Mediaboss Marketing

The Democratic primary in North Carolinas first congressional district had been a low-key affair, despite a new Republican-drawn map that will make the longtime stronghold for Black Democrats a key battleground in the fall.

Then the Supreme Courts draft decision that would overturn the constitutional right to an abortion was leaked, thrusting a searing issue to the forefront of the contest. Now, voters in North Carolinas northeast will choose sides on Tuesday in a proxy war between Erica Smith, a progressive champion of abortion rights with a wrenching personal story, and Donald Davis, a more conservative state senator with the backing of the establishment who has a record of votes against abortion rights.

Theres a political imperative for Democrats to have pro-choice nominees this cycle, said Ms. Smith, a pastor and former state senator who was once given a choice between ending a pregnancy or risking her own life to deliver a dangerously premature baby. She chose to give birth, only to lose the child tragically five years later, but said she would never take that choice away from a woman in her circumstances.

Around the country from South Texas to Chicago, Pittsburgh to New York the looming loss of abortion rights has re-energized the Democratic Partys left flank, which had absorbed a series of legislative and political blows and appeared to be divided and flagging. It has also dramatized the generational and ideological divide in the Democratic Party, between a nearly extinct older wing that opposes abortion rights and younger progressives who support them.

President Biden and Democrats in Congress have told voters that the demise of Roe means that they must elect more pro-choice candidates, even as the party quietly backs some Democrats who are not.

The growing intensity behind the issue has put some conservative-leaning Democrats on the defensive. Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas, the only House Democrat to vote against legislation to ensure abortion rights nationwide, insisted in an ad before his May 24 runoff with Jessica Cisneros, a progressive candidate, that he opposes a ban on abortion.

Candidates on the left say the potential demise of Roe shows that its time for Democrats to fight back.

We need advocates. We need people who are going to work to change hearts and minds, said Maxwell Alejandro Frost, who, at 25 years old, is battling an established state senator 20 years his senior, Randolph Bracy, for the Orlando House seat that Representative Val Demings is leaving to run for the Senate.

Kina Collins, who is challenging longtime Representative Danny Davis of Chicago from the left, said, We came in saying generational change is needed, adding, We need fighters.

But the youthful candidates of the left will have a challenge exciting voters who feel as demoralized by the Democrats failure to protect abortion rights as they are angry at Republicans who engineered the gutting of Roe v. Wade.

Summer Lee, a candidate for an open House seat in the Pittsburgh area, pressed the point that in states like Pennsylvania the future of abortion rights will depend on governors, and the only way were going to win the governors seat in November is if, in crucial Democratic counties like this one, we put forth inspiring and reflective candidates that can expand our electorate up and down the ballot to turn out voters.

There is little doubt that the draft Supreme Court decision that would end the 50-year-old constitutional right to control a pregnancy has presented Democrats with a political opportunity in an otherwise bleak political landscape. Republicans insist that after an initial burst of concern the midterms will revert to a referendum on the Democrats handling of pocketbook issues like inflation and crime.

But the final high court ruling is expected in June or July, another jolt to the body politic, and regardless of how far it goes, it is likely to prompt a cascade of actions at the state level to roll back abortion rights.

Women would be confronted with the immediate loss of access that would ripple across the nation, said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who has been studying what she calls a game-changing political event.

Its not going to die down, she said.

And while Republican consultants in Washington are telling their candidates to lay low on the issue, some of the candidates have different ideas. Three contenders for attorney general in Michigan suggested at a forum that the right to contraception established by the Supreme Court in 1965 should be decided on a state-by-state basis, assertions that Dana Nessel, Michigans Democratic attorney general, latched onto in her re-election bid.

Yadira Caraveo, a pediatrician and Democratic state lawmaker in Colorado running for an open House seat, is already being attacked by a would-be Republican challenger, Lori Saine, who is proclaiming herself as strongly pro-life and seeking to confront and expose these radical pro-abortion Democrats.

Theyve already shown they cant keep away from these issues, Ms. Caraveo said, adding, I want to focus on the issues that matter to people, like access to medical care and costs that are rising for families every day.

For liberal candidates in primary contests, the timing of the leak is fortuitous. Their calls for a more confrontational Democratic Party are meshing with the inescapable news of the looming end to Roe v. Wade and the Democratic establishments futile efforts to stop it.

