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What is the Point of a Republican Majority When They Pull Stuff Like This?
My faith in the Republican Party has already been pretty low, but now it’s almost non-existent. This is the party that is supposed to be the anti- abortion party but yesterday the Republican leadership decided to pull the “Pain-Capable Unborn Protection Act,” which would ban abortion after 20 weeks. This bill has the approval of most Americans (about 60%). Most Americans, Republican and Democrat, support a ban on late-term abortions. Why are they scrapping this?
Apparently the effort to drop the bill was lead by Renee Ellmers of North Carolina, Jackie Walorski of Indiana, and Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, who has the most ridiculous reason quoted that I have ever seen:
“I prefer that we avoid these very contentious social issues,” Dent told National Journal. “Week one, we had a speaker election that did not go as well as a lot of us would have liked. Week two, we got into a big fight over deporting children, something that a lot of us didn’t want to have a discussion about. Week three, we are now talking about rape and incest and reportable rapes and incest for minors. … I just can’t wait for week four.”
He would “prefer” to avoid this kind of contention social issue, WHAT?!! Why did you run for Congress then? That is your job; to represent the people of your district (and most people in Dent’s district support this bill). Also,why does he think these things aren’t going well? Maybe it’s because they are not representing the people who elected them and not keeping the promises that many of them made to get elected. If the leadership of the Republican party keeps this up, they will end up going the way of the Whigs.
Published in General
Republicans have stuck themselves playing Prevent Defense, and that almost never works.
Bring up a bill that has ALMOST no chance of making it thru the Senate and ABSOLUTELY no chance of being signed into law isn’t fighting smart.
The odds were great it would not have even gotten to a vote in the Senate, so then you don’t even get your presidential veto. (Again, there is zero evidence that a veto would have cost the democrats anything)
There are only two, count them, two possibilities of curtailing abortions.
1. Electing a GOP president who appoints a SCJ who provides the 5th vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, or
2. Electing a GOP president, GOP house and GOP Senate and then passing a bill curtailing abortions.
There is no number 3. That is it. The bill in question wouldn’t do it. If pro-life advocates want to curtail abortions, they need to stop pressing for bills that have no hope. Instead find good candidate, who are also pro-life. (Not the other way around BTW) Get them elected. When they do that, #1 or #2 will occur.
As several people have pointed out, the law is popular. 60% or more of Americans favor the restriction.
If Democrats won’t pay a price for blocking an anti-infanticide bill, I’m not sure what the point of the Republic is, let alone the Republican Party.
I’m sorry, but we’re constantly hearing that somehow we need complete control of all three branches of government to get anything done at all. We had that back with George W. Bush and got … more Progressivism. There’s no interest in leadership.
The Republicans have been running away on social issues so much they have not a clue how to argue them, how to stand on them. They avoided the issue when it was unpopular, and now that popular opinion has shifted towards the conservative side, they still don’t know what to do so still run. And then we get told they can’t do anything unless they have more control of the government.
At this point I believe it’s not whether they can or can’t do anything, it’s whether they will or will not.
Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey just vowed at the March for Life that the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act will come to the floor. “Our leadership is true, they are faithful [sic], and they will bring this legislation to the floor.”
We shall see.
It’s both.
Of Course Mollie has this right on the nose. Thanks for the link.
Any conservative that thinks the GOP actually cares about conservatism is a sucker and a chump, simply put.
The evidence does point that way, doesn’t it?
As WC pointed out Mollie Hemingway’s article on this is excellent and scary whether you consider it a warning for those with high hopes for the new R Congress or merely confirmation of your existing fears about the R caucus.
But I think this is a two-fer debacle. I’d support this bill if proposed in a state legislature but tell me, what is the constitutional authority under which the US Congress would purport to legislate on this topic? I’m scratching my head over that.
Why fight at all when you can just give up and give in?
[Edit – never mind]
The Founding documents have as their lodestar the federal government’s responsibility to secure the rights of the citizens, among these the right to life, which is a prerequisite for all other rights.
It would seem the Congress has not only the authority, but the obligation to protect the nation’s most voiceless and vulnerable citizens from man-caused suffering and death.
The real question to ask is, under what constitutional authority did it ever become otherwise?
That’s nice one-dimensional thinking.
Now let’s go a layer deeper.
I don’t care if the bill ever gets to Obama’s desk for a veto. Make every member of Congress vote on this, and as many other issues as possible. Make them take stands. Clarify. Then the public can identify who stands with them and who doesn’t. Then we can start changing out members of Congress.
THAT is how you win. Not by ducking issues.
Murder has always been considered a crime governed by state law. The only exceptions are murder of federal employees and in connection with crimes for which the federal government already has jurisdiction. As far as I know the Federal government has never asserted the right you mention.
The partial birth abortion ban passed by Congress a decade or so ago was specifically based on its powers under the Commerce Clause. I know why the opponents of the ban never raised it in their court challenge (and Justice Thomas trolled them for it in a footnote) since the only thing higher in the progressive hierarchy than the right of a woman to an abortion up till the umbilical cord is cut is the need for an unfettered Commerce Clause, but why do conservatives want to help them by establishing further precedent to be turned against us on other issues?
