With The Passing Of RBG, Will The Issue Of Choice Help Or Hurt Democrats Running For Congress?

 

Right after it was announced that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had passed away, Trumpist crackpot Angela Stanton-King sent out the above Tweet. Her opponent, Democratic state Senator Nikema Williams has been a fearless advocate for women for her entire adult life and worked as a vice president for public Policy at Planned Parenthood for a decade. Protecting women's choice isn't an issue she's going to run away from.

Early Monday morning, Omaha Democrat Kara Eastman-- the progressive candidate running for the congressional seat held by Trump sycophant Donald Bacon-- told me that "With the tragic passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, I've heard from many voters in Nebraska about their fears that a more conservative Supreme Court will vote to reverse Roe v. Wade. While I support Roe and I believe that women constitutionally deserve to be able to make healthcare decisions affecting their bodies in consultation with their doctors without government interference, I know as well that Rep. Don Bacon would rather have us back in the pre-Roe dark ages of back-alley abortions and second-class status for women. The fact is that if you are really 'pro-life' you would support universal pre-natal health care, you would favor Medicare for All (which isn't much different than the socialised medicine that Don Bacon has enjoyed his entire career), and you would push for massive economic investments in jobs and infrastructure that will lead to a safe recovery from Covid."

On Sunday, the NY Times noted that Abortion Was Back-Burnered In The Presidential Race. Not Anymore. "For months, abortion has been relegated to a back burner in the presidential campaign, eclipsed by a worldwide pandemic, an economic crisis and protests over racial justice. But the death of Justice Ginsburg and the looming confirmation battle to replace her could force the candidates to discuss a volatile issue six weeks before Election Day that carries significant political risks for both sides, even as it energizes portions of their bases. Mainstream views on abortion are more moderate than those of the activists on either wing, with most Americans saying that abortions should be legal with some restrictions. An all-out fight over abortion could further alienate the more moderate suburban voters both sides are competing for. Democrats especially must navigate their own divisions over how far to push an issue that Mr. Biden has long found personally uncomfortable."

I'll leave Biden's response to the centrist spin doctors he has running his campaign. Instead, I am interested in knowing how the GOP rush to ramrod through a far-right anti-Choice Supreme Court justice who wants to end women's Choice is going to play out in congressional races around the country. Kara Eastman is running in a 50-50 purple district and her forthright position on Choice shows conviction... and courage. Same for California progressive Audrey Denney, who's running for a red California seat held by anti-Choice fanatic Dog LaMalfa. Many in the district are anti-Choice but that isn't keeping Denney from speaking out loudly and clearly. "Choice has always been a top issue for me," she told me yesterday. "I’ve been endorsed by EMILY’s List, Planned Parenthood, and Vote Pro Choice. Our polling shows it, along with access to medical care, a top issues with some of our important voter groups." She issued this statement to voters in CA-01:  

This is a terrifying moment in U.S. history, when 46 years of precedent for recognizing women’s right to privacy and sovereignty over their own bodies is being systematically dismantled. The policymakers who have put forward these archaic bans on safe and legal abortion claim to be doing so because they value human life.

I deeply respect the sanctity of life. I believe that life is created by God, and I believe that every woman has the right to choose whether or not she will participate in bringing life into being. No one has the right to tell her that she must. Making the decision to end a pregnancy is a difficult and tragic one-- but having the right to make that decision is foundational to protecting women’s health, privacy, and well-being.

If the people who wrote these laws truly cared for the sanctity of life, they would be working tirelessly to reduce our country’s maternal mortality rate (currently the worst among industrialized nations), but instead they are limiting or eliminating care, and more mothers are dying during childbirth. They would be investing in initiatives to improve infant and child health and access to early education and child care. They would be fighting for paid family leave, so that parents have adequate time to regain their own health and support their new child. They would be losing sleep over the 12 million children in this country who will go to bed hungry because their parents are trapped in poverty, unable to earn a living wage.

I imagine a world where fewer women face the difficult decisions surrounding ending a pregnancy. Statistics have proven since Roe v. Wade, the path to that kind of world is not through restrictive legislation around abortion. That path is achieved through policies that support women and families, and make it easier for families to thrive in our country.

The legislators who support abortion bans have failed us. They have failed their constituents. They have failed our nation. Their time is up.

