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LGBT

Senate Takes Significant Step With Domestic Partnership Benefits Bill

By Guest Blogger on May 17, 2012 at 2:50 pm

Our guest blogger is Ben Harris, intern for LGBT Progress.

Yesterday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed legislation that extends health insurance and other benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees.  Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) introduced the bill, called the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligation Act, which if passed into law would extend health insurance and a number of other workplace benefits to federal employees and their same-sex partners.

Because of discriminatory laws like the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), gay federal employees do not have full access to benefits currently afforded to straight federal employees and their spouses. Without access to health insurance through their partners, many gay individuals must either purchase costly insurance plans in the private market or forgo health insurance, a considerable financial risk should be they become seriously ill. Yesterday, the Senate committee advanced a bill that would significantly alleviate that risk and bolster economic security for gay couples in the federal workforce.

Passing this bill out of committee is long overdue. Not only does this mean equal treatment for gay employees in the federal workforce, it also ensures that we attract the best and brightest workers into public service. When it was introduced back in November, Senator Collins remarked :

COLLINS: This change is both fair policy and good business practice. The federal government must compete with the private sector when it comes to attracting the most qualified, skilled, and dedicated employees. Today, health, medical, and other benefits are a major component of any competitive employment package. Indeed, private sector employers are increasingly offering these kinds of benefits as standard fare.

She’s right. Eighty-six percent of Fortune 100 companies offer equal health care benefits to employees with same-sex partners, according to the Human Rights Campaign. And research shows that when you treat gay workers equally on the job, what results is a happier, healthier, and more productive workforce.

Some, like Governor Rick Snyder (R) of Michigan, who recently vetoed a bill to extend domestic partner benefits to state employees, oppose equality in the workplace because they say it costs too much. They’re wrong . The take-up rate for domestic partner benefits is extremely low and it is likely that the boon from attracting a more talented and productive workforce outweighs any costs of providing equal benefits to gay couples.

What’s more, passing laws that extend workplace benefits to gay employees is politically popular. A whopping 8 in 10 Americans believe gay employees should be given equal benefits on the job. Even Mitt Romney agrees. Just last week, after restating his opposition to marriage equality, he voiced his support : “My view is that domestic partnership benefits, hospital visitation rights and the like are appropriate.”

Conservatives and corporations should take a cue from the American people: workplace equality is critical to fostering a more efficient and effective government.

NEWS FLASH

Senate Committee Advances Domestic Partner Benefits | Today, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee advanced the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act. The bill would ensure that the same-sex partners of federal workers have access to the same benefits straight employees currently receive, including health insurance, long-term care, family and medical leave, and retirement benefits. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the only Republican sponsor of the bill, explained that “it’s just a matter of making the federal government’s benefits structure comparable of those of large employers.”

NEWS FLASH

Collins Amendment Defending Toxic Industrial Boiler Pollution Fails Narrowly | An amendment to the transportation bill by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) to block air toxic rules for industrial boilers failed to pass, despite gaining several Democratic votes in support of the Republican minority. The lobbyist-designed amendment (SA 1660 to S.1813), which would have killed the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Boiler MACT” rules rules for air toxics from incinerators and industrial power plants, failed to reach the required 60-vote threshold on a 52-46 vote. Democrats supporting this attack on public health included Sens. Bob Casey (D-PA), Herb Kohl (D-WI), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Mark Pryor (D-AR), and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).

By Brad Johnson on Mar 8, 2012 at 3:11 pm

Health

Republican Women Senators Breaking Ranks With Party, Come Out In Favor Of Obama Contraception Rule

By Igor Volsky on Feb 13, 2012 at 12:16 pm

While GOP senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has pledged to fight the Obama’s administration’s modified regulation requiring health insurers and busnisses to offer contraception coverage without additional cost sharing, the revised rule “appears to have won over” two of the five Republican women senators.

