Here’s one issue blue and red states agree on: Preventing deaths of expectant and new mothers

In the District of Columbia, concerns about the high maternal mortality rate — in 2014, it stood at about 40.7 deaths per 100,000 births, according to the analysis by United Health Foundation, substantially exceeding the U.S. rate and those of neighboring Virginia and Maryland — have periodically sparked talk of a review committee, but not enough to push a measure through.

Last year, after two hospitals in Northeast and predominantly black Southeast Washington closed maternity units, concerns grew over access to quality care, particularly for low-income and minority women. Nationally, black women have a maternal mortality rate three to four times higher than white women, and the District suspects its gap is even wider.

“Those disparities were the more acute driver of why we felt we needed to take this action,” said Councilmember Charles Allen, who introduced the measure to establish the panel. “You have to know what is driving this wide disparity before you can really have the strategies for how to fix it.”

The D.C. bill still must be signed into law and, like all District legislation, reviewed by Congress before it becomes effective. It calls for one full-time employee to assist the panel’s work, a position that Allen said he expects to be funded in the budget that will be passed later in the year. In addition to health care professionals, a social worker and representatives of community groups that specialize in women’s health, the D.C. committee will also include “one person who has been directly impacted by a maternal mortality or severe maternal morbidity.” Maternal health advocates say listening to such voices is a critical step in addressing how disparities in race, income and education affect outcomes.

That’s what prompted Wilkins, the Maryland delegate, to introduce her bill, which passed the House this month and will be taken up in the Senate in April. Maryland established its review committee in 2000, but in the panel’s most recent report, the participants consisted almost exclusively of medical professionals, mostly doctors and nurse-midwives. Wilkins’s bill would require the committee to meet at least twice a year with a group that includes representatives from the Maryland Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities, the Maryland Patient Safety Center, women’s health advocacy organizations, and a relative of a mother who died, and to incorporate their recommendations into its final report.

“The women who are impacted and the organizations that work with the communities they live in — we need to make sure they are at the table,” Wilkins said.

Other pending proposals would revamp New Jersey’s 80-plus-year-old review process and establish a new review committee in Connecticut.