That is especially true for women of childbearing age. This week, five Democratic candidates squared off at a debate ahead of Tuesdays primary for the House seat in Pittsburgh. Ms. Lee, the candidate aligned with the House Progressive Caucus, was the only woman on the stage. After one of her male rivals worried aloud about a post-Roe world for his daughters, she made it personal. She was the only one in the race directly impacted.

Your daughters, your sisters, your wives can speak for themselves, she said.

Ms. Cisneros, the liberal insurgent in South Texas challenging the last Democratic abortion rights opponent in the House, Mr. Cuellar, appeared to have a steep uphill battle in March after she came in second in the initial balloting, with Mr. Cuellars seasoned machine ready to bring out its voters for what is expected to be a low-turnout runoff on May 24.

What is Roe v. Wade? Roe v. Wade is a landmark Supreme court decision that legalized abortion across the United States. The 7-2 ruling was announced on Jan. 22, 1973. Justice Harry A. Blackmun, a modest Midwestern Republican and a defender of the right to abortion, wrote the majority opinion.

What was the case about? The ruling struck down laws in many states that had barred abortion, declaring that they could not ban the procedure before the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb. That point, known as fetal viability, was around 28 weeks when Roe was decided. Today, most experts estimate it to be about 23 or 24 weeks.

What else did the case do? Roe v. Wade created a framework to govern abortion regulation based on the trimesters of pregnancy. In the first trimester, it allowed almost no regulations. In the second, it allowed regulations to protect womens health. In the third, it allowed states to ban abortions so long as exceptions were made to protect the life and health of the mother. In 1992, the court tossed that framework, while affirming Roes essential holding.

Progressive priorities such as defunding the police and providing Medicare for all have come under deep suspicion, with even Mr. Biden casting doubts on them.

Now, Ms. Cisneros has retooled her closing argument around abortion rights.

Ms. Smiths story is gut-wrenching. She had two sons, aged 10 and 12, and another on the way when her doctors informed her of severe complications with her pregnancy. She could abort, or try to hold on until the fetus was closer to viability and risk her life.

She held on, and Rhema Elias was born at 24 weeks, a pound and a half ounce. He spent six months in the neonatal intensive care unit, and went home with lingering complications that required special feeding care and a tracheostomy. He died at age five and a half.

Now campaigning, she tells voters she would make the choice again but could not imagine a world where a woman facing the same situation would have no choice.

While I made that decision, I made that decision for myself, she said, adding, No police officer or court official can make a decision about life and death for a woman.

Many voters are angry and scared at the prospect of a wave of new laws making abortion illegal in a post-Roe America. The question is whether those voters will come out for Democratic candidates espousing abortion rights or stay home, furious at Republicans but disenchanted with the ineffectual Democratic Party.

Waleed Shahid, a strategist and spokesman for Justice Democrats, an insurgent liberal organization that supports progressive primary challengers, said his own parents did not bother to vote in the Virginia governors race last year, declaring that Democratic control had changed nothing.

Were stuck, he said, A sense of powerlessness leads to apathy, and apathy is the Republicans stamping grounds.

Ms. Lake is more hopeful.

Democrats have to articulate that there is something we can do about it: Get people on record, frame out the decision in November and elect more Democrats, she said. I think thats going to energize voters.

Go here to see the original:
The Looming End to Abortion Rights Gives Liberal Democrats a Spark - The New York Times

Seth Meyers

Seth Meyers took aim at the Democratic party on Thursday Night, shifting focus from his usual target, Donald Trump. Obviously, its critical that we as a nation do everything in our power to prevent this obviously unhinged demagogue and his allies in the Republican party from regaining power, he said. And that unfortunately is where the Democrats come in. Oof. Its like if you said Avengers assemble, and only Hawkeye showed up.

If youve been paying any attention at all to politics, you know that Democrats are in dire straits right now, he continued. You dont need a poll to tell you that. All you have to do is watch any Joe Biden press conference with the sound off. Hes always doing that thing where he leans over the podium like every question is causing him physical pain.