Kathy Ellis, is the progressive Democrat running to replace Trump enabler Jason Smith in the reddest district in Missouri, the eighth congressional district in the southeast corner of the state, where Missouri comes together with Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and southern Illinois. The PVI is R+24 and Trump beat Hillary there 75.4% to 21.0%. Perhaps counterintuitively, polling shows that most voters in the district are pro-Choice. Jason Smith certainly isn't. Kathy's campaign has been advertising her endorsement by Planned Parenthood extensively and she certainly isn't backing away from her pledge to protect Choice. "I've always been a proud pro-choice candidate," she told me, "and protecting the right to choose is not a foreign fight for Missourians who have been up against staunchly anti-choice bills for over a decade. But now, with the passing of Justice Ginsburg, this fight has certainly gained importance. In a rural district such as mine, we've actually seen most folks fall into the pro-choice category, and when the Missouri legislature attempted to pass a full abortion ban, with no exceptions, we saw a huge increase in pro-choice organizing in the District. When I first announced my campaign, I was advised to avoid this issue, but for me, protecting a person's reproductive freedom is at the heart of why I'm running for office. I've always been proudly pro-choice, and I'll always be honest about who I am."

Republican Chris Jacobs is another garden variety Trump sycophant and anti-Choice ass. Typical e-mail to his supporters (last week):

The progressive Democrat running for his western New York congressional seat is our old friend Nate McMurray. Earlier, McMurray told me that "The appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court became a political fight to the death in 2018 just before the midterm elections. Now the unthinkable has happened, and Justice Ginsburg's death has launched us into another situation where she hasn't even been laid to rest and Mitch McConnell is salivating over another chance to put his hypocrisy on full display-- just 43 days away from the election. Just as COVID-19 magnified the issues with our healthcare system, RBG's death reminds us all that even institutions like the Supreme Court are not safe from the corrosion of toxic political forces. The Supreme Court will hear arguments on the Affordable Care Act on November 10th. Should the Republican party have its way, millions of Americans will be thrown off their health insurance before the second wave of the pandemic hits. Reproductive rights, labor rights, civil rights, and so much more are on the line. The GOP has sunk so low-- it's not a time for us to 'go high;' we've got to fight like hell for the future of this country."

There's no question about where Mondaire Jones was coming down on this issue. One of the best hopes for progressive leadership in the next session of Congress, he's running to hold an open, narrowly blue district. ""Unfortunately, the Trump Administration and the Republican Party have systematically undermined women’s reproductive freedom," he said this morning. "The federal government must step in to protect civil rights-- and it cannot leave those rights up to the extreme conservative majority on the Supreme Court. As a member of Congress, I will work to codify Roe v. Wade by statute, repeal the Hyde Amendment, and ensure that any Medicare for All legislation includes coverage for the full range of reproductive services. That’s why I’m proud to be endorsed by leading pro-choice groups like Planned Parenthood Action Fund and NARAL Pro-Choice America. My opponent, meanwhile, is anti-choice and intends to be a staunch opponent of reproductive freedom, which could not be more out of step with the values of our district."

Of course it isn't just in congressional and federal races where the "new" issue is being injected into the election. I spoke with Heidi Campbell yesterday. The mayor of Oak Hill and a state Senate candidate in Tennessee, she is on the verge of ousting anti-Choice Republican Steve Dickerson and flipping a red seat blue. You can help her do that here. I asked her how the Supreme Court being threatened with another anti-Choice extremist is playing out in her suburban Nashville district.

"Devastatingly, she told me, "the October surprise came early this year-- not to say that there won’t be several more, in this accelerating-ly chaotic wreck of a year. Each time something like this happens though, we have to reassess the dynamics of our race. I am running for state Senate in Tennessee’s District 20 which is gerrymandered to carve out the conservative pockets of Nashville’s metropolitan area. This district has been trending blue and went for Clinton in the last election. In fact, two separate polls show us narrowly ahead of the incumbent. Democrats have not flipped a state Senate seat in Tennessee in over fifteen years, and we have a great shot at flipping this one. The SCOTUS appointment to fill RBG’s seat cuts both ways of course-- both sides are energized by it, and it should strengthen the position of candidates like myself who are running in districts that are gaining Democratic voters. But this also means that Republicans are going to spend as much as they can to hang on to their seats, and in our race they have purchased several hundred thousand dollars worth of television ad time to run attack ads against our campaign over the next five weeks. Our team is fighting with every fiber of our beings to flip this seat, in a state where anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant (and many other) bills are intentionally seeded to wend their way up to the Supreme Court. We simply do not have as much money as the Republicans, and since we’re not going to have election finance reform in the next six weeks, we have GOT to raise as much as we can to win."