Lisa Murkowski s megabill vote sucks

Lisa Murkowski’s megabill vote was everything people hate about politicians
Opinion by Susan Rinkunas •



Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, on Capitol Hill on June 25, 2025.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, on Capitol Hill on June 25, 2025.
When the Republican-controlled Senate passed the disastrous megabill on Tuesday, the deciding vote came from Sen. Lisa Murkowski. The Alaskan lawmaker, who has long claimed to be a moderate, got over the finish line the bill for President Donald Trump’s priorities, which would send billions of dollars to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, extend tax cuts for the wealthy, kick large abortion providers out of the Medicaid program, and knock millions of low-income people off their health insurance.

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Murkowski cast this vote just a week after she suggested in a podcast interview that she’d consider becoming an independent and caucusing with Senate Democrats. She cast this vote, which could shutter nearly 200 Planned Parenthood clinics, after repeatedly painting herself as “pro choice.” She cast this vote after Planned Parenthood called the bill a “backdoor abortion ban” and said it could eliminate one in four abortion providers nationwide.

Oh, but pity the poor senator: “I struggled mightily with the impact on the most vulnerable in this country when you look to Medicaid and SNAP,” Murkowski told reporters. In another interview, with NBC News’ Ryan Nobles, she said, “Do I like this bill? No.”

She added, however, that she voted to pass it because otherwise Trump’s 2017 tax cuts would expire, which would hurt people in Alaska. “I had to look on balance, because the people in my state are the ones that I put first. We do not have a perfect bill by any stretch of the imagination,” Murkowski said. “My hope is that the House is going to look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet.”

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But these were empty words, even before the House signaled it would not change the bill: Murkowski herself could have forced changes to the bill by refusing to vote for it. She already had negotiated concessions for Alaskans, like a tax deduction for whaling boat captains, and exceptions to work requirements for SNAP. But then she gave up her leverage and approved a bill that subjects people in other states to the harms she worried about.

As Bolts Magazine Editor-in-Chief Daniel Nichanian noted after the vote: “The Senate’s small-state ultra-bias is never more maddening than when one senator uses it to get benefits for her 740,000 constituents while openly acknowledging the bill she’s supporting will harm the nation’s 339 million other residents.”

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These backroom deals and abandoned principles are, in a nutshell, why people hate politicians. And few issues have demonstrated Murkowski’s flexible ideals like abortion.

After the leaked draft of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs opinion, which overturned Roe v. Wade, she criticized the pending ruling in a statement. “I strongly support women’s reproductive freedoms,” she said, “including the right to abortion established by Roe and Casey. I also believe in limited government and an individual’s liberty to make choices about their own health.”

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But Murkowski’s claim to be pro-choice has always been a farce. She voted to confirm Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, despite their anti-abortion views. She opposed Brett Kavanaugh because of sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh (which he denied). But she went out of her way to predict that he would not “be a vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.”

All three of those justices voted to overturn Roe. Shortly after the Dobbs ruling leaked, Murkowski also refused to support a Democratic bill to codify Roe’s protections in federal law by claiming it went too far, and instead urged lawmakers to support a doomed, narrower bill she introduced with Maine Sen. Susan Collins.

Now, the budget reconciliation bill Murkowski voted for this week would harm reproductive freedom by shuttering scores of clinics that provide abortion and other health care. The bill doesn’t mention Planned Parenthood by name, but rather says that organizations are not eligible to participate in Medicaid for one year if they provide abortions outside the Hyde Amendment exceptions (rape, incest or to preserve the life of the pregnant person) and received at least $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements in Fiscal Year 2023.

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Conservatives refer to this as “defunding” but, in actuality, abortion clinics don’t get direct Medicaid funding. They accept the insurance for services like cancer screenings, birth control prescriptions and sexually transmitted infections testing, and then Medicaid reimburses clinics for providing the care. Kicking out Planned Parenthood clinics would be a blow to the organization, as over half its patients have public insurance like Medicaid — this is why they project that hundreds of clinics would close.

Fewer clinics means less access to reproductive health care, so this bill could affect anyone who gets health care from Planned Parenthood — even if they have private insurance — and it could further reduce options for abortion-seekers traveling to other states.

While the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America may give Murkowski an “F” rating, this vote is the latest example of how she’s always a model Republican when it counts. Her decision may have been “agonizing,” she insists. But whatever agony she felt will pale in comparison to the misery this bill will cause Americans who lose their health insurance, get snatched off the street, or no longer have access to reproductive care that Murkowski claims to champion.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com


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Maddow Blog | After House Republicans ignored her appeals, Lisa Murkowski’s vote looks even worse
Story by Steve Benen •


Three Senate Republicans balked at their party’s domestic policy megabill — the inaptly named One Big Beautiful Bill Act — but opponents of the far-right package needed a fourth. They thought Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska would rescue the nation from the consequences of the radical legislation, but GOP leaders offered a series of carve-outs and schemes that would help shield her home state from the effects of the party’s agenda.

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But after Murkowski cast the deciding vote, she did something unexpected. In fact, she took two unexpected steps.

First, the Alaskan trashed the reconciliation package shortly after voting for it, which was every bit as odd as it sounds. “Do I like this bill? No,” she told NBC News. The senator added, by way of social media: “[L]et’s not kid ourselves. ... While we have worked to improve the present bill for Alaska, it is not good enough for the rest of our nation — and we all know it.”

Second, Murkowski effectively asked the Republican-led House not to pass the bill she had just voted for. “My sincere hope is that this is not the final product,” she wrote online. “This bill needs more work across chambers and is not ready for the president’s desk. We need to work together to get this right.”

That came on the heels of related comments the GOP senator made to reporters on Capitol Hill. “We do not have a perfect bill by any stretch of the imagination. My hope is that the House is going to look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet.”

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Not only did House Republican leaders ignore Murkowski’s appeals, they never even considered the possibility. Politico reported:

And that, of course, makes Murkowski’s decision look even worse.

The Alaska Republican not only had an opportunity to derail the most regressive proposal in at least a generation, she also had an opportunity to use her considerable leverage to make it better. Instead, Murkowski passed the buck, hoping the House might help clean up the mess.

These misguided wishes led her to vote for a bill that, by her own admission, “is not good enough” for the nation and “not ready” to be signed into law.

Too many GOP lawmakers somehow convinced themselves that the party’s megabill had real merit and would deliver great results. Murkowski, however, knew better — and she chose to advance it anyway. History will not be kind.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com