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US supreme courtThe post-Trump supreme court: where hard-won rights die in darkness Orders – such as on the Texas abortion law – issued in the dead of night on the so-called ‘shadow docket’ threaten the court’s legitimacy and US democracyEd Pilkington in New York@ More
TexasPartisan gerrymandering has empowered a hard-right turn in Texas Republicans are steamrolling a series of extremist laws, undeterred by demographic shifts in the state favoring Democrats Sam Levine in New YorkSun 5 Sep 2021 04.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 5 Sep 2021 04.01 EDTTexas lawmakers have taken the state’s long history of chest-thumping conservatism to new levels over the last few months.Republicans, who have complete control of state government in Texas, have pushed through some of the most extreme rightwing measures in the country. They enacted the most restrictive abortion law in the United States, essentially outlawing the practice after six weeks and incentivizing private citizens to sue anyone who assists another person in obtaining one. They passed a measure allowing anyone to carry a handgun without a permit or training. They severely restricted how teachers can talk about systemic racism in their classrooms, passing a law that says teachers cannot be required to discuss current events and cannot give “deference to any one perspective” if they do so. And they passed sweeping new election restrictions, banning voting practices, including 24-hour and drive-thru voting, that the state’s largest, and Democratic-leaning, county used in 2020.It’s a hard-right turn driven by a need to appeal to the core part of the Republican base, observers say, particularly at a time when there are clear signs the Republican electorate in Texas shrinking and the state becoming increasingly politically competitive. Nearly all of the state’s population growth over the last decade has come from people of color, recent census numbers show. Democratic-leaning cities and their suburbs are growing quickly, while Republican-leaning rural areas are not.“They’re doing it because their base, primary Republican voters, is declining,” said Robert Stein, a professor at Rice University in Houston. “You don’t have to have a PhD to figure it out.”The laws will have significant impact on the lives of Texans. Approximately 85% of all abortions previously performed in the state are now illegal, providers say, forcing women to travel outside of the state to obtain one. People who work long hours and can’t take time off work will face obstacles to casting a ballot with 24-hour voting now banned. And people with disabilities may face more difficulties in casting their vote because of new restrictions on people who assist them.The extremism in Texas is being led by Greg Abbott, the state’s Republican governor, who faces a Republican challenge from the right in his primary election next year. Though Abbott, considered a potential presidential contender in 2024, is still overwhelmingly favored in the race, observers say he has used the legislative session to burnish his conservative bona fides. Abbott has called lawmakers back to Austin for special legislative sessions this year to take on red-meat issues for the Republican base, including voting and critical race theory, an academic discipline that examines the ways in which racism operates in US laws and society.“He sees an opening. I think he thinks he’s competing for the extreme far-right of his party. Not just here in Texas, but nationally. And I think unfortunately that’s really been the driver of this,” said John Bucy, a Democratic state representative from Austin.Focusing on restricting abortion and voting while expanding gun access is not new for Texas lawmakers. But the severity and extremism of the bills that passed this year is, according to Joshua Blank, the research director at the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Just a few years ago, he noted, Republican leaders rejected a proposal to allow permitless carry for handguns like the one that sailed through the legislature in 2021.“When you have a conservative party in charge, an extremely conservative primary electorate that chooses most of the elected officials, you end up with more extreme legislation because some of the low-hanging fruit has already been addressed,” he said.“It’s not enough for a Republican member of the state legislature to go back to their Republican primary electorate and simply say ‘I went to the Republican legislature for 140 days and we didn’t make it easier to get an abortion in Texas. We didn’t pass laws that would restrict your right to own guns.’ That’s not good enough in Texas,” he added.As Republicans push extreme bills in the legislature, they’re also bolstered by an extremely powerful political advantage. A decade ago, Republicans had complete control over the process of drawing the boundaries for state legislative and congressional districts. It allowed them to distort the lines to help Republicans win elections and guarantee their election in the state legislature over the past 10 years. This year the lines will be redrawn again and Republicans once again will have complete control of the process. It’s a power that allows Republicans to make laws without having to worry about alienating Democratic voters, Blank said.