My Second Favorite Baldwin

Tammy Baldwin: "Focus on jobs, not restricting women's rights!"


The Republicans are playing a dangerous game with the American people. Despite all their talk about jobs & deficit spending, they’re pushing for extreme new laws that would give government & insurance companies power over our most personal life decisions & health care decisions.


House Republicans have decided that their biggest priority this week is to pass legislation that would cut off millions of women from the private health care they have today & limit the ability of a woman to get the care she need, even if the result could be a serious permanent health condition or could shorten her life.


These bills, H.R. 3, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” & H.R. 358, the “Protect Life Act” would allow public hospitals to refuse to take the steps necessary to save a woman’s life & allow states to deny Medicaid coverage for care to prevent life-long disabilities. This intrusive legislation would also allow public hospitals to refuse to take the steps necessary to save a woman's life & allow states to deny Medicaid coverage to prevent life long disabilities. It would give insurance companies more power over what women can & cannot do with their own health care dollars.


But, Representative Tammy Baldwin is calling the Republicans out. Baldwin: "Despite promises from the new majority that this Congress would focus on creating jobs & bolstering the economy, this bill that we are considering today fails to deliver this promise. In fact, this bill could further exacerbate the problem by causing millions of vulnerable Americans & small businesses to face a tax increases. If there's one message I've heard loud & clear from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, it's that tax hikes result in jobs lost."


Don’t messy with this Baldwin. She was just 9 years old when her mother married a black man in 1971. Baldwin was forced to face the injustice of suspicious white adults stopping her stepfather to ask what he was doing with a blond, blue-eyed little girl. She was the first openly gay non-incumbent elected to Congress, & the first woman elected to Congress from Wisconsin. Despite anti-gay smear campaigns by her Republican opponents, she has won her last 4 elections by 2-to-1 margins. Baldwin voted against the Iraq invasion in 2003, & she co-sponsored a resolution to impeach Cheney & Gonzales.

Today is Tammy Suzanne Green Baldwin's 49th Birthday. You Go, Girl!