45 Senators: “Partisan, discriminatory, and harmful policy riders have no place in must-pass legislation such as appropriations bills”
Washington, D.C. – Oregon’s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, Wisconsin’s U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, and New Jersey’s U.S. Senator Cory Booker led a group of over 40 Senators to urge Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) and Vice Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) to keep any new dangerous, hyper-partisan policy provisions that would curtail the freedoms of women and LGBTQ+ individuals out of must-pass government funding legislation.
House Republicans inserted so-called ‘poison pill’ provisions, which would otherwise fail the scrutiny of congressional debate, into critical government funding bills that require broad, bipartisan consensus to pass. Last year, Merkley, Baldwin, and Booker successfully led the effort to defeat over 50 extreme anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion policy provisions from being included in government funding legislation for fiscal year 2024.
Merkley, Baldwin, Booker, and 42 Senators write, “Dangerous poison pill provisions like those included in the FY25 House appropriations bills will severely undermine Congress’ ability to push forward must-pass legislation and keep the government open and working for the American people. As such, we urge you to reject these extremist riders from the final FY25 appropriations bills.”
In addition to Merkley, Baldwin, and Booker, the letter was also signed by Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Tom Carper (D-DE), Bob Casey (D-PA), Chris Coons (D-DE), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Dick Durbin (D-IL), John Fetterman (D-PA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Angus King (I-ME), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Jack Reed (D-RI), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Tina Smith (D-MN), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Mark Warner (D-VA), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
The Senators’ letter is endorsed by Human Rights Campaign, National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, ACLU, Guttmacher Institute, Whitman-Walker Institute, National Council of Jewish Women, National Women’s Law Center, Reproductive Freedom for All, Power to Decide, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Advocates for Trans Equality, and Physicians for Reproductive Health.
Full text of the letter can be found by clicking here and follows below:
Dear Chair Murray and Vice Chair Collins:
We write to urge you to keep the FY25 appropriations bills free of any new poison pill policy riders. Partisan, discriminatory, and harmful policy riders have no place in must-pass legislation such as appropriations bills. In the recent past, the Senate has had success passing bipartisan bills in committee because these bills did not contain new poison pill riders. Unfortunately, in FY25, the House has included more than 55 new anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ riders in its appropriations bills, which we urge you to reject from any final FY25 appropriations bills.
In the more than two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, our country has experienced a reproductive health care crisis. As of December 3, 2024, 13 states have banned abortion entirely, and 7 states have banned abortion anywhere from 6 to 18 weeks. Republicans have also attempted to ban medication abortion, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the United States. These bans leave 1 in 3 women, as well as transgender and nonbinary people, without access to abortion and disproportionately impact people of color, people with disabilities, young people, people living in rural areas, and people with low incomes.
Despite the dangerous consequences of the bans and the overwhelming support for access to abortion, House Republicans have continued to propose extremist anti-abortion policy riders in their appropriations bills. These new riders include a measure to stop the implementation of the Biden administration’s executive orders to protect access to abortion care in the wake of Dobbs, a provision that would interfere with essential postgraduate medical training in abortion care, and a provision that would restrict access to abortion and fertility care for servicemembers, veterans, and their families. If adopted, these provisions would dramatically undermine people’s ability to make decisions about their bodies, lives, and futures and providers’ ability to deliver necessary reproductive health care.
House Republicans have also used the FY25 appropriations process to push extremist and unpopular anti- LGBTQ+ measures, which threaten the lives and fundamental dignity of LGBTQ+ communities. Anti- LGBTQ+ legislation is being introduced across the country; in 2024 alone, more than 574 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced across 42 state legislatures.
Against this backdrop, House Republicans have introduced more than 50 anti-LGBTQ+ provisions across all 12 appropriations bills. This includes provisions in every appropriations bill that would allow people and organizations, including those that receive taxpayer funds, to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people and several provisions that would prevent the administration from enforcing executive orders and laws to protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination. Half of the House’s appropriations bills also contain dangerous riders that severely restrict access to gender-affirming care, which would deprive transgender people of critical, medically necessary, evidence-based, and often life-saving healthcare. Among those who would be impacted by these riders are the more than 134,000 transgender veterans who rely on the Veterans’ Affairs Administration for their healthcare.
Dangerous poison pill provisions like those included in the FY25 House appropriations bills will severely undermine Congress’ ability to push forward must-pass legislation and keep the government open and working for the American people. As such, we urge you to reject these extremist riders from the final FY25 appropriations bills.
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