Sens. Olympia Snowe (ME) and Susan Collins (ME) — both of whom have sponsored legislation requiring insurers to offer contraception benefits in all health plans — are in favor of the new compromise, which would allow religiously affiliated colleges, universities, and hospitals to avoid providing birth control. Their employees will still receive contraception coverage at no additional cost sharing directly from the insurer:

“It appears that changes have been made that provide women’s health services without compelling Catholic organizations in particular to violate the beliefs and tenets of their faith,” Snowe said in a statement. “According to the Catholic Health Association, the administration ‘responded to the issues [they] identified that needed to be fixed,’ which is what I urged the president to do in addressing this situation.

“While I will carefully review the details of the president’s revised proposal, it appears to be a step in the right direction,” Collins said in a statement. “The administration’s original plan was deeply flawed and clearly would have posed a threat to religious freedom. It presented the Catholic Church with its wide-ranging social, educational, and health care services, and many other faith-based organizations, with an impossible choice between violating their religious beliefs or violating federal regulations. The administration has finally listened to the concerns raised by many and appears to be seeking to avoid the threat to religious liberties posed by its original plan.”

Republicans in the senate seem determined to oppose the compromise and have introduced legislation that would allow employers or individuals to opt out of any benefit that undermines their moral beliefs. “They don’t have the authority under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution to tell someone in this country or some organization in this country what their religious beliefs are,” McConnell told “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “This issue will not go away until the administration simply backs down,” he said.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), who led the GOP’s opposition to the original rule, has yet to issue a statement on the measure and did not respond to ThinkProgress’ query about her position. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) also did not respond. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) co-sponsored a 1999 bill requiring contraception equity in insurance coverage and has not yet to weigh in on the current debate.

Update

Ayotte tells the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent that she still opposes Obama’s proposal:

“The president’s proposal leaves religious institutions vulnerable to federal coercion. This debate has always been about religious freedom. As I fight for a full repeal of Obamacare, I will continue to push for a legislative solution that protects conscience rights.”

Health

Six Republican Senators — Including Snowe And Collins — Co-Sponsored Federal Contraception Mandate In 2001

By Igor Volsky on Feb 8, 2012 at 3:05 pm

Republicans have gone to war against President Obama’s regulation requiring employers and insurers to provide contraception coverage, portraying the measure as a “government takeover” of health care and pledging to repeal the rule in Congress. The measure, which is part of the Affordable Care Act, says that companies offering coverage must also provide birth control insurance (but exempts houses of worship and nonprofits primarily employing and serving those of the same faith).

The Obama measure closely resembles state laws providing equity in insurance coverage for contraception in six states and actually offers far more conscience protections than previous Congressional efforts to expand women’s access to birth control. For instance, a 2001 bill co-sponsored by Republicans Sens. Olympia Snowe (ME), Susan Collins (ME), Lincoln Chafee (RI), Gordon Smith (OR), John Warner (VA), Arlen Specter (PA) — S. 104 — sought to establish parity for contraceptive prescriptions within the context of coverage already guaranteed by insurance plans, but offered no opt-out clause for religious groups who opposed contraception:

SEC. 714. STANDARDS RELATING TO BENEFITS FOR CONTRACEPTIVES.

`(a) REQUIREMENTS FOR COVERAGE- A group health plan, and a health insurance issuer providing health insurance coverage in connection with a group health plan, may not–

`(1) exclude or restrict benefits for prescription contraceptive drugs or devices approved by the Food and Drug Administration, or generic equivalents approved as substitutable by the Food and Drug Administration, if such plan provides benefits for other outpatient prescription drugs or devices; or

`(2) exclude or restrict benefits for outpatient contraceptive services if such plan provides benefits.

“Women shouldn’t be held hostage by virtue of where they live,” Snowe told a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing in September of 2001. “It simply is not fair.” “All we’re saying in this legislation is that if health insurance plans provide coverage for prescription drugs that that coverage has to extend to FDA-approved prescription contraceptives. It’s that simple.”

At the time, religious groups also raised concerns about the measure and Snowe promised to add a “conscience clause” that is similar to the exemption included in Maine’s law. Incidentally, that language is very similar to the conscience protections included in Obama’s regulation.

