Washington (December 19, 2023) – Today, Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) joined Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and 45 colleagues in a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Vice Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) urging them to reject any new poison pill policy riders in the fiscal year 2024 appropriations bills, including the anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion policy provisions that House Republicans inserted into their appropriations bills. 

“The Senate has had tremendous success both passing bipartisan bills in committee and on the Senate floor because these bills are free of new poison pill riders. Unfortunately, the House appropriations bills are filled with new highly partisan provisions, including anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ riders, that should be removed from any final appropriations bills,” write the Senators.

These poison pill policy riders aim to make changes to laws that would fail to withstand scrutiny of congressional debate by attaching them to “must-pass” measures like appropriation bills.

“Our country is facing a reproductive health care crisis, one that has been accelerated by the Supreme Court’s extremist decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,” the Senators write. “House Republicans have proposed several new anti-abortion policy riders. These riders include a provision to force back in place medically unnecessary restrictions on medication abortion, a measure to stop the implementation of the Biden administration’s executive orders to protect access to abortion care, and a measure that would jeopardize access to essential postgraduate medical training in abortion care,” their letter continues.

Not only are there anti-abortion poison pills included in the House bills, there are attacks on the LGBTQ+ community as well.

“House Republicans have used the appropriations process to push extremist anti-LGBTQ+ measures, which threaten to disrupt the lives and fundamental dignity of the LGBTQ+ community,” the letter states. “Against this backdrop, House Republicans have introduced more than 50 anti-LGBTQ+ provisions across all 12 appropriations bills. These provisions include those allowing the government to discriminate against married same-sex couples as well as language to prevent the administration from enforcing laws to protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination. Seven of the House’s twelve appropriations bills also contain dangerous riders that ban access to gender-affirming care, which would deprive transgender people of medically necessary and often life-saving healthcare,” the Senators note.

These extreme, poison pill provisions riddled throughout the House appropriations bills threaten Congress’ ability to pass bipartisan funding bills that are needed to keep the government open and working for the American people. Hyper-partisan agenda items have no place in critical spending bills that require broad, bipartisan consensus to pass and keep the government open.

Joining Senators Markey, Merkley, Baldwin, and Booker on this letter are Senators Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawai'i), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Angus King (I-Maine), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Ben Luján (D-N.M.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawai'i), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI..), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

The Senators’ letter is endorsed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Guttmacher Institute, Human Rights Campaign, National Center for Transgender Equality, National Council of Jewish Women, National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, National Women’s Law Center, Physicians for Reproductive Health, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America), Whitman-Walker Institute.

Full text of the letter can be found here.

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