“There’s probably more confidence in their party that they can cater to the Republican primary electorate without necessarily creating problems for them in the general election, because they’ll fix that with redistricting,” he said.Texas activists like Amatullah Contractor are used to the conservative politics of the state. But the last few months have felt like “we’re heading towards some sort of doomsday or living in a dystopian reality,” said Contractor, the Texas deputy director of Emgage, a civic engagement organization for Muslim American communities.The solution, she said, is for the US Congress to step in and pass laws to blunt the voting and other measures being passed in Texas. Even though Democrats control both chambers of Congress, they have been unable to pass that kind of legislation because of the filibuster, a Senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance legislation.“We’re screaming into the void because who’s paying attention and where is the action from the federal government? They’re the ones holding power,” said Contractor, who joined a 27-mile march for voting rights earlier this year. “Over here we can organize, but we don’t have electoral majorities. They do and they’re not using it.”TopicsTexasRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
Texas‘Outraged, sickened, terrified’: Guardian readers on the Texas abortion banNine Guardian readers share their thoughts on the ruling that bans most abortions – and what it means for reproductive rights Guardian readers and Rachel ObordoSat 4 Sep 2021 06.00 EDTLast modified on Sat 4 Sep 2021 06.01 EDTThe US supreme court voted 5-4 to allow a Texas law banning most abortions to remain in force. The law prohibits abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, usually around six weeks and before most women know they’re pregnant.Nine people share their reaction to the ruling and what they think it means for women’s rights.‘Women’s rights are being stolen out from under us’We have all these yahoos down here screaming about their rights being taken away (guns, vaccines and maskless), but women’s rights are being stolen out from under us. Abortion should not be a political decision – it is a moral decision. No one has the right to tell me what I can do with my body. One day “I” will answer to my Lord, no one else will stand in place during my judgment day. It is very disheartening. Women’s rights are slowly being taken away. What will they take away next? Michelle, 52, Texas‘How can I still be afraid of my voice not mattering?’It’s absolutely not right to have control over a woman’s body like this. I had one abortion when I was 22. My now husband and I had just started dating and we weren’t financially or emotionally ready to have children. If we were not allowed to have an abortion then, our relationship would not have survived. I would have been a single mother, trying to support a baby I wasn’t ready for and didn’t want. How do you think that child would have been raised? We now have two children and we are able to support them with love and everything they need to thrive. To this day my husband and I do not regret the extremely hard choice we had to make. We were both grieving for a while but, it was the right decision and it was my body, my choice.I had to have two C-sections with both of my sons as they were too large for me to give birth naturally. During my last C-section, I chose to get sterilized and my tubes tied. This was a difficult choice, but it was my choice for a healthy life. I decided for myself that day so no one could for me another day. I live in the USA, it’s 2021, how can I still be afraid of my voice not mattering? Kelsi, 30, Arizona‘This law is deeply and blatantly misogynistic’Saying I’m appalled does not begin to cover it. I am speechless. I just want to emphasize what others have been saying: there are no laws dictating what men can do with their bodies. For there to be full equality under the law, there can be no laws dictating what a woman can do with hers. I will be boycotting Texas in every way I can. The unintended consequences of this law will be deadlier and more horrific than the unintended consequences of Prohibition. This law is deeply and blatantly misogynistic. All women everywhere should be protesting in the streets. Valerie, 69, New York‘I spent my life fighting for abortion rights and now I feel defeated’I am outraged, sickened and terrified. I spent my life fighting for abortion rights, and now I just feel defeated. I’d leave this sick and evil country if I could, but I’m too old and too poor to be able to get out. I’ll stay and battle on, but the future looks increasingly bleak and dark.I fear for the lives and health of Texas women, and for the future of anyone in America who