Dems: Let us air birth control panel

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First, House Democratscouldn’t get a woman onto the all-male panelat a contraception hearing last week.

Now, they’ve invited her to testify at their own unofficial hearing — and they say the Republicans won’t let them televise it.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosiis organizing a Democratic Steering and Policy Committee event on Thursday to allow Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law student who tried to testify at last week’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committeehearing, a chance to talk about the issue.

Pelosi aides say the House recording studio has denied a request to broadcast the event, “apparently” at the behest of the Republican-controlled Committee on House Administration.

Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill pointed to a July 2008 decision in which the committee lifted restrictions on use of the studio.

“If Chairman [Dan] Lungren has reversed this policy, he has done so in secret and not consulted with CHA Democrats,” Hammill said in an email. “This leaves us only to think that the House Republican leadership is acting out yet again to silence women on the topic of women’s health.”

Salley Wood, a spokeswoman for Republicans on the Committee on House Administration, said the policy wasn’t updated in 2008. Instead, she said the recording studio is operating under policies set in 2005.

Wood said the committee did not play a role in the decision not to broadcast this week’s hearing.

Pelosi’s office said this event is the first in which the studio has not covered a hearing or told Democrats that it couldn’t because of other commitments.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 4:01 p.m. on February 21, 2012.