Things are bad for Democrats, he added, and thats not just me saying that. Meyers pointed to the California representative Katie Porter, who warned her Democratic colleagues to act immediately to ease the cost of living under inflation or face dire consequences at the polls. After an emotional speech about her familys struggle with inflation prices during a private caucus meeting last week, Porter told Politico that it seemed like the first time the personal toll of inflation had sunk in for many of her colleagues.

Just to be clear, Im not saying inflation is somehow the Democrats fault, said Meyers. They just happen to be in charge now, so its on them to do something about it.

It is on Democrats to do something to improve peoples lives, he added, calling on lawmakers to extend the child tax credit, invest in green infrastructure, forgive student loan debt or expand healthcare. Look, I get it Joe Manchin is a giant ass ache. The dude rakes in cash from fossil fuels, drives a Maserati and lives in a yacht called Almost Heaven, which sounds less like the name of a yacht and more like the title of an early 2000s romcom starring Ryan Reynolds and Mandy Moore.

Manchin has been stringing Democrats along for over a year now, Meyers continued, so Democrats just have to call his bluff and say what will you accept? We will pass it. Which is why its frustrating, Meyers said, to read reports that Democrats are hesitating to put together a new Build Back Better bill reflecting Manchins terms after he killed it five months ago.

Call Manchins bluff and ask him what he wants, Meyers concluded. If Manchins bullshitting and his answer is actually that hes opposed to everything which is very possible then at least well know. And we can move on.

In Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel remarked on the first official report by North Korea of Covid in the country. How did Covid even get into North Korea? Did Kid Rock play Pyongyang and not tell us about it? he wondered.

Of course, the truth is, theres probably been many cases of Covid in North Korea, he continued. The country just hasnt acknowledged them for fear of angering their leaders mighty scrotum. The news, which state media called a major national emergency, has prompted a nationwide lockdown. So if you live in North Korea, just keep doing what youve been doing for the past 40 years, Kimmel said.

Kimmel pivoted to remarks by Joe Biden at a Democratic fundraiser in response to the leaked supreme court draft opinion overturning Roe v Wade. The draft decision basically says theres no such thing as the right to privacy. If that holds ... mark my words: they are going to go after the supreme court decision on same-sex marriage, Biden said.

Theyll come for same-sex marriage, theyll come for interracial marriage, theyll outlaw that peanut butter that comes with the jelly in the same jar, Kimmel quipped. These guys they might as well just come out and say, listen, heres the real story: if we cant get laid, nobody else is going to have any fun either.

Read the original:
Seth Meyers: It is on Democrats to do something to improve peoples lives - The Guardian

In the wake of theleaked Supreme Court draft opinionthat could lead to overturning the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade, South Dakota Senator John Thune told "CBS Mornings" that he believes the issue needs to be at the hands of the people and their elected officials.

"The question for a lot of people is going to be, is it human life, and what does that mean? I think what you're going to see is state legislatures... are going to have to find political consensus, and some states are probably going to define it differently," Thune said.

The Republican senator voted against aDemocratic-led billthis week to protect abortion access on the federal level.

All 50 Republicans plus Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia voted against the bill causing it to fail. Thune told "CBS Mornings" that Democrats "knew the bill was going to fail" but they are using the issue of abortion as a distraction to other issues.

"I think that they're looking for something to distract from the economy, inflation, the border, and some of the issues they'd rather not talk about. I think this is an issue, this is a clear pivot on their part to get on something they think can play offense with. But a lot of it will come down to the politics on this issue is very contentious, always has been... How that plays politically remains to be seen," he said.

Most polls, including a CBS News poll conducted in November, indicated that a majority of Americans supported leaving Roe in place. Thune said that polls do not consider the many different scenarios that come into play.

"If you look at the way this polls, Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision said that states interest becomes compelling at point of viability. Which keeps moving back. Right now, 65% of Americans don't think you should have abortions past the first trimester, so the end of the second or third trimester. 80% of Americans believe you shouldn't have them after the second trimester," he said. "We're really out of step with the world... Most European nations, France is 12 weeks, Germany is 12 weeks. Most countries have found a political consensus around restrictions."

