Says, ‘President Biden will use every opportunity to pander to woke extremists’

LITTLE ROCK – Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge announced sending a letter to congressional leaders urging Congress to maintain the Hyde Amendment in the 2022 budget. The letter was signed by Rutledge and 21 other state attorneys general.  It explains that the amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds for abortions, was conspicuously removed by the Biden Administration despite its inclusion in federal budgets for the last forty-five years.

“President Biden will use every opportunity to pander to woke extremists, and forcing taxpayers to fund abortion providers is just the latest example,” said Attorney General Rutledge. “Nearly 60 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion, as Joe Biden did for decades. Congress needs to reject this hasty and divisive policy and restore the Hyde Amendment.”

In their letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the attorneys general called on Congress to resist the president’s efforts to force taxpayers who object to abortions to pay for them.

Enacted in 1976, the Hyde Amendment was first enacted following the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade. For the last four-and-a-half decades, the amendment has been reenacted every year since with broad bipartisan support. The letter urges Congress to resist support of President Biden’s removal of this critical amendment, instead voting to maintain the Hyde Amendment language in the budget it ultimately passes.

In addition to Arkansas, the letter was also signed by attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.