bill would forfeit a plausible claim to pro-life credentials.  No House member who votes for the Senate bill will be regarded, in the future, as having a record against federal funding of abortion.  All of those statements are true regardless of how many assurances or denials are disseminated by President Obama or by Speaker Pelosi, both of whom have sought throughout their political careers to undermine limits on government funding of abortion.  House members who vote for the Senate bill will be accountable to their constituents for what the Senate bill contains."

On March 6, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops disseminated to congressional offices a four-page memorandum titled, "What's Wrong With the Senate Health Care Bill on Abortion?  A Response to Professor Jost."  This memorandum is a concise and cogent rebuttal to one recent tendentious attempt to minimize the multiple ways in which the Senate bill departs, in the pro-abortion direction, from the principles of current law and from the substance of the abortion-related provisions adopted by the House last year (especially the Stupak-Pitts Amendment).  The memo explains how provisions of the Senate bill would result in direct federal funding of elective abortions, federal subsidies for plans that cover elective abortions (including some federally administered plans), and authority for federal officials to mandate inclusion of abortion coverage in private plans.  It also notes that the Senate bill lacks the vital abortion nondiscrimination language (the so-called "Weldon" provision) found in the House-passed health bill.  The USCCB memo is posted here.

On March 11, the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention issued a national alert, urging citizens to contact their representatives in the House to urge the defeat of the Senate bill.

The results of polls conducted very recently in 12 congressional districts by the polling companyTM, inc./WomanTrend, dealing with the abortion-related aspects of the health care debate, are posted here.

Additional resources on the abortion-related controversies surrounding H.R. 3590 are posted on the NRLC website here.  

NRLC: House Health Bill "Career-Defining Pro-Abortion Vote"

National Right to Life: 

"Any House member who votes for the Senate health bill is casting a career-defining pro-abortion vote"

WASHINGTON (March 5, 2010) -- The following statement may be attributed to Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) the federation of affiliated right-to-life organizations in all 50 states.  

HOW IMPORTANT IS THE HOUSE VOTE ON THE HEALTH CARE BILL?

On abortion policy, the health care bill that Speaker Nancy Pelosi brought to the House floor last November was extremely bad (before the House fixed it by adopting the Stupak-Pitts Amendment) -- but the Senate health bill (H.R. 3590) is worse.

The Senate health bill is a 2,407-page labyrinth strewn with the legislative equivalents of improvised explosive devices --  disguised provisions that will result in federal pro-abortion mandates and federal subsidies for abortion.  The so-called abortion limits that are in the Senate bill are all very narrow, riddled with loopholes, or booby-trapped to expire.  Some of them were drafted more with the intent of misleading superficial analysts (which unfortunately includes some media "factcheckers") than actually effectuating a pro-life policy.

When all of the pro-abortion provisions are considered in total, the Senate bill is the most pro-abortion single piece of legislation that has ever come to the House floor for a vote, since Roe v. Wade.  Any House member who votes for the Senate health bill is casting a career-defining pro-abortion vote.  A House member who votes for the Senate bill would forfeit a plausible claim to pro-life credentials.  No House member who votes for the Senate bill will be regarded, in the future, as having a record against federal funding of abortion. 

All of those statements are true regardless of how many assurances or denials are disseminated by President Obama or by Speaker Pelosi, both of whom have sought throughout their political careers to undermine limits on government funding of abortion.  House members who vote for the Senate bill will be accountable to their constituents for what the Senate bill contains.

When he ran for president, Senator Barack Obama promised that abortion coverage would be "at the heart" of his health care proposal.  (See the PolitiFact examination of Obama's promise here.)  Throughout this Congress, President Obama has tried to deliver on this promise, even while hiding behind deceptive verbal formulations and outright misrepresentations regarding the content of legislation.

During the latter half of 2009, the White House backed phony "compromise" language that Speaker Pelosi put in the bill she brought to the House floor -- language written by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Ca.) (the so-called "Capps Amendment").  This language explicitly authorized coverage of elective abortions under two major new government programs.  It was this pro-abortion language that the House jettisoned on November 7 through adoption (240-194) of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which was supported by one-fourth of all House Democrats (64 Democrats), joined by all except one House Republican.  The Stupak-Pitts Amendment contained a bill-wide, permanent abortion fix (it begins, "No funds authorized or appropriated by this Act . . ."), which was the approach needed to prevent any provision of the vast bill from being used as a basis for pro-abortion federal mandates or subsidies. 

