{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://fortenberry.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/fortenberry-welcomes-little-sisters-poor-washington", "Fortenberry Welcomes Little Sisters of the Poor to Washington", "2015-12-10", "2015", "2015-12", "Republican", "House", "NE", "Jeff Fortenberry", "F000449", "fortenberry.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Washington, D.C.  Congressman Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) today welcomed to Washington Mother Provincial Loraine of the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic religious order serving the elderly and the poor throughout the world. The Little Sisters of the Poor are appealing to the United States Supreme Court in their quest for equal treatment under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). A mandate in the ACA uses the strong arm of government to force the sisters to pay for drugs and procedures, including abortion-inducing drugs, which many Americans find to be ethically divisive. The government seeks to impose crushing fines on the Little Sisters if they uphold their deeply held and reasoned beliefs.\nI am moved by Mother Loraines leadership, Fortenberry said. I really feel badly for the Little Sisters. The government exists to protect their rights, not to take them away. Mother Loraine has continued to stand up for the fundamental American principle of the rights of conscience and religious liberty.\nIn the face of an unrelenting administration and cultural misunderstandings, Fortenberry continued, the Little Sisters of the Poor have inadvertently found themselves in the vanguard of a fight. For many years we have pushed legislation to try to protect conscience rights, the sacred space of the person. However, the example of a nun and a religious order dedicated to charity for the poor is much more powerful than any legislative initiative.\nWe want to simply take care of the elderly and the poor as we always have for 175 years, Mother Provincial Loraine said. I want to thank Congressman Fortenberry for all he is doing and continues to do for religious liberty, for the right to follow our conscience and serve others.\nThe Supreme Court has agreed to hear the Little Sisters case next year. They are represented by the Beckett Fund, which also successfully represented Hobby Lobby in a similar case. The Little Sisters was founded by Saint Jeanne Jugan, who was recently canonized after the Vatican attributed the miraculous case of a Nebraskan cured from cancer to her intercession.\nFortenberry is the co-author of the Health Care Conscience Rights Act. \n###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://fortenberry.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/fortenberry-welcomes-little-sisters-poor-washington"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.7386837862432003, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}