Story continues

Police release long-secret 911 calls in Shannan Gilbert's death

Strangers help driver who lost control of car while suffering a medical episode

Violence erupts as mourners carry coffin of journalist killed in West Bank

Read the original post:
Sen. Thune says Democrats are using issue of abortion "to distract" - Yahoo News

The Great Depression lived up to its name. In the election year of 1932 alone, the U.S. economy lost a quarter of its value. Unsurprisingly, Democrats, under the banner of Franklin Roosevelt, won big that year. Roosevelt took 42 of 48 states, and Democrats picked up nearly 100 seats in the House and 12 in the Senate. An economic rally in 1936 helped produce another big win for Democrats that year. Further economic progress and fears of war garnered a third win for Roosevelt in 1940, and satisfaction with the wars progress brought a fourth in 1944. Harry Trumans come-from-behind victory in 1948 secured five consecutive terms 20 years of Democratic control of the White House, and Democrats held the Congress for 18 of those.

None of that was inevitable. If Al Smith had somehow beaten Herbert Hoover in 1928, the crash would have occurred on the Democrats watch, and they would have likely incurred the blame. If Roosevelt had followed tradition and limited himself to two terms, perhaps Republican Wendell Willkie could have won in 1940, possibly giving his party credit for World War IIs outcome. But the way history panned out, Democrats had a very long stretch of national dominance which had even longer echoes on the Supreme Court.

Another peculiarity of American political history was in play there, as well. White southerners, among the most conservative people in the country on some issues (notably race), were strongly aligned with the Democrats for much of that period, thanks to their longstanding antipathy for the party of Lincoln. This ended up tempering some of the Democrats agenda but also securing large governing majorities for them.

The result was that Democrats almost exclusively named federal judges and Supreme Court justices for decades. Even when Republican Dwight Eisenhower assumed the presidency, many of his court appointees were relatively moderate (owing to Democrats congressional dominance and his own moderation). His administration was followed by another eight years of Democratic dominance. Of the 22 open Supreme Court seats between 1933 and 1968, 17 were filled by Democratic presidents. And Eisenhowers five nominees included Earl Warren and William Brennan, two future progressive icons.

William J. Brennan, nominated by President Dwight Eisenhower to be a Supreme Court justice, sits in a hearing room on Feb. 26, 1957, as the Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing on his nomination.|AP Photo

Democrats dominance of the courts during this era allowed for the success and duration of the New Deal for decades to come. Most of the progress on social issues that we associate with the Supreme Court emanate from that era. School integration, the right to legal counsel, abortion rights, the right to privacy, access to contraceptives, one-person-one-vote representation, minimum wage laws and more are products of that period of Democratic dominance. And as political scientist Kevin McMahon has written, Roosevelts appointments to the court paved the way for later civil rights advances.

In recent decades, however, those large Democratic majorities have faded. White southerners are overwhelmingly Republican these days. Today, the two parties are fiercely competitive at the national level; there really hasnt been a dominant party in the last three decades. And the fact that smaller states have an outsized influence in the Senate and the Electoral College means that Republicans get a bit of an edge in naming people to the courts. Republicans have filled six of the nine open Supreme Court seats in the 21st century, despite only winning the popular presidential vote once.

And some of that seems the result of chance, as well. A few tens of thousands of votes cast differently or just cast in different states would have meant a different outcome in the 2016 election and a very different court as a result.

The fact that chance played a role in reshaping the law should not minimize the important work political activists did throughout this time. In the mid-20th century, part of the progress Democrats made came from labor unions, civil rights activists, feminist organizations and others who saw the opportunities created by the court and pressed their advantages. Their work did more than just change policy; it changed beliefs about civil rights, womens role in society, the status of LGBTQ people, and more. Many beliefs that would have seemed unthinkably radical 100 years ago are largely taken for granted today in a way that a conservative Supreme Court cant reverse.

And the likely ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade wont be exactly due to chance either it was the result of a long intellectual push by legal thinkers on the right, as well as Mitch McConnells norm-defying decision to prevent hearings on Barack Obamas Supreme Court nominee throughout 2016 and then rush through Donald Trumps final pick in 2020.

Then-President Barack Obama walks with Judge Merrick B. Garland before announcing his nomination to the Supreme Court on March 16, 2016, in Washington, D.C.|Mark Wilson/Getty Images

With that Democratic electoral dominance gone and the judges it produced long since departed from the bench, what weve seen in recent years is an erosion or reversal of many of the achievements of the mid-20th century court. Voting rights have been hollowed out, gerrymandering is permitted and abortion is on track to be curtailed or outlawed in nearly half the states, and this court does not appear to be nearly done with its work.

