Although President Obama drew a line in the sand late last week in his last hour budget negotiations with House Speaker John Boehner when it came to a GOP proposal that would defund Planned Parenthood, Stephanie Schriock, the head of the Washington D.C. based political action group Emily's List, says that proposal will certainly come back before Congress soon.
Emily's List recruits pro-choice Democratic women to run for office, and supports them with money and people power.
Schriock was in Tampa on Sunday, meeting a group of supporters at a get together at former Tampa City Council member Linda Saul-Sena's Davis Island home, where the featured speaker was former Florida CFO Alex Sink.
Democrats and Republicans came to a tentative agreement (tentative because it hasn't been voted on) on Friday night that would cut $38.5 billion from the remaining months on the 2011 budget – but the talks almost broke down when Republicans inserted what is known as a "rider," which was cutting hundreds of millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood.
On Sunday on Fox News Sunday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said the fight over Planned Parenthood was because federal funds shouldn't be used to pay for abortions, but in fact no federal money has been allowed to pay for abortions since the 1970's.
This article appears in Apr 7-13, 2011.