Pelosi To Hold House Hearing On Contraception, GOP Plans To Interfere

From The New Civil Rights Movement: http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/pelosi-to-hold-house-hearing-on-contraception-gop-plans-to-interfere/politics/2012/02/21/35098

by David Badash

February 21, 2012

Last week, Rep. Darrell Issa‘s all-male House hearing on contraception made headlines around the world for its tone-deafness and for simply reinforcing the fact that the GOP is waging war against women. Today, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi announced Democrats will hold a House hearing Thursday on the issue of contraception and women’s health, and the key witness will be the woman the Democrats tried to get on Issa’s panel to testify, but who was refused. However, for the first time, possibly ever, the Republicans are getting in the way of the public viewing the testimony of the witness whom they refused to allow to testify last week.

Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke’s testimony may not be recorded or televised because Republicans are refusing to allow the House recording studio to tape the proceedings.

“In a note to reporters on Thursday, Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said the House Administration Committee, chaired by Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., ‘has apparently reversed existing policy and denied a request from the Democratic leadership for the House Recording Studio to cover this event and provide video publicly so all Americans can finally hear Ms. Fluke’,” according to the National Journal:

Hammill said Lungren’s committee, while under Democratic control in July 2008, lifted restrictions on the use of the studio to accommodate requests made by leadership. If Lungren has reversed this policy, wrote Hammill, “he has done so in secret and not consulted with [committee] Democrats. This leaves us only to think that the House Republican leadership is acting out yet again to silence women on the topic of women’s health.”

Hammill added that since the beginning of 2011, the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee has held eight hearings on various topics and that the recording studio had always covered these hearings unless pre-booked for something else.

“This is the first time the Democratic leadership has been told that the [recording studio] cannot cover this hearing because it is a hearing of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee,” Hammill said.

A spokeswoman for Lungren and House Administration Committee Republicans had no immediate response.

Continue reading at: http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/pelosi-to-hold-house-hearing-on-contraception-gop-plans-to-interfere/politics/2012/02/21/35098