Texas GOP Staffer Quits Over Draconian Cuts to Women's Health Care, Speaks At Rally

RH Reality Check by Jodi Jacobson, Editor in Chief, RH Reality Check

Rallies were held in Texas yesterday on the eve of the elimination of funding to the Women's Health Program through the state, and subsequently to all Planned Parenthood clinics because... well, because the far right apparently doesn't like women to have health care.

So 130,000 more women in Texas will be without health care tomorrow, a state in which access to primary reproductive health care has already been made scarce since the legislature cut funds dramatically last year as well. The cuts will take place because Governor Perry is refusing federal funding that otherwise would go to these clinics. Perry, and other opponents of women's health care in Texas, claim there are "lots of alternatives" to the clinics now providing low-income women--mothers, students, employees--with health services, but as Andrea Grimes reported for us last year, those alternatives just don't exist.

And as Grimes reported, the 2011 state family planning cuts left 180,000 women without access to contraception and reproductive health services like pap smears and breast cancer screenings.

"The Women's Health Program serves an additional 130,000 women, bringing the total number of women without access to basic reproductive health care to 310,000," writes Grimes. "Some estimates put the number closer to 400,000. The Texas Legislative Budget Board has estimated that this will result in up to 21,000 additional births in the state--children born to families who are already in need of government assistance and who would otherwise have sought to avoid an unintended and unwanted pregnancy.

But the anger at these cuts in Texas and across the country is building and even women on the right are fed up. Today, according to the Austin Chronicle, GOP legislative aide, Allison Catalano, who began working for Texas state legislator Myra Crownover last summer, resigned her post, citing Crownover's support for the cuts to women's health funding.

In a letter to Crownover, Catalano wrote that she decided to resign her position because of "recent decisions made by you, Representative Crownover, along with other legislators" related to the draconian cuts to the women's health budget.

Republicans Losing on Birth Control as 77% in Poll Spurn Debate

Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Americans overwhelmingly regard the debate over President Barack Obama’s policy on employer-provided contraceptive coverage as a matter of women’s health, not religious freedom, rejecting Republicans’ rationale for opposing the rule. More than three-quarters say the topic shouldn’t even be a part of the U.S. political debate.

More than six in 10 respondents to a Bloomberg National Poll -- including almost 70 percent of women -- say the issue involves health care and access to birth control, according to the survey taken March 8-11.

That conflicts with Republican presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, who say Obama is violating religious freedom by requiring employers -- including those with religious objections to birth control -- to provide a way for women to obtain contraceptive coverage as part of their insurance plans.

The results suggest the Republican candidates’ focus on contraception is out of sync with the U.S. public. Seventy-seven percent of poll respondents say birth control shouldn’t be a topic of the political debate, while 20 percent say it should.

“These candidates are talking to a relatively small subset even among Republicans,” said J. Ann Selzer, of Des Moines, Iowa-based Selzer & Co., who conducted the telephone poll of 1,002 respondents. “They may have the feeling, and their polls may be showing them, that this is a way in and this is a wedge issue within the party, but this does not dovetail with the views of the majority in the U.S.”

Read the full story @ Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Related: Romney: Planned Parenthood? "We're Going To Get Rid Of Them"

Democratic Party County/Senatorial District Conventions On For April 21, 2012

The Democratic Party will conduct County/Senatorial District Conventions around the state on Saturday April 21, 2012 - five weeks before the rescheduled Democratic Primary Election Day of Tuesday May 29, 2012. Early voting for the May 29th Primary Election will run from Monday, May 14, 2012 to Friday, May 25, 2012 at the usual early polling locations around Collin Co.

Be A Delegate to the 2012 Collin Co. Democratic Convention at the Plano Centre in Plano, Texas! (map)

Any registered voter who signs an oath of affiliation with the Texas Democratic Party at convention check-in or during the convention may participate. To be a Delegate just check into the convention during registration from 8:00 am to 10:00 am on Saturday April 21 using your Voter Registration Card, Driver's License or other identification used for voting.

On March 1, the San Antonio U.S. District Court three-judge panel, which controls the state's interim redistricting maps and 2012 primary election schedule, issued an order that allows the Texas Democratic Party and Republican Party of Texas to hold their respective County/Senatorial District (SD) Conventions in April - before the Texas Primary Election that is now scheduled to occur on May 29.

In normal primary election years the state Democratic and Republican Parties conduct their respective SD/County conventions three weeks after primary election day and election precinct conventions, held immediately after the primary election.