is not a white, straight, Christian, rightwing male. I am absolutely horrified and feel like a lifetime’s worth of work by so many people just went up in smoke. American women are in grave danger, and not just in Texas. Linda, 71, Maryland‘This is not the country I fought for’This is Handmaid’s Tale stuff. When I was young, I was a Goldwater Republican, but I left the party after Newt Gingrich was elected speaker. They [the Republicans] see Trump as America’s Viktor Orbán, running a “soft” dictatorship. The abortion ruling is one more step in their plan to eliminate freedom. Their stance on gun control is to ensure that their followers will be armed to the teeth the next time they try to pull off an insurrection. As a retired disabled veteran of the Vietnam war, this is not the country I fought for. Back in 1968 it was a different country – Republicans were the good guys – I’m not sure I want to keep living here if this is the way things are going. Bill, 74, Georgia‘The burden will be on the lower socioeconomic people’An absolute outrage. How dare a white male majority make choices about our bodies? I had two negative pregnancy tests when pregnant with my daughter, and didn’t get confirmation until I was 16 weeks pregnant. I am a social worker and know there are thousands of children who are languishing in the foster care system and will never be adopted. Who will care for these unwanted children? The burden, as usual in the USA, will be on the lower socioeconomic people. We are going backwards and it is beyond distressing. The wealthy will have access to abortions and other women will be forced to carry and bear children they don’t want or can’t support financially or emotionally. What a travesty. Allison, 50, Utah‘I think the ban starts six weeks too late’I am thrilled, though I think the ban starts six weeks too late. I’m hopeful that the supreme court will at least acknowledge a state’s options to set its own standards here. My concerns are that so much of our country is comfortable with the murder of the most innocent lives among us. It’s hard to get anything right as a society when infanticide is acceptable. Michael, Kansas‘Welcome back to the dark ages’This is utterly disgusting and abhorrent. Women of all ages should and must be able to make their own choice concerning their body. Welcome back to the dark ages. It’s OK to be against abortion but you don’t get to choose for others – it’s a matter of personal choice. I went through an abortion in my late 20s when I was living in Asia. My then boyfriend was immature and stupid and so was I. Anyway, it was a traumatic experience for many reasons and I wouldn’t go through it again, but that was my choice and I’m glad I had the option. Gally, 40, California‘Saying it’s too complicated is such a lazy response’It’s cowardice supreme. Such a twisted law – pitting people against each other. The supreme court can’t even give a good reason for blocking it other than that it’s too complicated. That is such a lazy response. It’s a sad day for women. I can only imagine what other countries think of this. I worry that other states will take approaches like this and effectively ban abortion elsewhere too. Jeremy, 24, MinnesotaTopicsTexasAbortionUS politicsHealthfeaturesReuse this content More
OpinionAbortionFeminists warned about America’s abortion crisis for years. We were written off as hystericalMoira DoneganWhy has the effective end of Roe v Wade been met with shock by so many corners of political life? Sat 4 Sep 2021 06.00 EDTLast modified on Sat 4 Sep 2021 06.01 EDTThis was predictable. In fact, it was predicted. The end of Roe v Wade and nationwide protections for abortion rights became likely in 2016, the night that Donald Trump was elected. It became inevitable in 2018, when Anthony Kennedy, the fifth pro-choice vote, retired and handed his seat to Trump to fill. But the end of nationwide legal abortion in America has been coming for decades, and there has been no ambiguity about the appetite for Roe’s overturn on the American right. And crucially, feminists have been sounding the alarm for decades, warning in increasingly desperate terms that gradual erosions of Roe’s protections in the law had led to a rapid and widespread loss of abortion access on the ground.Republicans seethe with violence and lies. Texas is part of a bigger war they’re waging | Rebecca SolnitRead morePerhaps the form of Roe’s eventual downfall was a surprise. Few thought that Roe’s fatal case would be over Texas’s new abortion law, with its privatized enforcement system of bounty-hunting civil suits designed to elide judicial review. And among a sea of legal observers, only Cardozo law professor Kate Shaw seems to have predicted that the court would dispose of a long-established constitutional right in so rushed and perfunctory a proceeding as a late-night order on the shadow docket. But this outcome was never in doubt. Trump promised to appoint antichoice judges. He kept that promise. This week his three appointees – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas – did