High court gives Dems leg up in upcoming elections

ABORTION

By George Skelton

The conservative Supreme Court’s pending decision to roll back national abortion rights is sure to hurt Republican candidates, even in California where women won’t be affected.

The GOP has been chasing after this ruling for decades. Now it’s like the barking dog catching the car. The dog could get run over.

How much the party is hurt won’t be known until the November election. But one thing is sure: The court is about to hand Democrats a political gift — maybe only a small one, or perhaps the present of a lifetime.

You don’t take away a right that women have had for nearly 50 years and not suffer adverse consequences.

A leaked draft opinion reveals that the conservative-dominated court is on track to throw out Roe. Then it will be up to each state to set its own abortion rules. Roughly half are prepared to severely limit them.

“Let it sink in for a while,” veteran Democratic consultant Gale Kaufman says. “I don’t believe young women are going to sit back and take it. They feel very empowered, especially after COVID.”

Why’s that?

“A whole lot of the world changed for everyone,” she says. “The way they work — whether they have to go into the office or not. The way their kids are educated. Now tell them that the choice about their own body is taken away and you can’t make me believe it won’t have an impact.”

A prominent California pollster basically agrees.

“I do think this is an issue that will be front and center,” says Mark Baldassare, president of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. “It’s an issue a lot of people care about. And most are going to be on the side against changing Roe v. Wade.”

A PPIC poll last month found that 76% of likely California voters oppose overturning Roe. There’s bipartisan opposition — 87% of Democrats, 77% of independents and 54% of Republicans.

Significantly, 55% of likely voters among Republican women oppose throwing out Roe — a view that could particularly affect congressional and legislative elections in competitive suburban districts.

Every geographic region of the state favors keeping Roe.

So do all ethnic and racial groups. The least supportive are Latino voters — still, 64% want to retain Roe’s abortion protections.

Republican candidates in socially liberal California finally and wisely stopped yakking about abortion around 20 years ago because it was killing them at the polls statewide and in many congressional and legislative districts.

It’ll be a legitimate issue in U.S. House races because there’ll be a move in Congress — which most likely won’t budge in the Senate — to pass legislation reasserting abortion rights nationally.

In California, Democrats — led by Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders — will force the issue by talking up their ballot measure to cement abortion rights in the state Constitution.

Republicans are claiming the amendment isn’t necessary and Democrats are just playing politics. And they’re right. But it’s winning politics — unless Democrats obnoxiously overreach. That’s hard to envision on such an emotional issue.

A ballot measure for abortion rights is bound to help Democrats increase their voter turnout.

“There isn’t a single Republican consultant of any credibility who thinks this is good for the party, because it’s not,” says GOP consultant Mike Madrid.

Here’s a historical fact that should worry anti-abortion Republicans: The last two GOP governors — Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pete Wilson — supported abortion rights. Before them, Gov. George Deukmejian said he was against abortion rights, but never tried to roll them back.

What’s more, Deukmejian in 1967 cast a key state Senate vote for the nation’s then-most liberal abortion law. And the conservative icon governor, Ronald Reagan, signed it.

Yes, much has changed in the last half century. But not the California electorate’s demand for women’s rights over their bodies.