Democrats opened Chairman Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) House oversight committee hearing on President Obama’s birth control rule by criticizing the GOP majority for deying a minority-invited female witness the opportunity to testify.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) made the charge, which TPM reported earlier, when Ranking Dem Elijah Cummings turned part of his opening statement to her Thursday morning.
Issa responded, “It is a tradition, not a rule of the committee, that the minority have a witness.” He argued that the witness was not “appropriate or qualified,” saying she couldn’t be fully vetted by his staff in a timely and appeared not to have the “appropriate credentials.”