In many ways, this is a return to a traditional pattern. Through its long history, the Supreme Court has usually been a pretty conservative actor, in several senses of the word. It places limits on government action and a bias toward the status quo, but has also tended to rule in favor of established power. The court of the mid-20th century was an historic aberration, and it took a highly unusual set of circumstances for that to happen.

Its not at all clear where this leads us, but liberals should not assume that history is on their side. If the courts are going to steer things back in the direction charted during the Democratic century, it will take a lot of organizing work and an ability to take advantage of the opportunities that chance provides.

Read this article:
The Supreme Court and the End of the Democratic Century - POLITICO

The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set newsroom policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or onbangordailynews.com.

The outer bounds of our political discourse seem to be stretching further afield. Elon Musk tweeted a cartoonreflecting this at the end of April.

In short, it shows Musk as a center-left, self-described liberal in 2008. Fast forward to 2021, the left flank is so far away that Musk is now center-right, despite not having changed his position. Its a modern take on Ronald Reagans famous quote: I didnt leave the Democratic Party. The party left me.

For political science nerds, the arena of mainstream political debate is called the Overton window. The quips from Musk and Reagan suggest that the Democrats are moving further left and once-mainstream Democrats are now on the right side of the political spectrum.

Anecdotes seem to prove that out. John Martin the Earl of Eagle Lake was once one of the most powerful Democrats in the state. For decades, he led the Maine House as speaker and held a firm grasp on his caucus. If you wanted to get Democrats to do something, the road went through Martin.

Now, he is seemingly retiringfrom service in Augusta. And according to the Bangor Daily News analysis, he was one of the Democrats most likely to buck his party over the past two years.

That is a world of difference.

History is instructive as well. Reading the national Democratic and RepublicanParty platforms from 1996 gives context. Democrats back then stated unequivocally the first responsibility of government is law and order. Their solution? Nothing is more effective in the fight against crime than police officers on the beat, engaged in community policing.

That is a far cry from defund the police.

Democrats in 1996 stated [w]e cannot tolerate illegal immigration and we must stop it.

They proclaimed they had worked hard over the last four years to rein in big government, slash burdensome regulations, eliminate wasteful programs, and shift problem-solving out of Washington and back to people and communities who understand their situations best.

This was good stuff.

Polling also hintsthat todays Democrats are further left than their forebears. Pew and Gallup have decades of data to fall back on.

In 1997, 28 percent of Democrats believed abortion should be legal under any circumstance. That number spiked to 49 percent in 2020. Nineteen percent of Republicans believed it should always be illegal back in 1997; that increased to 27 percent in 2020. Meanwhile, 59 percent of 2020s Republicans believed it should be legal in some circumstances.

In 2001, 72 percent of Republicans and 60 percent of Democrats believed taxes were too high. In 2021, 60 percent of Republicans still held that view a 12 percent drop while only 39 percent of Democrats felt the same, a 21 percent decrease.

There are some places the GOP has shifted leftward gay marriage and cannabis, most notably. I cant find any policy where Democrats have, on average, moved rightward.

It creates an interesting dynamic. Departing state Sen. Chloe Maxmin a clear progressive will be hitting the book circuitwith her new tome entitled Dirt Road Revival. Im looking forward to reading it; it is reported to be the handbook for Democrats to recapture rural communities like the majority of Maine.

Whether Maxmins prescription is effective or even heeded is yet to be seen. The recent poll on Maines upcoming election was telling. Diving into the detailsshows voters outside the major parties breaking 39 percent to 32 percent in favor of former Gov. Paul LePage.

The Overton window is about as wide open as it has ever been. Democrats have pushed towards the left flank. Will they extend too far and defenestrate themselves? Or do progressives have a handbook to bring voters along with them?

Well find out. But we are in a world where John Martin is among the most likely to oppose the Democratic Party, so anything can happen.

More articles from the BDN

Read this article:
When John Martin is one of the Democrats most likely to buck the party, you know it has changed - Bangor Daily News