Senate passes Obamacare repeal, Planned Parenthood defunding bill, putting Republicans on record

Congress approved on Thursday night an Obamacare repeal package that serves as a double-edged sword for Republicans: while a boon to conservative senators running for president, it could jeopardize some of their GOP colleagues running for reelection in swing states in 2016.

The Senate voted, 52 to 47, on Thursday night to repeal large portions of Obamacare and defund Planned Parenthood. The repeal was wrapped inside a budget reconciliation bill that needed a simple majority of 51 senators to make good on a longstanding promise to voters that a GOP-led Congress would eliminate large portions of Obamacare. But after months of pressure from conservatives, Senate leaders decided to add language to defund Planned Parenthood that not every Republican senator supports.

“The Republican caucus is united in its belief that Obamacare is flawed and needs to be fixed,” said moderate Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). “By twinning it with a defunding of Planned Parenthood, you divide the caucus and muddy the message in my view.”

The reconciliation bill is under a veto threat from President Obama and is not likely to become law anytime soon. But the decision by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to allow a vote on such charged issues as Obamacare and Planned Parenthood is likely to come back to bite moderate Republicans in states that tend to vote Democratic in presidential years. They include 2016 candidates like Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire.

Kirk and Collins were the only Republicans to vote against the final legislation.

Even before the vote occurred, Democratic operatives seized on it as evidence that the GOP-led Congress is too extreme.

“The Republican-led Senate is spending the last few hours of its unimpressive working year to attack the health care services American women and families in every single state rely on,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee national press secretary Lauren Passalacqua. “Next fall, voters will remember how their Senators ignored the problems that actually demand Congressional action to wage a dangerous ideological crusade.”

And New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan (D) — who is challenging Ayotte in what is one of the banner races this cycle — bashed Ayotte for her pre-vote position.

“I’m extremely disappointed that Kelly Ayotte has consistently put corporate special interests and her party’s leadership ahead of New Hampshire, and that she has vowed to vote yet again to repeal New Hampshire’s bipartisan Medicaid expansion plan and defund Planned Parenthood,” Hassan said in a statement blasted out on Thursday morning.

But McConnell and other Republican leaders are as happy to put Democrats on the record voting for Obamacare as they are to let their members vote to repeal it.

“It’s a political exercise on the part of some people who just want to put people on record,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.).

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