Although President Obama often has claimed he wants his health care legislation to reflect bipartisan consensus, he lamented the bipartisan adoption of the Stupak Amendment, and he contributed to keeping the Stupak language out of the Senate bill.  As a result, the 2,407-page Senate-passed bill contains at least six separate abortion-related policy problems, any single one of which would dictate a negative vote for any lawmaker who wishes to maintain a record against federal abortion mandates and abortion subsidies.  These problems are summarized below, and discussed in detail in a January 14 letter sent by NRLC to members of the House and other materials posted on the NRLC website.

BLOOD OATHS AND RABBIT HOLES

Speaker Nancy Pelosi in recent days has reverted to repetitious denials that there is a problem -- for example, saying at a March 4 press conference, "I will not have it turned into a debate on (abortion) . . .  There is no change in the access to abortion.  No more or no less:  It is abortion neutral in terms of access or diminution of access."   This is the same deny-and-evade approach that Pelosi employed throughout 2009.  It will not suffice now any more than it did then.

Indeed, some of the more recent utterances by Speaker Pelosi and other top House Democrats suggest that they have stumbled down some sort of rabbit hole into a fantasy world in which lawmakers can vote to enact the Senate bill without being accountable for its contents.  For example, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) on March 3 suggested that the House should pass the Senate bill after receiving a "blood oath" from Democratic senators that they would later pass a specific list of changes to the bill.  Lawmakers who are considering voting for the Senate bill based on a "blood oath" or any other promise should first call to mind the once-popular comic strip "Peanuts," in which Lucy frequently teed up a football and enticed Charlie Brown to take a run at it, solemnly promising not to snatch the ball away at the last instant.  Charlie Brown inevitably ended up flat on his back wondering how he could have been once again so foolish.

House members who vote for the Senate bill will be accountable to their constituents for what the Senate bill contains, including its pro-abortion mandates and subsidies, without regard to blood oaths, secret handshakes,  solemn assurances that Congress will revisit the issue in future legislation, or any other artifice or gimmick.

 (Pelosi has also repeatedly implied that the longstanding "Hyde Amendment" would somehow prevent the heath care bill from subsidizing abortion.  Such utterances are highly misleading.  The Hyde Amendment only applies to funds that flow through the annual Health and Human Services appropriations bill, and would not affect funds directly appropriated by the health care bill itself.  As the Associated Press accurately reported in a story dated March 5, 2010:  "The Democratic bills created a new stream of federal money to help working households afford health insurance premiums. And those funds were not subject to the Hyde restrictions."  For further discussion of this point, see the memorandum posted here.  Moreover, the Hyde Amendment is a patch that must be renewed annually -- not an acceptable approach when Congress proposes any large new federal program that implicates abortion policy.)

THE LIST

What follows is a thumbnail sketch of the major abortion policy problems in the Senate-passed health care bill (H.R. 3590).

 -- The Senate bill departs from longstanding federal policy by authorizing tax subsidies to help tens of millions of Americans buy private health plans that could cover abortion on demand.  Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Ne.) attached to this provision a badly flawed requirement under which anyone enrolling in such plan would be required to make separate payments into an abortion fund.  In a recent statement, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (which strongly opposes the bill) said, "The bill requires each American purchasing such a plan to make a separate payment to the insurer every month, solely to pay for other people's abortions.  This is an enormous imposition on the consciences of the millions of Americans who oppose abortion."   In its first analysis of the Nelson language, NRLC recognized it as a convoluted bookkeeping scheme inconsistent with the principles of the Hyde Amendment.  In January, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.), a pro-abortion leader in the Senate, assured McClatchy News Service that the abortion surcharge requirement is only an "accounting procedure," and DHHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius also assured pro-abortion listeners that the Nelson language was of no consequence.  Yet today, in an effort to entice pro-life Democrats in the House to vote for the bill, the White House and Democratic leaders are working on "convincing as many as a dozen antiabortion Democrats in the House that abortion language in the Senate bill is more stringent than initially portrayed," according to a report in the March 5 Washington Post.  The bottom line is that a vote for the Senate bill is a vote to subsidize the purchase of health plans that cover abortion on demand -- a sharp break from the principles of the Hyde Amendment and the Stupak Amendment.

