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Norton Says a Planned Parenthood Select Committee Would Fit Republican Pattern of Wasteful Taxpayer-Funded Political Weapons

October 1, 2015

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), a senior member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee (OGR), today said there is no basis whatsoever for plans to establish a select committee to investigate Planned Parenthood, especially after OGR Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) conceded in an interview last night that his committee found no evidence that Planned Parenthood violated any laws. Norton said the OGR hearing on Tuesday barely touched on Planned Parenthood's fetal tissue donation program because it is clear that women have made these donations voluntarily, processed at-cost by only two Planned Parenthood clinics, and, according to the New England Journal of Medicine, "virtually every person in this country has benefited from research using fetal tissue." Norton said that Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), who would establish such a select committee, would be following the same politically-driven pattern of past Republican investigations, including the Benghazi Select Committee, which Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) just admitted was used to drive down former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's presidential poll numbers, at a cost of $4.5 million to taxpayers.

"When Republican committees fail to uncover wrongdoing, the Republican Congress has taken to stoking partisan divisions by forming new select committees instead of producing something concrete for the American people," Norton said. "As a result, we see the disaffection of the public, especially in the Republican presidential contest, which at the moment is receiving its own message from Republicans, who are rejecting Republican politicians. Republicans in the country are not alone in being fed up with a Congress that holds politically-motivated hearings that produce politics but no legislation. Republicans have failed to address matters of national importance, such as passing a long-term surface transportation bill or avoiding another looming debt ceiling crisis, all while barely missing shutting down the government yesterday. Republicans have not learned from the Benghazi Select Committee, which Majority Leader McCarthy says has met its purpose in smearing Secretary Clinton. Instead, they are trying the same tactic with a Planned Parenthood Select Committee, even though two-thirds of Americans believe federal funding should continue for the one of the nation's leading providers of women's health care. It is long past time that the House of Representatives get back to the critically important business that our constituents sent us here to do."