Add abortion-related restrictions on U.S. aid to international family planning to ensure conservative support. But to the embarrassment of the House leaders, they were tripped up by a faction of GOP conservatives who revile the United Nations. The GOP hierarchy plans a furious week of lobbying and arm-twisting, including a speech by Gingrich to the Republican Conference, in hopes of winning support for passage. The leaders' argument to conservatives will center on the bill's importance to the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee, which is closely tracking how members vote.
Party leaders have their work cut out.
Democrats, who were frozen out of the Republican-only conference report, are unified in their opposition. Moderate Republicans, who favor abortion rights, will vote against the legislation based on the abortion provision. It is an argument that got 165 votes, including 157 Republicans, for a Bartlett amendment in the House last September and swayed several Republicans again in a closed-door meeting of the GOP on March 12. Even Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., who signed the conference report, had second thoughts about paying the U.N. money. The bill's stumble raises a larger question of why the GOP leadership decided to abandon a bipartisan approach and instead to try to ram a bill through the House despite its narrow majority.