GOP lawmakers try but fail to block SC budget over money for Planned Parenthood

A handful of S.C. Republican lawmakers tried but failed Thursday to block the state's budget, three days before it is set to take effect. The legislators were upset the budget did not reject federal Medicaid dollars that go to Planned Parenthood.

State Sen. Richard Cash, R-Anderson, and state Rep. John McCravy, R-Greenwood, asked their colleagues Thursday to send the state's proposed $8.2 billion general fund budget back to House and Senate budget negotiators. Those negotiators earlier deleted from the budget a House proposal that would have stripped two Planned Parenthood clinics of federal family-planning dollars.

It was the final attempt by the social conservative wing of the GOP to defund the state's abortion providers before they left Columbia, later Thursday, for the summer.

Sending the budget, set to take effect July 1, back to negotiators would have left state agencies relying on last year's spending levels. It also would have put a 1-percent pay raise, included in the fiscal year 2018-'19 budget, in jeopardy for the state's 53,000 teachers.

The Senate adopted the budget compromise by a 30-9 vote. The House followed, 84-28.

"I don't want this House to become like the House in Washington, D.C.," said state Rep. Gary Clary, R-Pickens, urging his colleagues to pass the budget compromise. "I want us to continue to work together."

However, Cash told senators, "A vote for this budget in its current form is a vote to fund Planned Parenthood."

The budget now heads to Gov. Henry McMaster, R-Richland, who has vowed to veto any money for Planned Parenthood in the budget..

'The pro-life cause is more alive today'

South Carolina's health clinics, including Planned Parenthood, do not get taxpayer money to perform abortions — except in cases of rape or incest or where the life of the mother is threatened, exceptions allowed under the federal 1976 Hyde Amendment.

Last year, S.C. taxpayers paid for five abortions — three to save the mother's life and two because the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest, said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Brian White, R-Anderson. Those procedures, he added, were performed at hospitals, not at Planned Parenthood's two clinics, in Columbia and Charleston.

Noting that, state Rep. Kirkman Finlay, R-Richland, said abortion opponents were "voting against the budget for an illusion at the expense of reality."

McMaster — who won his GOP runoff Tuesday for governor — has said he would be willing to reject $34 million in federal Medicaid dollars because some of that money goes to Planned Parenthood to pay for nonabortion services, including birth control and testing for sexually transmitted diseases.

The state's two Planned Parenthood clinics — which see about 5,000 men, women and children a year — receive less than 1 percent of the $34 million in Medicaid money. Since 2015, Planned Parenthood has received less than $190,000, including $82,000 last year, according to the state Office of Revenue and Fiscal Affairs.

McMaster's office did not say Thursday whether he planned to veto any parts of the budget.

However, Lt. Gov. Kevin Bryant, R-Anderson — who, this month, lost his GOP primary bid for governor — kept his promise not to ratify any budget that included money for abortion providers.

"The governor has promised twice that he would veto the budget if it contained any funding (for Planned Parenthood)," Bryant said, adding, "The pro-life cause is more alive today than I can remember in the last several years."

Ratification of the budget — largely a formality — now falls to Senate President Pro Tempore Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence. Leatherman, chairman of the Senate's budget-writing Finance Committee, is expected to ratify the spending plan.

This story was originally published June 28, 2018 at 11:21 AM.