Word: washington
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Washington's delegate, Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, says that even the GOP leadership is uninterested in making it an issue. "I don't think people are looking for a fight they're going to lose," she says. She predicts little fuss, except from "back benchers." How much of a political issue the bill will create won't be known for some time. Jennifer E. Duffy, political analyst and editor with the Cook Political Report, says any political grist for Republicans will probably depend on the level of opposition in Congress and how the issue is raised. Republicans could look...
...under council rules probably wouldn't happen until December. Some Republicans in Congress, while acknowledging that they are powerless to block same-sex marriage in the capital, will probably still try. Congressman Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican who is the ranking GOP member of the subcommittee with oversight over Washington, says he intends to support any effort to block the bill and may even sponsor such an effort himself, as he did with the previous bill that recognizes marriages from elsewhere. He says he didn't think Democrats would allow the matter to be voted upon because it would provide...
Opponents of the bill in Washington, blocked at every turn, continue to loudly condemn the effort, saying the council is acting against the wishes of residents. As in California, much of that opposition has been organized through churches. A network of pastors at predominantly black churches have been vocal opponents, and over the summer, Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl joined the fray, reminding hundreds of Catholic priests in the area of the church's opposition. However, Pastor Patrick J. Walker, chairman of a task force opposing same-sex marriage in the Missionary Baptist Ministers' Conference of D.C. and Vicinity, predicts...
...potential for such a lack of uniformity across the country has only recently become apparent. Just last week, during the markup of the bill, at least two amendments were tacked on to the legislation giving states further latitude. Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington drafted an amendment that would allow states the option of pooling residents earning 133% to 200% of the federal poverty level into a group outside the exchange. States would get money from federal subsidies that are available to these low-income earners - who wouldn't be poor enough to qualify for Medicaid even under the proposed expanded...
...reform, already has a working exchange and many of the insurance-market reforms called for in federal legislation (such as guaranteeing coverage to anyone who applies and prohibiting premium pricing based on health status). Cantwell based her amendment on a program that already exists in her home state of Washington; called Basic Health Plan, it pools non-Medicaid-eligible low-income residents, steering them into less costly managed-care plans. Critics point out that premiums for these low-income residents have still risen dramatically since the program launched in the early 1990s, but Cantwell and Baucus say they have been...