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Community Corner

OUR CONGRESSMAN OMITTED HIS EXTREME ANTI CHOICE LEGISLATION FROM HIS NEWSLETTER

Our Congressman, Chris Smith, mailed out his newsletter last week.  The newsletter addressed all Chris Smith's accomplishments but oddly left out legislation that he wrote and sponsored, HR7.  Our Congressman's crowning accomplishment of the year thus far.  We want to make sure that District 4 know about Congressman Smith's extreme anti choice legislation that he championed for in January. 

 

 

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Update, January 28: HR 7 passed the House Tuesday evening 227 to 188.

Correction: A version of this article incorrectly noted that this week’s floor vote on HR 7 would take place Wednesday. In fact, it will take place on Tuesday. We regret the error.

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With action yet to be taken on the long-delayed passage of an agriculture bill or the restoration of emergency unemployment insurance benefits to the 1.3 million out-of-work Americans who lost that lifeline in December, the Republican majority on the House Committee on Rules set the stage on Monday for a Tuesday floor vote on HR 7, a sweeping anti-choice bill packaged—deceptively, say opponents—as a piece of taxpayer-protection legislation.

In a play to the Republican base in an election year, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) promised anti-choice activists at the March for Life in Washington, D.C., on January 22 that he would schedule a vote on the bill as soon as possible. On Monday night, the Rules Committee met to put that vote in motion.

Sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), HR 7 would take the unprecedented step of using the tax code to penalize individuals and small businesses for purchasing health insurance plans through the Affordable Care Act that include coverage for abortion services. It would also permanently prohibit the District of Columbia from using its locally generated tax revenue to provide abortion services to low-income women.

In her testimony on Monday, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), co-chair of the House Pro-Choice Caucus, asserted that HR 7 is “an obvious step toward banning private health insurance coverage of key women’s health benefits.”

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