Interview With Washington Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Maryland Congresswoman Donna Edwards
KING: It is a Democratic campaign theme and now the focus of an ad campaign by the liberal group MoveOn.org. Mitt Romney, they say, is the leader of a Republican war on women. (</s>BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AD)  UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, this November, we're going to remember...</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... how you threw women under the bus just to get the nomination.</s>KING: So let's put that to the test as we continue our report card on the candidates on the major issues. One question is whether Governor Romney supports equal pay for women.</s>QUESTION: Does Governor Romney support the Lilly Ledbetter Act?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sam, we will get back to you on that.</s>KING: His critics also cite his pledge to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood.</s>MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Is the program so critical, it is worth borrowing money from China to pay for it? And on that basis, of course you rid of Obamacare. That's the easy one. But there are others. Planned Parenthood, we are going to get rid of that.</s>KING: And Governor Romney also supported the so-called Blunt amendment. That allows employers to deny contraceptive coverage in their health care plans if they had a moral objection. Now, Romney supporters, though, say liberal-conservative policy disagreements don't tell the whole story. They praise his record of appointing women to leadership posts.</s>KERRY HEALEY (R), FORMER MASSACHUSETTS LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: Governor Romney, with whom I have worked now for over a decade, had 50 percent women in the leadership of his administration. We were the only state in the nation that had that at the time.</s>KING: So the question is, is there a Romney-led GOP war on women? Joining me now to discuss, Democratic Congresswoman Donna Edwards of Maryland and Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who is a member of the House Republican leadership team. Is there?</s>REP. CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS (R), WASHINGTON: Absolutely not. It is a myth.</s>KING: It's a myth. If it is a myth -- let me -- I am sorry to interrupt, but if it is a myth, one of the reasons this myth or whatever you want to call it gets perpetuated or exaggerated or amplified is because you have a team that is running for president of the United States. You heard that conference call. They should know his position on the Lilly Ledbetter Act, should they not?</s>MCMORRIS RODGERS: You know, that was a bill that was passed and signed into law early 2009. It has been several years. Republicans absolutely support equal pay for equal work. And he very quickly came along after that and said, you know what, no one is proposing that we repeal or change the Lilly Ledbetter.</s>KING: His staff didn't do him a favor there.</s>MCMORRIS RODGERS: Well, but I think your list is incomplete when you look at the issues that are really impacting women. It is the economy, it is jobs, it is the debt. That's what women are concerned about as we head into the election this fall.</s>KING: Well, and Governor Romney makes that point, Congresswoman. Now, you are the Democrat. You want to take issue with his record. But listen to Governor Romney here when he talks in public about what -- the mythical, he says, war on women.</s>ROMNEY: There has been some talk about a war on women. The real war on women has been waged by the Obama administration's failure on the economy. Do you know how many women, what percent of the job losses were women? -- 92.3 percent.</s>KING: Are women going to make their choices -- and, look, there are Democratic women and Republican women who have made their choices. In the middle, people who are undecided and back and forth, are they going to make their choices about what is a liberal-conservative policy divide, like whether the government should fund Planned Parenthood, or are they going to make it on the economic circumstances of their life come October and November?</s>REP. DONNA EDWARDS (D), MARYLAND: Well, a lot of those decisions in fact are economic. I mean, the fact that Governor Romney can't decide what -- whether he supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, when women are making 77 cents on the dollar is a shame. Even in Ms. McMorris Rodgers' state, women there make 63 cents on the dollar. In Maryland, it is 83 cents. It is unacceptable. And Governor Romney should have a position on that. When it comes to economics, when a family knows that they're getting 25 percent less than they ought to because we don't have fair pay in this country, that's an economic question for women and for families. And so I think it is all fair game. And contraception, if you can't make decisions about your own private health care and about contraception, what that means is that you can't make decisions about education, about jobs, about planning your family. And I think it is really unacceptable for Governor Romney to embrace a Republican budget -- in fact, you can call it a war or you can call it whatever you want. The facts speak for themselves, where women's educational opportunities are cut back, where there are cutbacks on things like child care that women really depend on, where two-thirds of women actually receive Pell Grants, and yet the Republican budget that Governor Romney endorses and embraces slashes Pell Grants.</s>KING: You hear a fairness argument, and she says fairness, with a special hit on women in the Republican budget.</s>MCMORRIS RODGERS: Right. Equal pay for equal work, there's no controversy. And when you look at women that are in -- with similar education, similar experience on the job market, the pay gap that is referenced very quickly closes. Those are not an apples-to-apples comparison. When you look at the contraceptive issue, no one is talking about taking away contraceptive coverage for women. It was President Obama -- it was President Obama through Health and Human Services that proposed to change the rule regarding insurance policies and the coverage of contraception. It was President Obama that proposed that change. But Republicans...</s>KING: And Republicans had a great issue there when he was at war with Catholic and other religious institutions. They had a great issue. Did they overplay their hand with the Blunt amendment, which would allow anybody to say, I have a moral objection, not just a religious institution? If it was John King, Inc., John King, Inc., could say, well, I don't like contraception; therefore, I'm not going to put it on my health care plan. Did the Republicans overplay what was a winning hand?</s>MCMORRIS RODGERS: I think President -- I think it is important to remember that it was President Obama that initiated that whole debate. But Republicans are about getting people back to work. That's the best thing we could do for women. It's the best thing we could do for families. Fifty percent of children right now that are graduating from college are unemployed, underemployed. We have had the longest streak of unemployment since the Great Depression, of high unemployment, over 8 percent. We have a record debt this president has accumulated, $5 trillion in debt. These are the issues that women and families are concerned about. And women are the decision-makers in this country.</s>KING: So then why? As we finish the conversation, let's put these numbers up. If you look at the registered voters' choice for president, among men, it's essentially a split. That's a statistical tie. Look at that gender gap. Look at that gender gap, 55 percent for the president, 39 percent for Governor Romney. Why?</s>EDWARDS: Well, the reason there is a gender gap is because women know that under -- under the economic recovery, where we were losing 750,000 jobs when the president took office, that the first thing he did was signed into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The next thing that he did was embrace a stimulus package to make sure that our educators, many of whom are women, continued to work. He has embraced legislation that -- to ensure that women are getting back to work, four million jobs created in this economy, over 25 months of growth, and 1.2 million of those are women. I mean, the president has actually embraced policies that do great service to women, whereas you just look at the plain language of the Republican budget, and they're slashing...</s>KING: How can Governor Romney close that gap?</s>MCMORRIS RODGERS: Well, he is closing that gap. And when -- and it is President Obama's policies that have failed, failed women, failed families, failed Americans and getting people back to work. I think what the Democrats recognize and why they have calculated this and put together this war on women is because they know the Republicans won the women's vote in 2010. It was the first time since Ronald Reagan the Republicans won the women's vote. And they know that they have to do better going...</s>EDWARDS: They won't win the women's vote by taking away contraception and by taking away Pell Grants and student loans.</s>MCMORRIS RODGERS: They will win the women's vote by getting Americans back to work.</s>EDWARDS: ... small businesses for women. I mean, that is not a way to win the women's vote, by taking away their...</s>MCMORRIS RODGERS: Economic opportunities will win the women's vote.</s>KING: One hundred and -- 176 days to have this debate. We will bring you back.</s>EDWARDS: Thank you.</s>KING: Enjoyed it. Thank you both for coming. Thank you. If you ever stepped into the street without looking because you were sending a text, listen up. We're going to tell you where you could get a $54 ticket for jaywalking while texting. I'm going to say maybe it should be higher. People are going to get mad at me. But, next, why it is a big week for the man who got us hooked on Facebook.