House fails to derail new D.C. abortion law

WASHINGTON — A controversial law that will prohibit District of Columbia employers from discriminating against employees for having abortions or using contraception will take effect today, despite a high-profile vote of opposition by House Republicans.

A divided House voted mostly along party lines late Thursday to strike down the law. It was the first vote to upend a District of Columbia law in nearly a quarter-century and the first such rebuke to city policy on ideological grounds in almost 35 years.

The Senate failed to act on a companion measure, however, as President Barack Obama threatened to veto the effort if it reached his desk. That halted the progress of conservatives who said the law constituted a liberal attack on anti-abortion groups in the nation’s capital.

What remained unclear Friday was whether Republicans would continue to seek to undermine the law. Groups opposing abortion said they would continue working with conservative members of Congress to thwart it.

One approach, advocated by a group of influential GOP lawmakers, called for freezing funding for the District of Columbia to enforce violations of the law. But the National Right to Life Committee said its organization and others like it would still be exposed to civil suits from opponents, even for deciding against hiring a prospective employee because of his or her views on reproductive rights. “Suffice to say, our organization will continue to work with members of Congress and to explore all other legal remedies,” said Douglas Johnson, the group’s legislative director.

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s nonvoting member of Congress and a Democrat, issued a statement Friday declaring victory because the measure is on track to become law.

But after a fierce debate on the House floor late Thursday, neither side felt like cheering. “I feel rather battered around, beat up, by the whole thing,” D.C. Council chairman Phil Mendelson said.

The effort — begun by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in the days before he launched his presidential campaign — gave House Republicans a floor victory but, in terms of halting the law, a defeat.

Democrats said they saw little positive in the ordeal. It brought to national attention the district’s lack of self-governance and subservient relationship to Republican overseers in Congress. Some said this week’s events could signal more trouble ahead, since the fight appeared likely to spill over into the next federal budget battle.

The vote became a sounding board for partisan politics on the issue of women’s reproductive rights. During the House debate, Democrats from more than a dozen states blasted the attempted GOP repeal as an infringement of those rights and of privacy.

Even the Democratic presidential campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton weighed in. Her communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, said Republicans were overruling the democratic process in the District of Columbia. “Hillary will fight to make it easier, not more difficult, for women and families to get ahead and ensure that women are not discriminated against for personal medical decisions,” Ms. Palmieri said.

The final vote, tallied after 11 p.m., was 228-192, with 13 Republicans siding with Democrats and three Democrats backing the repeal.

At midnight, shortly after the vote, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., issued a statement saying religious liberty and First Amendment freedoms were under attack.