NEWS FLASH

Lieberman And Collins Reintroduce Domestic Benefits Bill For Federal Employees | Today, Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) introduced the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act of 2011, a bill that would provide Federal benefits to same sex domestic partners of Federal employees. Under the measure, same-sex domestic partners of federal employees living together in a committed relationship “would be eligible for health benefits, long-term care, Family and Medical Leave, and federal retirement benefits, among others.” The Act would help the more than 30,000 employees with same-sex partners, allow the Federal government to compete with the many private companies that already offer benefits, and increase costs by “only 0.4 percent of total health care expenditures, a tiny fraction that is consistent with the experience of thousands of private employers,” one study found.

NEWS FLASH

Snowe: No Medicare Or Social Security Cuts In Debt Deal | Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME) said she will not support any debt deal that includes cuts to the two social safety net programs, citing “strong bipartisan support.” “There are solvency problems with both programs. They have to be addressed but not as part of the debt reduction talks,” Snowe told the Bangor Daily News. It’s unclear how she would square that position with her support for a balanced budget amendment. But Snowe added, “There are a lot of tax credits that are not needed and should be repealed” — a position with which Maine’s other Republican senator, Susan Collins, agreed. “We spend billions of dollars a year in subsidies that go to some very wealthy corporate farmers,” Collins said.

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Jul 11, 2011 at 6:20 pm

Economy

Senate Republicans Who Voted To Create CFPB Now Refuse To Confirm Its Director Without Changes

By Pat Garofalo on May 6, 2011 at 6:30 pm

House Republicans this week passed a trio of bills aimed at reducing the independence of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that was created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. These changes — including replacing the Bureau’s Director with a five-person commission — would strike at the heart of the Bureau’s independence.

Not to be outdone, Senate Republicans sent a letter to President Obama this week saying that they will not vote to confirm a Director for the Bureau — who is supposed to be in place by July 21 — unless several changes are made to the Bureau’s structure:

As presently organized, far too much power will be vested in the CFPB director without any effective checks and balances. Accordingly, we will not support the consideration of any nominee, regardless of party affiliation, to be the CFPB director until the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is reformed.

For starters, the notion that the CFPB has some unprecedented amount of power is absurd. Plenty of agencies are run by a single director, and the CFPB’s rules can already be vetoed by a two-thirds vote of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which is tasked with policing systemic risk in the financial system.

Interestingly enough, two of the letter’s signatories — Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) — voted for the Dodd-Frank law, complete with the CFPB in its current form. In fact, during the Dodd-Frank debate, Snowe helped Democrats defeat a Republican proposal that would have scrapped the CFPB in favor of a consumer protection council.

Both Snowe and Collins have been running to their right recently, with Snowe in particular tacking that way in anticipation of a 2012 primary challenger. Yesterday, in fact, Snowe blocked a small business bill that she authored, throwing a fit over not receiving a vote on an amendment she authored with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that would block federal agencies from implementing regulations. She had previously called for a “clean” version of the small business bill to be passed.

The practical upshot of Senate Republicans refusing to confirm a nominee is that President Obama will have no choice but to make a recess appointment. But not every Senate Republican appears to be on-board with the GOP push to kneecap the CFPB, as both Sens. Scott Brown (R-MA) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) did not sign the letter to Obama.

Politics

(Corrected) Senators: ‘Women Will Die’ Without Planned Parenthood Funding

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Mar 28, 2011 at 3:15 pm

As the fight over funding the federal government heats up in Congress, one sticking point is sure to be Title X money for Planned Parenthood, which House Republicans voted to eliminate earlier this month. In the Senate, Republicans Scott Brown (MA) and Lisa Murkowski (AK) have broken with their party in support of continued funding for Planned Parenthood, noting it is one of the nation’s largest and most effective providers of womens’ health services. In an interview this weekend with the Anchorage Daily News, Murkowski A letter sent to Vice President Biden recently signed by 20 Democratic senators explained the stakes :

“More fundamentally, without the care Planned Parenthood provides — without access to Pap smears, pelvic exams and breast exams — women will die,” the senators said.

Indeed, one in five women in the U.S. have used one of Planned Parenthood’s 800 health centers, where the organization provides nearly one million Pap tests and more than 830,000 breast exams each year. The organization also administers nearly four million STD tests every year, including those for HIV. Just three percent of the organization’s work is related to abortions.