You didn’t answer my question. The states’ laws regarding murder (of the unborn) were completely upended by Roe (and subsequent SCOTUS decisions). Everything done in Congress since then, including BAIPA, is in response to the precedent of unfettered access to abortion provided by Roe. From whence in the Constitution did the SCOTUS receive its authority?
Roe is unconstitutional. Until we fix that, we’re operating outside constitutional authority.
Well, they aren’t giving up. As I mentioned in a previous comment – perhaps you overlooked it – they are subbing it out with a bill proposing to make the Hyde amendment permanent. This call from the anti-abortion wing of the party to bring this to a vote just for the spectacle is foolish, and it won’t save one single child. I suspect that this bill really isn’t about saving lives, but demonstrating the leverage that the anti-abortionists have in the party and get some media coverage for the march. I’m frankly very proud of the GOP for backing out. It’s one of the smartest things the party has done in recent years.
Well then fix Roe in which SCOTUS found its authority in the penumbras and emanations of the Constitution but Roe did not find that Congress had authority under the Constitution to legislate in this area. The Court did rule the Congress had the authority to pass the partial birth abortion ban under existing jurisprudence including Roe and its progeny, though as mentioned above, the Commerce Clause issue was never presented to the Court for argument. I think Roe is bad constitutional law. I think the partial birth abortion ban passed by Congress (which I think is good policy and support at the state level) is also bad constitutional law.
Trusting either major party is silly. Their primary interest is power, their secondary interest is power.
Making members from marginal districts cast a purely symbolic vote only fundraises for their opponent in the next election. This is true even if a majority of people agree with you nationwide. Districts are not little copies of nationwide sentiment.
Don’t hand your opponent a club to beat you with. You call for this vote only after you have the majorities in both houses and the presidency. Then, and only then, do you want everyone in your party on record. Then, and only then does, the whip power really come into play.
In fact, forcing such a vote prematurely is most likely to cost you the seats you want the most. Marginal districts where you have elected a solid pro-life candidate.
The urgency of this issue causes many in the pro-life movement such moral panic that they feel they must do something, anything immediately. Sadly, that leads to more dead babies, not less.
Their tertiary interest is money…..and power. :)
I never said anything about Abortion in my comment.
I want every member of Congress on record as to where they would vote on every issue possible. I care not what side they come down on. I want clarity. I want accountability. If that means they lose support in their own district, that’s fine with me. I want representation, not party-line seat-fillers.
Very disappointing. If this is only a strategic pause which will get pushed later in the year, I can understand. If this is a permanent drop of the issue, I’ll be furious.
To me this mostly shows the Republican politicians are bad at explaining things. I have actually found it pretty easy to convince even super-lefties that it should be illegal to get an abortion after 6 months, or even earlier.
The problem is that most of you probably would like to make abortion completely illegal, and I don’t think most Americans agree with you about that (myself included). However, a law banning late-term abortions, absolutely.
I am totally confused.
Some Republican women objected to provisions in a bill that a substantial majority of Americans support, which would outlaw abortions after 20 weeks, because they didn’t like the fact that women would have to make a formal report of rape or incest to the police before having a late-term abortion for one the another of those reasons?
And the reason that the Republicans pulled this law has nothing to do with the driving force of the law, whether or not a fetus at the midpoint of a woman’s pregnancy can feel pain? That suddenly doesn’t matter, if it means that our lawmakers may have to take a position and record their vote on a sensitive matter?
Is there anything in this law, even supposing this bill had been voted on and had passed, and even in the unlikely event that the President had signed it, that would have prevented any of these women, or any other woman, having an abortion in weeks 1-19 (that is until their gestation period was half over), for just about any reason they pleased, with no paperwork required?
Frankly, I think that if a woman who’s been raped, or who has suffered the abuse of incest and has become pregnant because of it, hasn’t made up her mind about this by the half-way mark of her pregnancy, then she’s probably got other issues to work through as well.
Please explain to me why these Republican women think that their constituents are this stupid.
Abortion and slavery have much in common particularly from a moral stand point. It took years for William Wilberforce to move the ball on slavery to the point where Parliament would do the right thing and abolish it. Wilberforce knew a bill abolishing slavery wouldn’t pass the first time it was proposed, or the second, or the tenth but persistence and keeping the issue before Parliament eventually paid off. We aren’t talking farm subsidies here we are trying to outlaw sucking apart millions of individuals who feel pain and suffer as they are being ripped apart. We should put that bill aside out of tactical political considerations? I don’t think so.
Well, actually, the US Constitution does not include a job description for individual Representatives. The “job” of a Representative is defined by that Representative’s voters.
Section 8, which lays out the duties of Congress, makes no mention of “contentious social issues”.
Absolutely true. It might be interesting to graph the views of the people living in the States and Districts of each Senator and Representative against the voting patterns of the man or woman they send to Washington to represent them. Has anyone ever done anything like that?