Reps. Maloney, DeLauro & Schakowsky blast stark shift of House GOP toward denying women’s rights

WASHINGTON, DC  – Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) today issued a “Scorecard on Women’s Issues” at a Capitol Hill event that compares the positions of the two major parties on a wide variety of issues of vital importance to women.

Prepared by the office of Rep. Maloney, the Scorecard notes the differences between the current views of the House GOP with their party’s historic take on these issues.

“While in the past, Republicans and Democrats may have differed on many details, they still managed to work cooperatively within a common frame of reference. Today, however, the two parties are oceans apart in their policies and decades apart in their views,” the report said. The Scorecard, on issues ranging from family planning to nutritional assistance to Medicare, shows stark differences.  

For example, the current GOP hopes to totally defund Title X family planning programs. But as the Scorecard points out, the chief sponsor of the original bill back in 1970 was Republican Rep. George H. W. Bush, passed the Senate unanimously, and was signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon.

“While the Democrats have been consistently saying ‘Yes’ to addressing the issues of women’s health and safety, the Republicans just keep saying “No” at every turn,” Maloney said. “’No’ to providing funding for family planning, ‘No’ to Paycheck Fairness, and ‘No’ to affordable access to health care. The difference between these two parties is like day and night, as different as ‘Yes’ and ‘No’.”

“Ever since taking power, House Republicans have been committed to rolling back women’s basic rights and either ignoring or undermining their economic well-being,” DeLauro said. “We do not even have common ground on issues we once thought were settled.  The days of Dole, McGovern, Pell and Javits coming together and teaming up to fight hunger are gone.  We are back to the era of blaming the victims.  It almost seems like the time when the Republican Party and Betty Ford championed the equal rights amendment never happened.  We need to come together on the basic goals we have shared in the past.  American women and American families deserve no less.”

A copy of the full report is viewable here.