Two Republican senators introduced measures Wednesday to overturn two laws recently approved by D.C. lawmakers that they say will undermine religious freedom in the nation’s capital.
Employing the rarely successful disapproval resolution process, Sens. James Lankford of Oklahoma and Ted Cruz of Texas are seeking to derail a law that prevents employer discrimination based on reproductive healthcare decisions and another that bans religious schools from discriminating based on sexual orientation.
The senators said the city’s Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Amendment Act could require employers to provide health care insurance plans that cover abortion services even when the employer is morally opposed. And the Human Rights Amendment Act would force religious schools to support activities that violate the their faith, such as funding gay rights groups at a conservative religious campus, they said.
“What the D.C. Council has done is a major threat to the fundamental right to religious freedom for D.C. residents and organizations, and a brazen display of intolerance,” Mr. Lankford said in a statement Wednesday.
D.C. lawmakers, acknowledging that there could be legal concerns with the reproductive health legislation, earlier this month adopted an emergency amendment to ensure the law doesn’t force employers to provide insurance coverage for abortions or other reproductive health care decisions they oppose on religious or moral grounds.
All D.C. laws undergo a mandatory 30-day review period during which Congress can vet the legislation and members can file disapproval resolutions to try to overturn a law. The process is infrequently invoked and is rarely successful.
According to D.C. Vote, which advocates for local voting rights, the last time a disapproval resolution was introduced was 2011. Disapproval resolutions must be approved by the House and the Senate and be signed by the president — a feat that has been accomplished only three times in the last 40 years.
Nonetheless, the senators’ action rankled D.C. officials, who see the move as an attack on the District.
“Senators Cruz and Lankford’s move to disapprove a local District law is absurd and hypocritical,” read a statement issued by D.C. Vote. “They are now guilty of the same federal overreach they often criticize in others.”
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s non-voting representative, defended the city’s right to govern itself and accused the two senators of bowing to the wishes of lobbyists with the conservative Heritage Foundation.
“The anti-discrimination legislation passed by the District of Columbia, if applied correctly, will do no more than protect residents from facing discrimination by their employers because of their most personal reproductive health decisions and students from discrimination for their sexual orientation at their own schools and universities,” Ms. Norton said.
Heritage officials previously acknowledged that they were reaching out to members of Congress in the hopes of overturning the bills.
• Andrea Noble can be reached at anoble@washingtontimes.com.
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