what all of them know they were put on the court to do. They allowed the first state to outlaw abortion within its borders.So why has the effective end of Roe v Wade, coming in a one paragraph order in the wee hours of Thursday morning, been met with shock by so many corners of political life? The Republican party’s control of the federal judiciary had left little doubt that those judges most inclined to strip women of their rights would have both the power and the opportunity to do so. And yet politicians, pundits, and legal observers had for years assured the public that the justices would not gut abortion rights, despite the clear evidence that they would. We were assured that the Republicans on the court were less determined to gut Roe than they appeared to be, and that those worried about the future of abortion rights were overreacting.The court would not gut Roe, we were told by politicians and academics, because they said they wouldn’t. Kavanaugh, the ruddy-faced Trump appointee, had referred to Roe as “important precedent”. That this rather tepid comment was a disingenuous bit of posturing meant to ease his confirmation to the court was evident to everyone. Nevertheless, defenders of the confirmation process implored the public to treat it as if it had been uttered in good faith.In a speech announcing her decision to vote to confirm Kavanaugh, Senator Susan Collins said that she believed Kavanaugh would not vote to overturn Roe, or to gut it procedurally, because “his views on honoring precedent would preclude attempts to do by stealth that which one has committed not to do overtly.” Of course, the court, with Kavanaugh’s help, did effectively overturn Roe “by stealth” – in an unsigned order in the middle of the night.Of the feminists who opposed his nomination, Collins was dismissive, even patronizing. “We have seen special-interest groups whip their followers into a frenzy by spreading misrepresentations and outright falsehoods about Judge Kavanaugh’s judicial record.” She condemned these women’s concerns as “over-the-top rhetoric and distortions”.The court would not gut Roe, we were told by the legal world, because the justices were too professional. Barrett, the third of Trump’s appointees, had been a member of an antichoice faculty group while a law professor at Notre Dame. She had given a lecture to a Right to Life group; she had signed a letter condemning Roe and its “brutal legacy”. And yet despite Barrett’s extremist and evidently very passionately held views on abortion, people posing as serious told us that we could not know how she would vote on abortion rights, that the opinions and worldviews of judges would somehow not affect their legal judgement. “My personal views don’t have anything to do with the way I would decide cases,” Barrett told Senator Patrick Leahy when she was asked about her lengthy history of anti-abortion advocacy. The statement insulted both Leahy’s intelligence, and ours.And yet as conservative, antichoice judges consolidated their power, several myths about the court persisted. We were told that the people who looked like rabidly conservative justices were really reasoned moderates; or that at least they would be professional and impartial in their judgements; or that at least the removal of abortion rights would move slowly. These myths were presented as the only serious way to understand the court. Feminist claims that what appeared to be happening really was happening – that the judiciary really had been taken over by antichoice zealots, that the ability of women to control their own bodies and lives would soon be stripped away – were labeled as delusional and silly. Faith in the integrity of the conservative justices was cast as informed, mature, and intelligent. And it was contrasted with the supposed hysteria of feminists, whose passion and fear was taken as a sign of their own delusion, not as an indication of the seriousness of the problem.This notion, that the only intelligent response to a threat to women’s rights is to be calm, blasé, and preemptively assured that nothing very bad or important will result, has been weaponized with particular insidiousness over the course of the abortion debate during the past five years. In the halls of power, contempt for abortion rights activists was nearly complete.After Kennedy’s resignation, the CNN host Brian Stelter took to social media to scold a liberal activist for her fear of a Roe reversal. “We are not ‘a few steps away from the Handmaid’s Tale’,” he wrote. “I don’t think this kind of fear-mongering helps anybody.” Confronted with women opposed to the confirmation of Kavanaugh, Senator Ben Sasse all but rolled his eyes. There had been, he said, “screaming protesters saying ‘women are going to die’ at every hearing for decades.”The insistence that Roe is not in danger, and that women’s fear is silly, persists even now, after the court has effectively ended Roe. “Now breathe,” wrote the law professor Jonathan Turley in a blogpost urging women’s rights advocates to calm down, as if they were toddlers in the midst of a temper tantrum. “It is ridiculous to say that it was some manufactured excuse for a partisan ruling.”Is it ridiculous? The public has no real reason to believe that the supreme court is acting in good faith – aside from the repeated assurances of supposed experts whose predictions have usually been wrong. Instead, it was the so-called alarmist feminists, the ones warning about manufactured excuses for partisan attacks on abortion rights, who got their predictions mostly right. Maybe these women are not so ridiculous after all. Maybe it’s time to start listening to them.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
