House Republican Criticizes Heritage Action's Defund Campaign

by Michael Warren, The Weekly Standard, August 22, 2013.

Renee Ellmers, a sophomore Republican congresswoman from North Carolina, has criticized a conservative group's campaign to get congressional Republicans to support defunding Obamacare by way of the continuing budget resolution.

Ellmers, a nurse who entered her first political race in 2010 in response to Obamacare, knocked Heritage Action, saying the organization is targeting conservatives opposed to defunding the health care law in next month's budget battle instead of Democrats:

Heritage Action, the activist offshoot of the Heritage Foundation in Washington, has been touring the country and hold town hall meetings encouraging citizens to tell their representatives to defund Obamacare. The effort would tie defunding to the continuing budget resolution that would fund the government. A continuing resolution that defunded the health care law would be defeated in the Democratic Senate, but Republicans like Senator Ted Cruz have argued for blocking any funding legislation that continues to spend money on Obamacare.

As Stephen F. Hayes reports in the latest issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Republican leaders in both houses of Congress have indicated they are unlikely to support that defund effort, though a sizable number of House Republicans appear to be moving toward the Cruz-Heritage Action side.

But not Ellmers, who went on to say that the tactic supported by Heritage Action is "WRONG." She still supports stopping the law. Here's more, from a blog post at Ellmers's campaign website:

We cannot stop Obamacare by defunding it through the Continuing Resolution because there would be very little, if any, funding of Obamacare in a continuing resolution to begin with! A continuing resolution dictates “discretionary” spending and, unfortunately, that does not apply to the Obamacare spending that is already mandated by law.

Should we repeal, replace, defund, dismantle, and do everything we possibly can to stop Obamacare? Of course! But the Continuing Resolution is not the way to do it.

Friends, you know how committed I am to stopping this disastrous healthcare law.I am a nurse. My husband is a doctor. And together we are small business owners.We understand the very real and chilling effect that Obamacare is having on our healthcare providers and our economy.  That’s why I left nursing – my life-long dream – in 2010 to run for Congress. And, it is still the reason that I leave my husband and son each week to go to Washington.

I am as committed to stopping Obamacare today as I was 3 years ago when I ran for Congress. But we have to do it the right way and we have to work together.