Reid stalls Senate after contraceptive bill scrapped

Reid, D-Nev., forced Senate clerks on Friday to read the mammoth spending bill from which the provision had been stripped. The job lasted three hours and 15 minutes.

As Reid prepared to begin a filibuster speech, the Senate then moved to other business without voting on the appropriations measure.

Reid's protest stemmed from a decision by House and Senate negotiators to kill the measure requiring health insurance plans to cover prescription contraceptives for most federal workers. The measure earlier passed both the Senate and House.

"If ever there was an example of what an anti-woman Congress this is, this is it," Reid said. "People in this Congress are stumbling over themselves to make sure Viagra is approved, but they don't want something like this that will help prevent abortions."

Reid and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, co-sponsored the contraceptive measure, which was included in the 1999 spending bill for the Treasury Department and U.S. Postal Service.

But House and Senate negotiators agreed to eliminate the contraceptive measure from the bill to improve its chances of passage as Congress rushes to adjourn.

Conservatives protested the amendment would cover IUDs and other devices they contend cause abortions.

"It is opposed by a few people in a backroom at the expense of 1.2 million American women who are being denied affordable access to a basic health care need," Snowe said.

The Treasury and Postal Service spending bill will be included in an omnibus spending bill being negotiated by congressional leaders and White House officials.

Reid said he hopes the contraceptive provision will be included but isn't certain it will.

"A true and fair democracy is destroyed when a few members of Congress from the extreme right can ignore the will of both the House and Senate, and strip an amendment behind closed doors," Reid said.

"The real losers in this battle are the women of this country who will continue to be denied the coverage they deserve," he said.

archive