Well, that trial balloon by Senate Republican leadership popped awfully fast. In response to reports that he was considering sacrificing Planned Parenthood defunding to achieve an Obamacare repeal, Mitch McConnell now says no way.
But on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made it clear: Senate Republicans are all in for defunding Planned Parenthood.
"We're confident that the Obamacare repeal bill … will contain a defund of Planned Parenthood," McConnell told reporters. "We'll be moving to that after Thanksgiving."
Dropping the Planned Parenthood provision could have won over Republicans such as Sens. Mark Kirk of Illinois, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who all have generally supported public funding for the women’s health organization. But doing so would have infuriated social conservatives on and off the Hill who are demanding that Republicans use reconciliation — a powerful procedural tool that prevents a filibuster in the senate — to go after the organization. […]
"We are going to proceed as the House passed the bill," South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the third-ranking Senate Republican, said Tuesday. "Any suggestion that there's some question about whether or not the Senate wants to follow through on the House bill is not right."
Apparently, McConnell heard an earful from those social conservatives. So it's back to square one, getting 51 votes out of a 54-member Republican conference when three won't vote for Planned Parenthood defunding—and at least three and as many as five won't vote for it because it doesn't repeal Obamacare enough.
We've heard this kind of blustering from McConnell before, plenty of times. Like when he completely bungled his own efforts to get a Patriot Act reauthorization without reforms. Or when he tried to play chicken with the House on a highway bill. Clearly, when McConnell is "confident" about a key piece of legislation he must pass, he's going to fail.