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AUGUST 9, 2022
Meyerson on TAP
McConnell's Mistake
Packing the Court with anti-choice fanatics may have doomed
Republicans' prospects for winning a Senate majority.
As Kansas goes, so goes Nebraska.
Yesterday, Nebraska's Republican governor, Pete Ricketts, released a
statement
condemning the state's legislators-the overwhelming majority of whom
are Republicans-for refusing to convene a special session of the
state's unicameral legislature to make abortion illegal after 12
weeks. The support of one-third of the 99-seat legislature is required
to convene such a session, and in a letter to the governor, the Speaker
said that only 30 legislators-three short of the number
needed-wanted to reconvene to diminish the options available to
pregnant Nebraskans.
What could those other 66 legislators have been thinking? In the case of
the Democrats, they simply opposed the proposed legislation. In the case
of the remaining Republicans, they were probably aware of what voters in
the state immediately to their south-Kansas-had signaled in that
state's primary last week: that they wanted to keep intact the
state's constitutional guarantee of abortion rights, by a 59 percent
to 41 percent margin.
The split among Nebraska's Republican legislators reveals the two
emerging camps of Republicans going into November's midterm elections:
the misogynistic and the terrified.
I'm not claiming that misogyny is limited to just one cluster of
Republicans; I merely mean that for one group, it clearly transcends all
other considerations. Such is the case in Indiana, where last week, the
Republican-controlled legislature and the Republican governor enacted a
ban on abortion beginning at conception, with no apparent concern,
thanks to the miracle of gerrymandered districts, that statewide,
Indiana voters have shown no support for such a ban (a consideration
Gov. Eric Holcomb dismissed at his own risk).
But the other group of Republicans appears inclined to overlook its
misogyny in favor of an even nearer and dearer concern: political
survival. After women and young voters of both parties flocked to the
polls in rock-ribbed Republican Kansas to oppose the reduction or
abolition of their right to choice, a number of prominent Republicans
have remained strategically mum when the question of rewriting abortion
laws has been raised. The list includes the two likeliest Republican
presidential candidates, Donald Trump (who has no interest in the
subject whatsoever, as it doesn't pertain directly to him) and Ron
DeSantis (who has to win a decisive victory in November's
gubernatorial election in full knowledge that pushing for a stronger ban
can only turn off many potential supporters). It also includes Mitch
McConnell, whose quest to become majority leader again knows no bounds,
but whose Republican candidates must run statewide rather than in
exquisitely gerrymandered districts where anti-choice majorities may
actually exist.
To be sure, the Republican candidates who must win currently Democratic
Senate seats or hold their own if McConnell is to reclaim his sovereign
power are a flawed lot quite apart from their anti-choice
vulnerabilities. (Herschel Walker? Blake Masters? J.D. Vance? Dr. Oz?
Ron Johnson?
**Jeesh**.) But the revolt against the flat-out revocation of
**Roe**will hurt them all, as it will likely hurt nearly every
Republican on November's ballot.
And whose fault is that? The credit clearly goes to the man who kept
Merrick Garland off the Court and pushed Amy Coney Barrett onto it,
thereby enabling the justices he inflicted on the nation to override
Chief Justice John Roberts's attempt to scale back
**Roe**without igniting an explosive backlash at the polls.
If, come January, you're still the minority leader, Mitch, you got no
one to blame but yourself.
~ HAROLD MEYERSON
Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter
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Permitting Reform Bill Flips Leverage to Progressives
A side deal with Joe Manchin attempts to approve a pipeline in his
backyard and speed through permitting rules. Progressives should make
their own conditions. BY DAVID DAYEN
On Health Care, the Filibuster Means We Get Medicare for All or Nothing
Time to ditch this nonsensical fake tradition. BY RYAN COOPER
How the Inflation Reduction Act Attacks Diesel Pollution
It's a starting point to deal with an issue that disproportionately
impacts marginalized communities. BY RAMENDA CYRUS
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