The House bill to replace Obamacare has been through a dozen rewrites — but the biggest one may be in the Senate. Hours away from the most anticipated vote of the last seven years, eyes are already on the legislation’s next stop: Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) chamber, where a legislative makeover may be in the cards. If the bill passes a divided House (a big “if,” some argue), the next biggest question is whether Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) language will survive the Senate’s procedural tests. Despite the optimism that follows the intense effort to thread the parliamentarian needle that the reconciliation bill must go through in the Senate, the outcome is far from certain. (At this point, odds-makers would probably have an easier time predicting the Final Four!)

Like everyone else, pro-lifers will have to wait and see how the umpire of these questions rules. But even if the House bill fails the test, it isn’t the end of the world. Senate leaders would take over the job and introduce their own replace plan. And if that bombs? Republicans still have options. They could still pass the 2015 repeal bill and then turn their attention to a comprehensive plan that isn’t bound by the limits of reconciliation. Either way, McConnell says, “We’re not slowing down. We will reach a conclusion on health care next week.”

For now, though, the first obstacle is still in Ryan’s House, where holdouts from the House Freedom Caucus are trying to get the most conservative alternative possible. Wednesday morning, Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) and his members took a trip to the White House for a last-minute powwow before the vote today. As the president knows, the fate of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) is, in large part, in the hands of Meadows’s caucus.

And while some think the conservatives have gone too far in their opposition, Mark has been clear from day one that he isn’t worried about job security. He’s worried about Americans’ security. If he loses his seat for standing on principle, so be it. “I serve at the pleasure of the people of western North Carolina, and when you serve at their pleasure, it’s only those 750,000 people that can send you home,” he told reporters Tuesday. “It’s a temporary job, and I’ve known that from the beginning.” In the meantime, there’s at least one piece of common ground in Ryan’s split party: the abortion restrictions. Even the Speaker’s office understands what a selling point that is, issuing a special statement reminding members (and taxpayers):

The AHCA blocks more than $500 million of federal dollars currently going to Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the country, for one year, and instead sends money to community health centers, which far outnumber Planned Parenthood clinics. Women’s health will not be neglected. Instead, the AHCA will redirect $422 million to community health centers around the United States — ones that do not perform abortions and have a proven record of helping women. The AHCA restores pro-life principles to the health care system — a system that should inherently protect life, not seek to destroy it.

Dropping that language is non-negotiable, conservatives agree. “Almost all of the pro-life organizations here in town have said they would recommend a no vote at that point,” Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) pointed out, “and obviously a lot of the pro-life legislators would have concerns as well.” As important as it is to protect Americans from Obamacare, it’s even more important to end the forced partnership between taxpayers and the abortion industry. And we think the GOP plan can do both.

Originally published here.

Changing Times for Privacy

The media loves to talk about the trauma inflicted on gender-confused kids when they’re using the bathroom or locker room of their biological sex. But what if the gym shoe is on the other foot? In Pennsylvania, one teenager was just as scarred by walking into his locker room and realizing a girl was half-naked inside it. Joel Doe, the suit calls him, is a high school junior who was minding his own business, undressing to put on his P.E. clothes, when “he suddenly realized there was a member of the opposite sex changing with him in the locker room, who was at the time wearing nothing but shorts and a bra.” He was shocked. When he went to the office to complain that there was a girl in his locker room, the principal told him to deal with it. Exercise tolerance, he was told. But what about the tolerance for his privacy, he thought?

Like the girls in Palatine, Illinois, who were afraid to use the locker room with a boy inside, this junior is refusing to change for gym — which, the lawsuit explains, has gotten him in trouble with the teacher. He “experienced embarrassment and humiliation, both in terms of being viewed and viewing a student of the opposite sex in a state of undress because of the stigmatization and criticism he received from other students and adults.” Now, his attorneys for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and Independence Law Center (ILC) point out, he even avoids using the restroom during the school day “because of the ongoing risk of having his privacy violated.” This is exactly the kind of sexual harassment Title IX outlaws. And while the Left likes to twist the statute into a defense of people who identify as transgender, the reality is that Title IX “allows for sex-segregated facilities as a general matter.”

No student should have to sue their school for the right to privacy, but unfortunately, that’s the uncomfortable — and traumatic — environment President Obama created. And while the Trump White House made quick work of the former president’s bathroom mandates, it’s taking a while for local communities to pull these policies up by the roots. “We trust that our children won’t be forced into emotionally vulnerable situations like this when they are in the care of our schools, because it’s the school’s duty to protect and respect the bodily privacy and dignity of all students,” ILC Chief Counsel Randall Wenger argued. Maybe it will take lawsuits like this one for schools to learn the lesson: privacy is for everyone.

Originally published here.

Hungary for Accountability at State

The State Department’s to-do list was already long, but thanks to George Soros, it just got longer. Under Obama, the agency raised more than a few eyebrows partnering with international groups tied to the liberal billionaire. And now that Donald Trump is at the helm, more countries feel free to protest it. With an ally in the White House, world leaders have been much more vocal about what they see as an encroachment on their turf under the guise of USAID and other programs.

From Hungary to Macedonia, governments are complaining about the unwelcome intrusion of far-Left special interests. In the former Yugoslavian territory in particular, “Soros-based organizations” are lobbying for reforms “ultimately aimed to give the Prime Minister and left-of-center government full control over judiciary power,” the GOP points out. That kind of foreign strong-arming isn’t just unethical — it’s illegal. In some places, the resistance is growing in the form of a global Stop Operation Soros coalition. “Politicians with nationalist constituencies in several Eastern Bloc states have become increasingly aggressive in seeking international support for their crusade against Soros,” Politico points out, “and they seem to have found at least some takers in the GOP.”

A group of Republican senators fired off a letter to new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson asking him to dig into the grants awarded by USAID to left-wing political groups. “The USAID website shows that between 2012 and 2016, USAID gave almost $5 million in taxpayer cash to… ‘The Civil Society Project,’ which ‘aims to empower Macedonian citizens to hold government accountable.’ USAID’s website links to www.soros.org.mk, and says the project trained hundreds of young Macedonians ‘in youth activism and the use of new media instruments.’” Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) is just as frustrated, telling me on “Washington Watch” recently, “We’re not supposed to be taking sides. There needs to be a top-to-bottom review at the State Department to ensure this kind of aggressive partisanship doesn’t take place.”

In Hungary, leaders warned, “Large-bodied predators are swimming here in the waters. This is the trans-border empire of George Soros, with tons of money and international heavy artillery. It is causing trouble … that they are trying secretly and with foreign money to influence Hungarian politics.” After eight years of watching the Obama administration lean on other nations on everything from radical abortion policy to homosexuality, President Trump finally has a chance to restore some respect to the diplomatic process. Taxpayers shouldn’t be exporting an ideology that can’t even get traction here at home. Especially not with our hard-earned dollars.

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.