Election precinct conventions normally kick off the three stage convention process by electing precinct delegates to attend the SD/County conventions. Delegates are then elected from the SD/County conventions to advance to each party's state conventions, which are held in early June. In presidential election years delegates from each party's state convention are selected to advance to the National Conventions to nominate each party's presidential candidates.

This year, drawn out court battles over the new redistricting maps have pushed primary election day from its usual first Tuesday in March date to Tuesday May 29. Since the Democratic and Republican Parties were already locked into holding their respective state conventions the weekend of June 9 - just over one week after the rescheduled primary date - they asked the San Antonio three-judge panel to issue an order allowing them to hold their respective SD/County conventions in April, five weeks before the primary election.

This year, the Texas Democratic Party convention and delegate selection process will skip preliminary Election Precinct Conventions and begin with County/Senatorial District Conventions on Saturday April 21, 2012.

This year, any registered voter who signs an oath of affiliation with the Texas Democratic Party at convention check or during the convention may participate in their County/Senatorial District Convention as a delegate. People who sign an oath of affiliation with the Texas Democratic Party -- which they would normally do when voting in the party's primary election -- cannot participate in another political party’s process, or vote in another party's primary election until after December 31, 2013, when the party affiliation cycle resets for the 2014 primary year.
From the Texas Delegate Selection Plan for the 2012 Democratic National Convention, Issued by the Texas Democratic Party:

1. Texas will use a proportional representation system based on the results of county/senatorial district conventions and a state convention for apportioning delegates to the 2012 Democratic National Convention. This Plan allocates senatorial district level delegates based on the presidential preferences expressed by participants on sign-in sheets at the county/senatorial district conventions, and it allocates pledged party leader and elected official delegates and at-large delegates and alternates based on the presidential preference expressed by delegates on the sign-in sheets at the State Convention.
2. The first determining step of Texas’ delegate selection process will occur on April 21, 2012, with the county/senatorial district conventions.
3. Voter Participation in Process
   1. Participation in Texas’ delegate selection process is open to all voters who wish to participate as Democrats.
      • Voter registration eligibility ends 30 days prior to the county/senatorial district conventions (March 22, 2012).
      • Voters affiliate with the Democratic Party by signing an affidavit (oath) of affiliation when signing in at the county/senatorial district convention or at some other time in the current election cycle (Rules 2.A. & 2.C & Reg. 4.3).
      Signing an oath of affiliation with the Democratic Party shall be the only qualification to become a delegate at any level; attendance or delegate status at any party convention shall not be required.
   2. At no stage of Texas’ delegate selection process shall any person be required, directly or indirectly, to pay a cost or fee as a condition for participating. Voluntary contributions to the Party may be made, but under no circumstances shall a contribution be mandatory for participation (Rule 2.D. & Reg. 4.4.).
   3. No persons shall participate or vote in the nominating process for the Democratic presidential candidate who also participates in the nominating process of any other party for the corresponding elections (Rule 2.E.).

Summary of the Proposed TDP County/SD Convention and Delegate Selection Process

The Texas Convention and Delegate Selection process will begin on April 21, 2012 with the County/Senatorial District conventions. There will be no precinct conventions.

GOP Race Is Rallying Democrats

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press
Campaign Continues to Hurt GOP More Than It Helps

The Republican nomination battle is rallying Democrats behind Barack Obama. Currently, 49% of Democrats say that as they learn more about the GOP candidates, their impression of Obama is getting better. Just 36% of Democrats expressed this view in December, before the Republican primaries began.

In contrast, there has been virtually no change in Republicans’ views of the GOP field during this period. Just 26% of Republicans say their impression of the GOP field has improved as they have learned more about the candidates. That is largely unchanged from December (30%).

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and The Washington Post, conducted March 1-4 among 1,009 adults, finds that the overall balance of opinion about the GOP field remains more negative than positive.

About three-in-ten (29%) Americans say as they learn more about the field their impression of the Republican candidates has gotten worse, while just 12% say it has gotten better. Half (50%) say their impression has been staying about the same. That is little changed from December.

A Pew Research Center/Washington Post survey in late January found that ratings of the Republican field are lackluster even among Republican and Republican-leaning independent voters: At that time, 52% said the field of candidates was only fair or poor while 46% said it was excellent or good.

While an increasing percentage of Democrats say their impression of Obama has gotten better as they have learned more about the GOP candidates, overall public views have changed little since December.

About as many Americans say their impression of Obama is getting better (23%) as worse (21%) as they have learned more about the Republicans candidates. About half (51%) say their impression of Obama is staying about the same.

Research from Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.