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OpinionRepublicansRepublicans seethe with violence and lies. Texas is part of a bigger war they’re wagingRebecca SolnitThis extremist vigilante abortion law is of a piece with everything else Republicans are doing: overturning democracy itself Fri 3 Sep 2021 06.22 EDTLast modified on Fri 3 Sep 2021 12.51 EDTThe American right has been drunk on its freedom from two kinds of inhibition since Donald Trump appeared to guide them into the promised land of their unleashed ids. One is the inhibition from lies, the other from violence. Both are ways members of civil society normally limit their own actions out of respect for the rights of others and the collective good. Those already strained limits have snapped for leading Republican figures, from Tucker Carlson on Fox News to Ted Cruz in the Senate and for their followers.We’ve watched those followers gulp down delusions from Pizzagate to Qanon to Covid denialism to Trump’s election lies. And rough up journalists, crash vehicles into and wave weapons at Black Lives Matter and other anti-racist protesters at least since Charlottesville, menace statehouses, issue threats to doctors and school boards testifying about public health, and plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, for imposing Covid-prevention protocols.The Texas abortion law that the rightwing supreme court just smiled upon, despite its violation of precedent, seethes with both violence and lies. The very language of the law is a lie, a familiar one in which six-week embryos are called fetuses and a heartbeat is attributed to the cluster of cells that is not yet a heart not yet powering a circulatory system.Behind it are other lies, in which women have abortions because they are reckless, wanton and callous, rather than, in the great number of cases, because of the failure of birth control, or coercive sex, or medical problems, including threats to the health of the mother or a non-viable pregnancy, and financial problems, including responsibility for existing children.But what was new about the Texas bill is its invitation to its residents to become vigilantes, bounty hunters and snitches. This will likely throw a woman who suspects she is pregnant into a hideous state of fearful secrecy, because absolutely anyone can profit off her condition and anyone who aids her, from the driver to the doctor, is liable. It makes pregnancy a crime, since it is likely to lead to the further criminalization even of the significant percentage of pregnancies that end in miscarriage. It will lead women – particularly the undocumented, poor, the young, those under the thumbs of abusive spouses or families – to die of life-threatening pregnancies or illicit abortions or suicide out of despair. A vigilante who goes after a woman is willing to see her die.The rightwing stance on abortion is often treated as a contradiction coming from a political sector that sings in praise of unfettered liberty to do as you like, including carry semiautomatic weapons in public and spread a sometimes fatal virus. But like the attack on voting rights in Texas happening simultaneously with the attack on reproductive rights, it is of course about expanding liberty for some while withering it away for others. The attacks on reproductive rights seek to make women unfree and unequal; the attacks on voting rights seek to make people of color unfree and unequal; women of color get a double dose.Texas now has abortion ‘bounty hunters’: Sonia Sotomayor’s scathing legal dissentRead moreThis is the logical outcome of a party that, some decades back, looked at an increasingly non-white country and decided to try to suppress the votes of people of color rather than win them. Not just the Democratic party but democracy is their enemy. In this system in which some animals are more equal than others, some have the right to determine the truth more than others, and facts, science, history are likewise fetters to be shaken loose in pursuit of exactly your very own favorite version of reality, which you enforce through dominance, including outright violence.What was the 6 January coup attempt but this practice writ large? A mountain of lies about the outcome of an election was used to whip up a vigilante mob into an attack not just on Congress but on the ratification of the election results and death threats against the vice-president and against Speaker