WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has invited all Republicans to join with what’s been an all-male working group of GOP senators to craft a health care bill, after facing criticism that women were being excluded.
“McConnell stood up and said, ‘Please come and participate,’” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said in an interview, describing the Kentucky Republican’s request to GOP senators during a lunch. She also said, “I think they are opening up those meetings. I don’t even know if they had any closed meetings.”
The male-only makeup of the 13-member group had been a distraction as GOP senators begin writing their bill repealing much of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, one of the party’s top priorities. Earlier Tuesday, McConnell fended off criticism of the group’s membership, saying all 52 GOP senators were shaping the legislation.
“The working group that counts is all 52 of us, and we’re having extensive meetings” daily, McConnell told reporters. “Nobody’s being excluded based on gender.”
The all-male makeup of the group was clearly an irritant among some of the chamber’s five GOP women. It also became a target for Democrats eager to paint the evolving Republican legislation as a measure that’s damaging to women needing medical care, even as key decisions are being made by men.
“That’s really up to the leadership,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the longest-serving female GOP senator in her 21st year in the chamber, said of the group’s lack of women. “It seems to me they’ve already made their decision. The panel has apparently been meeting for some time, and I’m not a member of it.”
Asked about the group, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said, “I just want to make sure we have some women on it.”
