Washington View, December 2024

Election Outcomes Dwarf Other Battles

Congress passes last-minute short term government funding bill just days before deadline

On September 25, less than a week before a shutdown deadline, Congress passed a continuing resolution to keep government funding going through December 20. A clean bill — meaning no controversial policy provisions — was passed only after House leadership tried and failed twice to move a bill that included provisions unacceptable to the Senate and the White House. And it was passed, like each of the late funding bills over the past two years, with more Democratic than Republican votes in favor.

Now that the election is over, Congress will try again to pass funding legislation through the end of September 2025. If history is any guide, that will likely not happen until days before the December 20 deadline, when the current Congress is scheduled to adjourn.

Biden-Harris administration announces new rule to expand access to no-cost contraceptives

In October, the White House announced a new rule to expand private insurance coverage of FDA-approved contraceptives. The rule will, for the first time, allow people to get over-the-counter (OTC) contraceptives without cost sharing. This will make emergency contraceptives and Opill, the new OTC oral contraceptive on shelves since March, available without co-pay. The rule will also require private health insurers to inform policy holders of the new coverage. Finally, the new rule will require health plans to strengthen existing coverage for prescription contraceptives, more explicitly requiring plans to cover drug-based methods without co-pay.

This marks the largest expansion of contraceptive coverage since the Affordable Care Act’s birth control benefit went into effect 12 years ago.

The new rule was published in the Federal Register on October 28 and is undergoing a 60-day comment period before it can be made final.

Republican attorneys general file new lawsuit seeking to limit access to medication abortion

Just weeks before the November 5 election, the attorneys general of Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri filed a lawsuit seeking to severely restrict the availability of mifepristone across the country. Their suit strives to make the medication illegal for anyone under 18, and it aims to use the Comstock Act — a 19th century relic — to bar the mailing of the drug across state lines.

The new lawsuit comes following the Supreme Court’s dismissal earlier this year of a challenge from the state of Texas to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of mifepristone in 2000. The justices’ dismissal of the case was based on narrow technical grounds which left the door open for different challengers to bring a new lawsuit.

This new suit was filed with the same federal judge who ruled in favor of the earlier challenge in Texas (even though none of the plaintiffs are from that state).

Trump to return to White House in January; reimposition of Global Gag Rule expected

The results of the election put the future of reproductive health and rights across the US and around the world in serious doubt. By our press deadline (November 8), more than two dozen House races hadn’t yet been called, but Republicans had won control of the Senate and Trump had been re-elected.

The election wasn’t all bad news for reproductive rights though. Voters in seven states — Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and New York — adopted constitutional provisions to protect the right to abortion. In Florida, 57% supported an initiative to do so, but it failed due to a 60% threshold required for approval. In Nebraska and South Dakota, right to abortion initiatives were defeated.

Bidding farewell to a champion

When the new Congress convenes in January, the House of Representatives will not include Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA-12), arguably one of the most outspoken and effective supporters of and advocates for international family planning and global reproductive rights who has ever served.

Rep. Lee is leaving the House after 13 terms. She is the sponsor of the Global Health, Empowerment, and Rights (HER) Act to prevent a future president from unilaterally reimposing the Global Gag Rule — a policy which undermines crucial access to contraceptives and other reproductive health care. As chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State Department and Foreign Operations, she moved legislation to increase US support for these programs and to eliminate harmful restrictions including the Global Gag Rule and the Helms Amendment.

She has been a strong, steady, and consistent leader in efforts to block new restrictions on abortion across the United States and around the world. In 2017, she was presented with Population Connection Action Fund’s Empower Her, Empower Humanity Award in recognition of her lifetime of work.

She has helped improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world. We are all better off because of her service to community and country. We will miss her fierce dedication and leadership in Congress, and selfishly hope to see her finding new ways to serve and to make “good trouble.”

Email Brian: bdixon@popconnect.org