Dem leader says party can include abortion opponents

The Democrats’ tent is big enough to include anti-abortion lawmakers, the No. 2 House Democrat said Wednesday.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) emphasized that Democrats are overwhelmingly in favor of women’s right to terminate a pregnancy. But there’s no litmus test, he said, that would exclude those lawmakers who feel otherwise.

“Absolutely, there’s room in our party,” Hoyer told reporters in the Capitol.

{mosads}”That doesn’t mean we’re not a pro-choice party — we are,” he said, adding that this has been included in the Democratic platform.

“But that doesn’t mean that … either the Speaker or I believe that we ought to exclude people who have a different view,” Hoyer said.

The comments came a day after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) endorsed a liberal Democrat, Marie Newman, who’s launched a primary challenge against Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.), an eight-term Catholic lawmaker with a long voting record opposing abortion rights.

“We can’t afford deep blue seats fighting against healthcare & equal rights,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Tuesday in endorsing Newman.

Lipinski is no stranger to such opposition. In last year’s midterm cycle he faced a similar challenge from Newman, who won endorsements from a pair of Lipinski’s Chicagoland colleagues: Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.). This year, Newman is also being backed by several liberal presidential candidates, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Lawmaker endorsements against sitting colleagues is exceptionally rare, and both Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have adopted a policy of backing the party’s incumbents without exception.