Pelosi. The sheer berserker-style violence of it was extraordinary, the mostly middle-aged mostly white mostly men trying to gouge out eyeballs and trampling their own underfoot while screaming and spraying bear spray in the faces of those guarding the building and the elected officials within and the election.Their leaders produced lies that instigated the violence, lies to justify that violence, lies to deny the existence of that violence, and then lies to stir up further violence. The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, who by his own account furiously begged Trump to call off the attackers, has since been trying to sabotage the investigation into what happened.As the New York Times reported this week: “Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, has threatened to retaliate against any company that complies with the congressional committee investigating the January 6 riot, after the panel asked dozens of firms to preserve the phone and social media records of 11 far-right members of Congress who pushed to overturn the results of the 2020 election.” He is trying to prevent Congress and the public from knowing what has gone on. Which you could also call covering up a crime, in public, and his threats may themselves constitute crimes.Madison Cawthorn, the North Carolina freshman congressman who appeared onstage on 6 January to whip up the crowd, calls the rioters “political prisoners” and continues to lie about the outcome of the 2020 election, declaring: “If our election systems continue to be rigged, continue to be stolen, it’s going to lead to one place and that’s bloodshed.” Cawthorne, like the Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, like Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, whose votes set the Texas abortion law into action on Wednesday, has been accused of sexual misconduct.While men across the political spectrum are accused of similar wrongdoing – Andrew Cuomo’s conduct led to New York getting its first female governor last month – in the Republican case it is not an ideological inconsistency. The ideological premise is that one’s own rights matter so much that others’ rights do not matter at all, and that goes from rape to mask and vaccine policies to the proliferation of guns and gun deaths in recent years.There is no clear way to tell if the right is emboldened because they’ve gotten away with so much in the past five years, or whether they’re increasingly desperate because they are in a wild gamble, but it seems like both at once. If the US defends its democracy, such as it is, and protects the voting rights of all eligible adults, the right will continue to be a shrinking minority. Their one chance of overturning that requires overturning democracy itself. That’s one goal they’re willing to use violence to achieve and no longer bothering to lie about.
Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist and the author of Recollections of My Nonexistence and Orwell’s Roses
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US CongressDemocrats rush to find strategy to counter Texas abortion lawBiden administration’s options are limited and filibuster poses roadblock to federal legislation Hugo LowellFri 3 Sep 2021 02.00 EDTLast modified on Fri 3 Sep 2021 02.02 EDTJoe Biden and top Democrats are scrambling for a strategy to counter Republican restrictions on women’s reproductive rights amid the fallout from a Texas statute that has banned abortions in the state from as early as six weeks into pregnancy – but the options available to the administration are thin.The conservative-dominated supreme court in a night-time ruling refused an emergency request to block the Texas law from taking effect, in a decision that amounted to a crushing defeat for reproductive rights and threatened major ramifications in other states nationwide.Even as the US president on Thursday accused the court of carrying out an assault on vital constitutional rights and ordered the federal government to ensure women in Texas retained access to abortions, the future of reproductive rights remains in the balance.The challenges facing Biden and Democrats reflect the deep polarization of Congress, and the difficulty in trying to force bipartisan consensus on perhaps the most controversial of issues in American politics.Now, top Democrats in Congress have developed a multi-part strategy to roll back restrictions pushed by Republican-led states that rests on attempting to codify abortion rights protections into federal law – and potentially to reform the supreme court.The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, announced on Thursday that Democrats would vote within weeks to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, a bill that would ensure the right to access an abortion and for medical providers to perform abortions.