Meanwhile, The Hill reports that a number of moderate Republicans are signaling willingness to re-instate funds to Planned Parenthood. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) called “the outright elimination” of funding “a step too far,” while a spokesperson for her colleague Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) called the House vote “unwise.” Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) said he “has always supported Planned Parenthood and family planning efforts.”

The three senators didn’t say how they would vote on a measure to defund Planned Parenthood, and Brown and Murkowski have both voted for the House-passed full-year government funding bill that contained a provision eliminating funds for the organization. As CAP’s Matt Yglesias wrote of Brown’s statement in support of the group, “If he’s voting to defund Planned Parenthood, then all the statements in the world don’t mean a thing.”

Update

An earlier version of this post incorrectly attributed the quote to Murkowski, instead of the letter from the 20 senators. We apologize for the error and have corrected it.

LGBT

Defense Bill Falls 57-40, But Lieberman And Collins Pledge To Introduce Stand-Alone Repeal Measure

By Igor Volsky on Dec 9, 2010 at 5:10 pm

This evening, moments after the Senate failed to invoke cloture and proceed to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — the measure which contains the amendment to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) announced that they would offer a stand-alone DADT measure. Lieberman also said that he has a commitment from Reid to bring up the bill before the end of the year.

The vote on the National Defense Authorization Act failed after days of negotiations between Collins and Reid on the number of amendments that would be offered under a “reasonable” framework of debate. Talks appeared to break down this afternoon as Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took to the floor without first notifying Collins. Reid addressed the negotiations of the last several days, claiming that Republicans kept changing the goal posts. He had offered Collins 15 amendments — 10 from Republicans and 5 from Democrats — with an hour of debate for each, but she insisted on more time.

Following Reid’s remarks, Collins took to the floor and explained that she felt “perplexed” by Reid’s motion. She claimed that the two had been close to a deal and that he was now reneging on that agreement by filling up the tree, a technique that takes-up all the available slots for amendments on legislation in order to block competing amendments. Her main complaint appeared to be that Republicans would not be able to choose their own “relevant amendments” to the bill, while Reid insisted that both parties had to reach an agreement on “what some of the amendments would be.” During the roll-call, Collins initially voted against cloture but then suddenly changed her vote after talking to Sens. Lieberman and Claire McCaskill (D-MO). Unfortunately, she was unable to bring along Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) or other moderate Republicans who had signaled that they would proceed to the measure. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) was the only Democrat to vote “no,” while Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) missed the vote but announced that she would have voted to proceed to the measure.

Watch a compilation of today’s floor activity:

It’s unclear when the Senate will bring up the stand-alone measure, but Lieberman told reporters that the legislation will mirror the language in the Defense Authorization Bill and could be brought up as soon as today.

Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) also took to the Senate floor to condemn the Senate’s failure and reiterated his pledge to work through the holidays to pass the bill before the end of the year. “I’m willing to stay through the holidays to debate it as a stand-alone measure,” he said. “The vote that we just had means that we won’t have a debate on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”

Update

Greg Sargent explains why Reid brought the measure to the floor:

Reid concluded that even if Collins was sincere in her promise to vote for repeal if given the four days of debate, there was no way to prevent the proceedings from taking longer, the aide says. Reid decided that the cloture vote, the 30 hours of required post-cloture debate, and procedural tricks mounted by conservative Senators who adamantly oppose repeal would have dragged the process on far longer.

“It would have been much more than four days,” the aide says. “Her suggestions were flat out unworkable given how the Senate really operates. You can talk about four days until the cows come home. That has very little meaning for Coburn and DeMint and others who have become very skilled at grinding this place to a halt.”


Update

,Lieberman tweets on the stand-alone measure:

@JoeLieberman: Reid told me he will “Rule14″ the free-standing #DADT repeal so it skips cmte and can come directly to the Senate floor.


Update

,Statement from the White House:

A minority of Senators were willing to block this important legislation largely because they oppose the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ As Commander in Chief, I have pledged to repeal this discriminatory law, a step supported by the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and informed by a comprehensive study that shows overwhelming majorities of our armed forces are prepared to serve with Americans who are openly gay or lesbian. [...] While today’s vote was disappointing, it must not be the end of our efforts. I urge the Senate to revisit these important issues during the lame duck session.


Update

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