0 vogt vote and bring parish to the speaker. unequivocal speaker has said will not support the bill, encourage lawsuits, move it further to the right to placate him. it will be difficult for supporters of the bill to get republicans to go for it at this point. >> steve, what john said the speaker thinks it's going to increase frivolous legislation. they have done studies where there are discrimination in place and only 7% of all lawsuits have to do with sexual orientation discrimination. that seems like a smoke screen for not wanting to work on this because it will make certain parts of the conference, radical conservative members unhappy. >> if you're scared politically to take an action, can you always come up with an execution, couch it with something. you talk with the autopsy, national autopsy, that was a blueprint for the party at large. the republican party as an institution wants to progress, wants to start winning elections at the national level, wants to be successful national party, this is a message the party should be conveying. what that was not was a blueprint for individual members of the house of representatives. individual members who come from districts that overwhelmingly voted for mitt romney where the action is on the primary side and not the general election side. >> doesn't the national party get blamed for individual actions? >> it absolutely does. what you're essentially trying to do is convince a group of individuals who are all scared to death when heritage action says we're going to be scoring this vote. they are scared to death the ad running against them, mailers, church groups, conservative groups in their districts next year in a primary saying, hey, look at the key vote, look what key conservative groups said and this member voted against it. it may be voted against us on it. it may be good for a party as a whole for members to take this but perilous to political future. >> julianna in terms of where the power center is, that was the rnc autopsy. you have 88% of fortune 500 companies have nondiscrimination laws like this already in place. you have evangelical community and young catholics in support of gay marriage. this is a very small part of the republican party but they are incredibly powerful. >> they are incredibly powerful. that's what the white house is sitting back trying to watch and wait and see, what is speaker boehner's next move. ultimately they think he's going to have to cave here for this to play out. look, they are not closing the door to the president signing some sort of executive action to extend these rights to federal contractors per se but they want to see the legislative process play out. for democrats good for this party to be fighting and on display. >> i think having the speaker stand in the way of basic civil rights, jonathan, is not good for the republican brand. and yet time and time and time again, unless it is near apocalyp apocalypse, boehner is not willing to break the rule unless fiscal catastrophe or default on the debt. you have to have a deadline for speaker bane tore take action. >> we've had an instance on the speaker allowing a vote on something deemed controversial before, the violence against women here. there's precedence for leadership. perilous for individual races. you know what the speaker could do, members of the caulk, members of the house, vote your conscious. all those scaredy cat republicans afraid of being scored by heritage action can vote no. as senate majority leader harry reid said if it were to go to the house it would pass by a nice margin. why not let that happen especially as you just pointed out 88% of fortune 500 companies have this in place. if there's concern about business and jobs, well, fortune 500 companies have made it clear this is a nonissue. >> you know, john, the question we talked about just moments ago, exemptions, there is some concern at the end if you exempt enough organizations, if corporations can decide willy-nilly they don't want to abide by this, religious organizations are probably seen in a different light, this thing won't really have any teeth by the time -- if it gets passed. it won't be effective. i'll read a quote from the "huffington post." the catholic school teacher who has done a great job for years could still be fired under enda if the school's principals discover she's a lesbian. we don't wantened, a as how far we've come but view it as a sign of how much further we need to go. what do you make of that? >> they are definitely creating unique carve-outs in civil rights law that are not applied in other areas. supporters do have to walk a fine line trying to bring republicans in, the senate and house floor and not creating a useless piece of legislation that really doesn't create any kind of enforceable mechanism to avoid discrimination. >> i just think, steve, this is a year in the last three months the pope in september came out and said, who am i to judge a gay person of goodwill who seeks the lord. if the pope can say that, why does it remain so difficult for republicans to cross this bridge? i think we should talk specifically about boehner. the thesis is or conventional wisdom is boehner is more of an establishment moderate republican. on certain social issues, including lesbian, gay, transgender issues i think and suspect he may be a sort of old line republican that is not as comfortable. this resistance to bringing it to the floor may be yes, indeed, because of fractious minority in the house but also because of a personal issue he may have with us. >> i suspect there are a lot of republicans in the house. again, if you took sort of a private ballot in the house and asked should enda be the law, i bet this thing would pass pretty overwhelmingly. when you start looking at the political calculations of this, it changes. it's partly about the influence of sort of the social conservative right and the republican party, it's also about tribalism. it's about the fact republican party's posture from the beginning of the obama presidency has been sort of we are the red tribe, this the blue tribe. we're going to defend from the encroaching blue tribe. >> which is really the brown tribe. >> really it's about what you're doing here is giving a victory to democrats. you're letting democrats set the gena, let them say this is something you should vote for. that mind-set pervades a lot. there's a stubbornness, democrats are trying to do this, we'll stand up and find a way to fight them on this. when you look at an issue like this, why are you fighting them on this? tribalism plays to a degree we don't also talk about. >> you bring up the pope. pope francis is fantastic on a lot of issues but particularly on this given he's pope. senator coats being fearful, fighting freedom of religion. when people bring up that argument, i want to make sure they you understand there are lgtb americans who are people of faith. what do you say to them? they are looking to save their jobs, save their livelihood, proeblt protect their family. >> and still be faithful. >> i wonder what senator coats has to say to them. >> julianna, going up against the argument around religious freedom and the question what does the faithful to makes white house uncomfortable given backlash after this. the fact republicans now have this narrative that at least they are writing that supporters of this bill do not believe in protecting religious liberties. that would inform white house's legislation about how aggressive they are going to be on this? >> i think the white house sees this as republicans being on the wrong side of history and failing to rebrand after the autopsy and lookback and that ultimately senators like susan collins by voicing what their constituents are saying, they are saying, really, this is still a fight we're having. >> this isn't already litigated? don't we have these laws in place already. >> that's ultimately the baseline argument here. >> we'll see. it's all up to speaker john boehner as usual. we're going to take a break. when we come back, long a pid piper of the right flank, potshots at democrats and republicans. latest about wendy davis may be a bridge too far. we'll look at what he calls abortion barbie next. i take prilosec otc each morning for my frequent heartburn. because you can't beat zero heartburn. woo hoo! 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