I generally dont have occasion to quote conservative media pundit Ann Coulter, but a comment she made following Janet Protasiewiczs double-digit win over Dan Kelly in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race caught my attention.
In a Twitter post, Coulter said, The demand for anti-abortion legislation just cost Republicans another crucial race. Pro-lifers: WE WON. Abortion is not a constitutional right. Please stop pushing strict limits on abortion, or there will be no Republicans left.
That might be typical Coulter hyperbole, but she is correct that Protasiewicz made abortion rights the centerpiece of her campaign. The Wisconsin high court is expected to hear a case shortly challenging the states 1849 law that makes it a felony to perform abortions, a law revived when Roe v. Wade was overturned, and her election gives progressives a 4-3 majority on the court.
Opposition to a near-total ban on abortion turned what had been projected to be a close race into a Protasiewicz landslide.
A recent Public Religion Research Institute poll of over 20,000 Americans in all 50 states found that 64% believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Majorities of residents in 43 states and the District of Columbia believe abortion should be legal, including 57% of West Virginians.
And that poll seemed to undercount support for legal abortion. A national Gallup poll conducted at roughly the same time put the figure at 69%.
But as Coulter points out, instead of declaring victory with the Dobbs decision and with implementation of total or near-total abortion bans in 15 states, including West Virginia, anti-abortion zealots continue to push for bans in other states, as well as for a national abortion ban.
Indeed, days after Potasiewiczs blowout victory, Florida legislators defied the will of the majority by passing a six-week abortion ban, a bill quickly signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Likewise, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas, Matthew Kacsmaryk, issued a preliminary injunction to suspend the FDAs approval of mifepristone, a commonly prescribed abortion drug that for the past 23 years, the FDA has consistently found to be safe and effective.
Kacsmaryks ruling, pending appeals and counter-decisions, not only has the potential to ban mifepristone in all 50 states, defying the will of a majority of Americans, but to set a precedent to make it possible to remove other FDA-approved drugs from the marketplace.
Likewise, polls consistently show a sizable majority of Americans want stricter gun safety measures, a demand that goes unheeded by Republicans.
As a result, the United States has exorbitantly high rates of gun violence, gun deaths and suicides by gun compared to other First World countries.
Its not uncommon for cable news coverage of memorial services for mass shooting victims to be interrupted by breaking news of another mass shooting, as occurred Monday.
Yet, Republicans consistently fail to address the crisis, beyond offering thoughts and prayers, with some insisting nothing can be done to curb the nations epidemic of gun violence.
When thousands of protestors descended on the Tennessee State Capitol demanding gun reform following the mass shooting at a Nashville grade school, the response of the Republican supermajority in the General Assembly was to attempt to expel three Democrats who joined in the protests after leadership failed to take up any gun safety measures.
That they ultimately voted to expel Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, but not fellow protestor Rep. Gloria Johnson, raised the specter of racism, giving the appearance of a majority white male House of Representatives opting to punish two uppity young Black men.
(When asked why she survived the expulsion vote when her colleagues did not, Johnson said, It might have to do with the color of our skin.)
Since 1900, the Tennessee General Assembly had expelled only two members one after being convicted of bribery, the other after detailed evidence surfaced of multiple instances of inappropriate sexual conduct.
By comparison, the Tennessee Threes expellable offense was violating rules of decorum by leading peaceful protestors up in the House galleries in chants calling for gun reform.
Something similar occurred in the West Virginia Senate chambers this spring, when Sen. Robert Karnes, R-Randolph, violated rules of decorum by disrupting a morning floor session by repeatedly yelling out demands for bills to be read in their entirety, and shouting calls to be recognized by Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley.
Karnes outbursts were not in pursuit of the noble cause of attempting to quell the ongoing carnage of young people, but in an attempt to kill a bill placing restrictions on child marriage in the state.
While the West Virginia Constitution, like the Tennessee Constitution, provides for expulsion of legislators with a two-thirds vote of the body, Karnes received no disciplinary action for his outbursts, other than being removed from the Senate floor for the remainder of the day.
No expulsion from the Senate. No loss of committee assignments. Just a few hours off the Senate floor. Which would have also been an adequate punishment for the Tennessee Three.
Had Karnes been a Black progressive Democrat, he likely would have faced much more severe punishment for violating Senate rules.
There are many other parallels between the GOP supermajority legislatures in Tennessee and West Virginia.
As we saw the cavalier attitude of Tennessee legislative leaders in ignoring the will of the people, weve watched West Virginia legislative leaders ignore the will of the people again and again, formulating bills in secret, stifling public input, defying a Constitutional process designed to promote transparency and clarity, and limiting debate by members.
As in Tennessee, Republicans in the West Virginia Legislature turned Republican majorities into supermajorities through the use of extreme gerrymandering that diluted Democratic votes by dividing blue cities among multiple rural districts.
Political parties that consistently defy and ignore the will of a majority of voters cannot stay in power indefinitely.
Of course, the expulsions backfired on the legislative leadership in Tennessee, providing the Tennessee Three with a national forum to expose wrongdoing in the General Assembly, and with Jones and Pearson being quickly reappointed to their seats in the House.
(To that end, the process to fill legislative vacancies in Tennessee is far superior to the process in West Virginia, with the Boards of Commissioners in the representatives respective counties quickly voting to reappoint both.
Had the expulsions occurred in West Virginia, the legislators respective Democrat Executive Committees would have had to submit to the governor three nominees to fill each vacancy. Politics being what they are, it is unlikely the governor would reappoint the expelled legislators, at the risk of drawing the wrath of the legislative leaders that orchestrated their ouster.)
Along those lines, it was disheartening to see statewide elected officers, including Gov. Jim Justice, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, Secretary of State Mac Warner and Treasurer Riley Moore, issue statements criticizing the indictment of Donald Trump, while all, as best I can determine, remained silent regarding back-to-back mass shootings in Nashville and Louisville, Kentucky.
Justice, in a particularly heartless and obscene gesture two days after Louisville, posted on Twitter a six-week-old article on his signing the campus open carry bill into law, stating, I strongly support the Second Amendment. I proudly signed the Campus Self-Defense Act, which will strengthen Second Amendment protections in West Virginia.
Well, at least he refrained from spitting on the graves of the shooting victims. (Although Im sure if the gun lobby told politicians that is what they must do to retain its support, they would get their saliva flowing.)
Justice called Trumps indictment (almost certainly the first of several) a witch hunt, a term popularized by Richard Nixon regarding the Watergate investigation an investigation that led to his resignation as president, and had he not been pardoned, would have resulted in his indictment and almost certainly, his conviction on charges stemming from the cover-up.
Im pretty sure all the officials decrying the indictment took oaths of office in which they swore to uphold the U.S. and West Virginia constitutions, and yet, without the benefit of a trial, without access to the evidence, are disparaging a judicial process that has served our country and state well for ages, on no grounds other than blatant partisan politics. A duly empaneled grand jury of 26 fellow citizens concluded there was sufficient evidence to indict Trump, and Trump will have every opportunity to present evidence, call witnesses, testify, and otherwise defend himself at his trial.
If the indictment (and the ones likely to follow) were excessive, an overreach, or politically motivated, that will come out during the trials. If it turns out that Trump operated like a mafia boss in the White House, that too will be revealed in court.
Letting the legal process take its course is the American way.
Finally, since my last column, I passed a milestone birthday immortalized in a song from the Beatles Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album. I would have been eight years old the first time I heard the song, and it never occurred to me at the time that someday, it would apply to me.
Continued here:
Statehouse Beat: Ignoring the will of the people not exclusive to WV ... - Charleston Gazette-Mail
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