Sandra Fluke, Once Called ‘Slut’ By Rush Limbaugh, Moves Toward Run For Congress

Sandra Fluke, the former Georgetown University law student who made national headlines when conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh called her a “slut” and a “prostitute” on his nationally syndicated program, may be staging a run for Congress.

A story by Aaron Blake of The Washington Post this morning broke the news that Sandra Fluke has filed papers with California’s Democratic Party — and paid the required fee — to officially seek the party’s endorsement in the race for the state’s 33rd Congressional District.

The district that Sandra Fluke would seek to represent covers much of the western section of Los Angeles, including parts of West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, which are separate municipalities though they are surrounded by the city limits of Los Angeles.

Henry Waxman currently holds the seat. Waxman has served in Congress since 1975, but due to repeated redrawing of district lines, he has represented four different districts in that time; the 33rd being the most recent. On January 30, Waxman announced that he would retire from Congress, leaving the seat up for grabs.

But is Sandra Fluke, the woman who sparked numerous advertisers to withdraw their spending from the Rush Limbaugh program after his use of derogatory sexual epithets toward her, actually running or not?

According to Blake’s story this morning, “filing for the state party’s endorsement means she’s now officially part of the process.”

But about two hours after the Washington Post story appeared on the paper’s website, an adviser to Sandra Fluke called Blake to say that the activist is simply keeping her options open.

“It is not the same as her announcing her candidacy,” the adviser said of her filing with the state Democratic Party.

The 32-year-old Fluke last week said she was “strongly considering” a run for Waxman’s seat, according to the Washington news website Politico. She said that she had been encouraged to throw her proverbial hat into the political ring.

The Rush Limbaugh conflict ignited when In 2012, Sandra Fluke — then an unknown law student — was invited by Democrats to testify before a Republican-led House committee looking into whether religious institutions should be required to offer birth control coverage as part of their insurance packages, even if they objected to contraception on moral grounds.

A student at Catholic Georgetown University, Fluke hoped to testify about the high cost of birth control without insurance. She was denied the chance to speak by the Republicans in charge of the hearings. Her testimony would have included the assertion that contraception would cost a female law student $3,000 over the course of her law school career.

Rush Limbaugh, on his February 29, 2012 program, characterized Fluke’s statement as a demand that she be “paid to have sex.”

“What does that make her?” Limbaugh asked his listeners, continuing to answer his own question. “It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.”

The comments sparked an advertiser boycott of the Rush Limbaugh program. By May of 2013, according to an official of his then-network, Cumulus, 48 of the network’s top 50 advertisers had ordered Cumulus to exclude their advertising from Limbaugh’s show, largely due to his comments about Sandra Fluke.