(The Center Square) – One Republican in the Texas congressional delegation has voted to drop Hyde protections allowing for taxpayer money to fund abortion: U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, a Republican from a border community in south Texas.
Texas’ two U.S. senators remain committed to not compromising on Hyde.
De La Cruz, first elected in 2022, says she is conservative and prolife. She is running for reelection unopposed in the March Republican Primary. Two Democrats are running. In this election, abortion and a prolife commitment are not listed as priorities but Medicaid protections are, according to her campaign website.
De La Cruz, who did not respond to multiple requests from The Center Square for comment, is the only Texas Republican to vote for an Affordable Care Act extension that includes no Hyde Amendment protections. HR 1834, which extends ACA subsidies for three years, passed the House by a vote of 230-196 on Thursday.
De La Cruz joined 213 Democrats to extend federal subsidies for low-income households, including through Medicaid, with no prohibitions on illegal foreign nationals receiving taxpayer funds. Medicaid and other federal programs are under federal and state investigation for widespread fraud.
The Hyde Amendment, named after former U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde, R-IL, first passed in 1976, overriding a presidential veto, and was first implemented in 1980. Currently, Congress must vote every year to include Hyde Amendment restrictions in appropriations bills. It explicitly prohibits taxpayer money from being used to fund abortion, including health insurance plans and Medicaid. For decades, Hyde protections have received bipartisan support, including from former prolife Democratic members of Congress.
Last week, 17 House Republicans, including De La Cruz, broke from a 45-year-old congressional bipartisan practice of supporting Hyde. Now, they have been targeted by prolife groups to be removed from office. The groups have pledged to spend $160 million to unseat Republicans who abandon their prolife base even if it means the House loses its slim Republican majority in November, The Center Square reported.
Prior to the vote, De La Cruz has an A+ prolife rating by the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America group. Its president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said Monday that even those Republicans who previously have a perfect or near perfect prolife voting record betrayed their base who helped get them elected. The vote occurred after more than 100 pro-life groups sent a letter to members of Congress urging them to stop ACA taxpayer-funded abortion.
“There is no ‘compromise’ on taxpayer funding of abortion. Either the Hyde Amendment applies or it doesn’t. Either tax dollars fund plans that cover abortion – or they don’t,” Dannenfelser reiterated again on Tuesday. “SBA Pro-Life America does not oppose health care reform. Our simple request is that the GOP majority apply the Hyde Amendment to any reform – a bare minimum standard for decades.”
Twenty-two Texas Republicans voted against the bill; two didn’t vote: U.S. Reps. Wesley Hunt and Michael McCaul. Hunt is challenging incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and McCaul announced he’s retiring. All 12 Texas Democrats voted with De La Cruz, according to the recorded vote.
While some have expressed fear that Hyde protections would be dropped in the Senate, 46 Republican senators, including Texas Republicans Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, sponsored a bill to codify a range of abortion funding prohibitions, The Center Square reported. Cornyn has sponsored the bill six times since 2015.
For years, Cornyn, Cruz and 46 prolife senators have said they will not compromise on Hyde protections.
For years, Cornyn, Cruz and 46 prolife senators have said they will not compromise on Hyde protections. In 2021, they issued a joint statement saying: “We are united in our resolve to guard against any changes to Federal law that would unsettle nearly half a century of bipartisan consensus against taxpayer funding for abortion on demand.”
When budget negotiations were taking place last October, Cornyn said that Hyde has prevented “taxpayer funding from being used for elective abortions, saving more than 2,646,000 lives in the five decades since.
“Following the Biden Administration’s unprecedented attacks on the unborn, Congressional Republicans and President Trump took a critical step in the fight for life by passing legislation in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to defund the big abortion industry, including Planned Parenthood. By halting taxpayer funding of abortion through the Medicaid program, Republicans showed that even in the wake of the historic Dobbs decision, our fight is not over, and we reasserted our commitment to protecting the most vulnerable in our communities.”
