Republicans’ Abortion Problem Just Got Worse

With Donald Trump boasting that the three Supreme Court justices he appointed brought about the overturning of Roe v. Wade and Republican controlled state legislatures enacting ever more extreme limits and bans on abortion (and other culture war issues prized by Christofascists) as the 2024 election draws closer Republicans are finding themselves hard put to distance themselves from unpopular restrictions on abortion rights and access.  Making matters even worse, there will now be referendums to protect abortion access on the ballot in November in Florida, Arizona and Montana among other states.   In Florida, Ron DeSantis and his Republican minions sought to keep the referendum off the ballot, but were dealt a blow when the Florida Supreme Court upheld the GOP's ban on abortions after six weeks but also upheld the November ballot referendum to bans abortion restrictions.  As a piece in the Washington Post lays out, some believe this development could upend the campaign battle in that state and bring out otherwise apathetic voters who may not only vote in support of the referendum but also vote against Republicans who have set the stage for Florida's draconian abortion restrictions:

It has been less than a day since the Florida Supreme Court allowed one of the nation’s strictest abortion laws while also agreeing to put the issue before voters in November. But already, the fight for Florida has begun, the rulings transforming a once-lackluster race into what is now likely to be a fierce duel.

“We have a new situation here in Florida,” said Jayden D’Onofrio, chairman of Florida Future Leaders, a new group aligned with the Democratic Party that was handing out condoms and tulips after the rulings. “Florida is in play.”

Democrats face an uphill battle in the Sunshine State. . . . . A large segment of the electorate, however, nearly 30 percent, is registered with no party affiliation. In light of Monday’s rulings, Democrats see an opportunity to mobilize both those who identify with the party and the 3.5 million voters potentially stuck somewhere in between.

“If they feel strongly about protecting a woman’s right to choose, then at the presidential level, there’s a clear choice there with Biden versus Trump,” said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida.

The abortion rulings — as well as a third decision Monday putting recreational marijuana on the ballot — have energized a moribund Democratic Party in Florida, where Democrats have elected just one statewide candidate in the past decade.

A second column in the Washington Post looks at how abortion rights may prove to be an anchor around the necks of Republican candidates who pander to the evangelical/Christofascist minority and ride rough shod over the desires of the majority of voters.  Here are column excerpts:

The November election will feature abortion measures in many states that could impact competitive races. While Maryland is already a deep-blue, pro-choice state, a measure on the ballot in November enshrining abortion rights in the state’s constitution spells trouble for Republican Senate candidate and former governor Larry Hogan, who has tried to duck the issue but faces a GOP backlash if he deviates from the MAGA party line. (As governor, he vetoed a bill expanding abortion access.)

A referendum is also likely to be on the ballot in Arizona. This measure would expand access to abortion beyond the current 15-week limit. That has implications for the swing state’s presidential race, as well as its U.S. Senate race, in which extreme MAGA Republican Kari Lake is facing Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego.

Meanwhile, in Florida, where Sen. Rick Scott (R) is up for reelection and hope springs eternal among Democrats to win at the presidential level, Democrats could get a boost from the proposed Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion, which provides: “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”

The proposal collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot this fall, but Republicans challenged the measure in court. This echoed the GOP’s unsuccessful effort last year in Ohio to beat back a referendum to expand abortion rights by trying to change the rules to amend the state constitution. On Tuesday, Florida’s supreme court ruled that the state’s six-week ban could go into effect but also held that the pro-choice measure could appear on the ballot. That will set the stage for a high-stakes abortion battle.

And in Montana, where Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is in a tough reelection fight, “a proposed ballot initiative would affirm in the state’s constitution ‘the right to make and carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy, including the right to abortion’ and would prohibit the government from ‘denying or burdening the right to abortion before fetal viability,’”

These measures might well drive Democratic turnout, helping the party’s candidates up and down the ballot. Moreover, they keep abortion uppermost in voters’ minds. The unbroken string of victories for pro-choice measures since Dobbs and the subsequent washout of the red wave in the 2022 midterms suggest abortion has changed the electoral landscape.

Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg (one of the few analysts to throw cold water on predictions of a 2022 red wave) has repeatedly warned that “Dobbs changed everything.” During an MSNBC interview in September, Rosenberg explained that there was a “huge heightened Democratic performance” after Dobbs in more than two dozen special election races.

A cottage industry — the same that predicted Dobbs would be a nonfactor — insisted that the abortion issue’s impact would diminish. However, if attention had drifted, certainly the recent Supreme Court case about banning the abortion drug mifepristone woke up many women.

“Republican lawyers are preparing to use the Comstock Act to prohibit all abortions, not just pills.” In short, MAGA Republicans might try to apply this “zombie relic” law so widely that a Trump Justice Department could push to “make all abortion care a felony.” Democrats are bound to highlight that shocking prospect ahead of the November elections.

In sum, Republicans are likely to keep reminding voters that their party is not about to let public opinion stand in the way of extreme maneuvers to try to ban abortion in every state. Democrats would do well — as they did in 2022 — to lean into the abortion issue. Watch for more Democrats during this election cycle vowing to repeal the Comstock Act, to enshrine abortion rights in federal statute and to use the Justice Department aggressively to defend women’s right to choose. That’s how they can draw a sharp contrast with Republicans’ cruel, dangerous agenda.