-- The Senate bill would establish a new program under which a federal agency, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), would administer private "multi-state" plans.  It has been reported that the bill guarantees that one plan will be available everywhere that does not cover abortion.  In fact, it guarantees no such thing, because even this narrow requirement is rigged to depend on annual renewal through a separate appropriations bill.  Moreover, other plans in the federally administered program would be allowed to cover all abortions -- a break from the policy that has long governed the Federal Employees Health Benefits program, which is also administered by OPM.  A vote for the Senate bill is a vote to put the federal government in the business of administering health plans that cover abortion on demand.

-- The Senate bill would empower federal political appointees to expand access to abortion by federal administrative decrees.  The bill contains a bewildering array of provisions that grant authority to the Secretary of Health and Human Services and other federal entities to issue binding regulations on various matters.  One analyst recently wrote that the Senate bill “contains more than 2,500 references to powers and responsibilities of the secretary of health and human services,” to say nothing of other federal authorities.  Some of these provisions could be employed in the future as authority for pro-abortion mandates, requiring health plans to cover abortion and/or provide expanded access to abortion, unless there is clear language to prevent it.  One clear example is the Mikulski Amendment, under which any service listed as a "preventive" service by the Department of Health and Human Services must be provided (without copayments) in all types of private health plans.  (Sec. 1001, pp. 20-21.)  Sen. Mikulski refused to modify her amendment to exclude abortion from the scope of this mandate authority.  (The Nelson-Hatch-Casey Amendment, similar to the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, would have prevented abortion mandates or subsidies under any provision of the bill -- but that amendment was tabled, 54-45, on December 8, 2009.)  A vote for the Senate bill is a vote to empower federal political appointees to mandate unlimited abortion coverage in most private health plans.

-- The Senate bill would reauthorize all federal Indian health programs, without including language to prohibit funding of elective abortion, even though such an amendment (the Vitter Amendment, similar to the Stupak Amendment) was approved by the Senate when it last considered Indian health legislation on February 26, 2008.  There is a clause in the Senate health bill [Sec. 10221, pp. 2175-2176] that has been misrepresented as an abortion restriction, but it actually contains no policy standard on abortion funding -- it merely "punts" the question to the annual appropriations process, an unacceptable approach.  A vote for the Senate bill is a vote to open the door to future federal funding of abortion on demand through all Indian health programs.

-- The Senate bill lacks language to protect health care providers from being penalized for refusing to participate in providing abortions (known as the "Weldon language"), even though such language was approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee and was included in Speaker Pelosi's original bill even before adoption of the Stupak Amendment.  (See Section 259 of the House-passed H.R. 3962.)  Yet, because such language is offensive to the pro-abortion lobby, it was excluded from the Senate bill.  A vote for the Senate bill is a vote to abandon the strong position that the House took in favor of protecting the conscience rights of pro-life health care providers.

-- The Senate bill, due to a last-minute amendment, provides $7 billion for the nation's 1,250 Community Health Centers (CHCs), without any restriction whatever on the use of these federal funds to pay directly for abortion on demand.  (These funds are both authorized and appropriated by the bill, and thus would be untouched by the "Hyde Amendment" that currently covers Medicaid funds that flow through the annual Health and Human Services appropriations bill.)  Two pro-abortion groups, the Reproductive Health Access Project and the Abortion Access Project, are already actively campaigning for Community Health Centers to perform elective abortions.  In short, the Senate bill would allow direct federal funding of abortion on demand through Community Health Centers.  A memorandum documenting this issue in further detail is posted here:  http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/NRLCmemoCommHealth.pdf

In a recent statement, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops noted that this provision alone could lead to "hundreds of thousands of abortions per year that taxpayers would be forced to pay for." In a story published in the March 4 Washington Times, Congressman Diana DeGette (D-Co.) called this concern "patently false," but White House spokeswoman Linda Douglass took a different tact, admitting at least the possibility of what she referred to as a "drafting issue that requires a technical change . . ." 

-- The Senate bill contains additional pools of directly appropriated funds that are not covered by any limitations regarding abortion, including $5 billion for a temporary high-risk health insurance pool program (Sec. 1101 on pages 45-52) and $6 billion in grants for health co-ops (Sec. 1322, pp. 169-180).  Only bill-wide, permanent language, such as the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, can ensure that none of the vast amounts of federal money authorized and appropriated through the Senate bill are tapped by pro-abortion political appointees and bureaucrats to pay for abortion.