“Upon our return, the House will bring up congresswoman Judy Chu’s Women’s Health Protection Act to enshrine into law reproductive healthcare for all women across America,” Pelosi said in a statement that also admonished the court’s decision.Separately, liberal Democrats led by progressives including the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are urging Biden to strike down other restrictions on access to abortions and the Hyde amendment, a measure that prohibits federal funding for most abortions.Seizing on the Texas decision, liberal Democrats have also called anew for an expansion of the supreme court from nine to 13 seats, which would enable Biden to appoint four liberal-leaning justices to shift the politics on the bench.The legislative response is aimed at reversing more than 500 restrictions introduced by Republican state legislatures in recent months and “trigger laws” that would automatically outlaw abortions if the supreme court overturned its ruling in the landmark Roe v Wade case that was supposed to cement abortion rights in the US.How does someone in Texas get an abortion now and what’s next?Read moreBut while such protections are almost certain to be straightforwardly approved by the Democratic-controlled House, all of the proposals face a steep uphill climb in the face of sustained Republican opposition and a filibuster in the 50-50 Senate.The Senate filibuster rule – a procedural tactic that requires a supermajority to pass most bills – was in part why the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, focused on stacking the supreme court with conservative justices rather than pursue legislation to enact abortion restrictions at a federal level.Forty-eight Democrats currently sponsor the Women’s Health Protection Act in the Senate. Two Republicans – Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski – have previously indicated support for abortion rights, but the numbers fall far short of the 60-vote threshold required to avoid a filibuster.Against that backdrop, a majority of Senate Democrats have called for eliminating the filibuster entirely. But reforming the filibuster requires the support of all Democrats in the Senate, and conservative Democratic senators including West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema are outspoken supporters of the rule.The broad concern demonstrates how urgent the issue has become for Democrats, and with the Texas law in effect after the failure of the emergency stay, many reproductive rights advocates worry that Democrats will be unable to meet the moment with meaningful action.TopicsUS CongressUS SenateUS politicsAbortionTexasWomenanalysisReuse this content More
The Supreme Court’s decision not to block a Texas law banning most abortions left Republicans eager to replicate it. Democrats reeled, but sensed a winning issue in coming elections.WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s decision not to block a Texas law sharply curtailing abortions abruptly vaulted the issue to the forefront of American politics on Thursday, reshaping the dynamics of elections in California this month, in Virginia in November and in midterms next year that will determine control of Congress and statehouses.Republicans hailed the court’s 5-to-4 decision, explained in a one-paragraph middle-of-the-night ruling, as a tremendous victory, allowing a nearly complete ban on abortions to stand in the nation’s second-largest state.For Democrats, it was a nightmare come true: A conservative Supreme Court, led by three appointees of former President Donald J. Trump, had allowed a highly gerrymandered, Republican-controlled state legislature to circumvent Roe v. Wade, the half-century-old decision that enshrined abortion as a constitutional right.Suddenly, supporters of abortion rights found themselves grappling not only with the political and policy failures that had led to this point, but also with the prospect that other Republican-controlled legislatures could quickly enact copycat legislation. On Thursday, G.O.P. lawmakers in Arkansas, Florida and South Dakota promised to do so in their next legislative sessions.Yet Democrats also embraced the opportunity to force an issue they believe is a political winner for them to the center of the national debate. After years of playing defense, Democrats say the Texas law will test whether the reality of a practical ban on abortions can motivate voters to support them.Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, a Democrat up for re-election in 2022, said people in her state had fought to protect women’s reproductive freedom and would vote accordingly. “If a Republican is going to go to Washington to roll those freedoms back, I will make it an issue,” she said in an interview. “I don’t think you should underestimate the impact that this issue has to Nevadans.”Republicans held up the Texas law as an example for the country to follow. “This law will save the lives of thousands of unborn babies in Texas and become a national model,” said Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick of Texas. “I pray that every other state will follow our lead in defense of life.”Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, who is considered a potential Republican candidate for president in 2024, said she had directed her office to “make sure we have the strongest pro-life laws on the books.”Senate Democrats’ campaign arm has signaled that it will use abortion rights as a cudgel against Republicans running in key states like Nevada, where Senator Catherine Cortez Masto faces re-election in 2022.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesThe court’s decision, which did not address the substance of the Texas law, creates new urgency for President Biden and congressional Democrats to do more than issue public statements vowing to defend women’s reproductive rights.“The temperature just got a lot hotter on this issue, and I certainly now expect Congress to join in these fights,” said Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, the chairwoman of the Democratic Governors Association. “Our voters expect us all to do more.”Yet Senate Democrats do not have the votes to eliminate the filibuster, which would be necessary to change federal abortion law in the evenly divided chamber.In Washington on Thursday, Democratic leaders dutifully scrambled to show their determination to push back against the possibility that the Texas law could be replicated elsewhere — or to respond if the Supreme Court rolls back abortion rights when it rules on a Mississippi law that seeks to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, two months earlier than Roe and subsequent decisions allow.Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised to bring a vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would effectively codify abortion rights into federal law.And Mr. Biden pledged “a whole-of-government effort” in response to the Texas law, directing the Department of Health and Human Services and the Justice Department to identify possible federal measures to help ensure that women in the state have access to safe and legal abortions.“The highest court of our land will allow millions of women in Texas in need of critical reproductive care to suffer while courts sift through procedural complexities,” Mr. Biden said. “The impact of last night’s decision will be immediate and requires an immediate response.”Vice President Kamala Harris added, “We will not stand by and allow our nation to go back to the days of back-alley abortions.”The first election that could test Democrats’ capacity to energize voters over abortion rights comes on Sept. 14 in California, where voters will determine the fate of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who faces a recall effort. Mr. Newsom warned on Twitter that the Texas abortion ban “could be the future of CA” if the recall were successful.In Virginia, Democratic candidates for the state’s three statewide offices and House of Delegates pounced on the issue on Thursday. Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who is running to recapture the office in November, said the fight for abortion rights would help motivate Democratic voters who might be complacent after the party captured full control of state government in 2019 and helped Mr. Biden win the state last year.“We are a Democratic state. There are more Democrats,” Mr. McAuliffe said. “But this is an off-off-year, and getting Democrats motivated to come out, that’s always the big challenge.”Eyeing 2022, the Democrats’ Senate campaign arm has signaled it will use abortion rights as a cudgel against Republicans running in states like Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada and North Carolina. Democrats planning campaigns for governor next year are preparing to brand themselves as the last line of defense on abortion rights, particularly in states with Republican-controlled legislatures.“People are now waking up to the fact that the battle will now be in the states, and they recognize that the only thing, literally the only thing standing in the way of Pennsylvania passing the same ban that Texas just passed, is the veto pen of our Democratic governor,” said Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania attorney general, a Democrat who has said he expects to enter the race to succeed Gov. Tom Wolf. “I’ve given up on the politicians in Washington. I don’t think we can count on them anymore.”Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, who is running for his old post this year, believes abortion access will be a motivating factor for voters.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesThough Republicans have long made overturning Roe a central political goal — as a candidate in 2016, Mr. Trump predicted that his eventual Supreme Court appointees would do so — there was still a palpable sense of shock among Democrats. Despite the court’s 6-to-3 conservative majority, many Democrats seemed mentally unprepared for Wednesday’s ruling.“You can’t plan for a blatantly false or unconstitutional court ruling like this,” said Representative Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania, a Democrat who is running for his state’s open Senate seat next year.Understand the Texas Abortion LawCard 1 of 4The most restrictive in the country. More
