On the first day of its new term, the U.S. Supreme Court in an unsigned opinion upheld a lower court ruling that enforces Texas’ ban on certain emergency abortions. The Biden administration had sought to overturn the ban and enforce its policy requiring hospitals to perform the emergency, potentiall...
As if these zealots wouldn’t have ruled it unconstitutional or slowly weakend it with a series of cases anyway. See recent decisions gutting Voting Rights Act, weakening the Clean Water Act, Campaign Reform Act of 2002, Dodd-Frank and other federal laws.
So what I’m hearing is if Democrats had codified it, Republicans would have come along and got it struck down. But to fix the problem we need to elect more Democrats to get it codified?
No one else sees the circular reasoning behind this?
And if we have another 2016, Trump can appoint Thomas and Alito’s successors, and maybe some more, with more Federalist Society hacks.
As a Canadian, I’d like to ask you a couple of things.
What exactly does it mean to codify something? Two, why can’t the Federal Gov put out a set of standards and say, “If you want Federal money for your healthcare systems, you have to meet these standards. If you don’t want to, that’s fine, but in that case you get get nothing from us.”
That’s essentially how it works in Canada between our Federal gov and the Provinces, granted Canadian Provinces are less powerful than American states, but the power of the purse should still be the same, yes?
That’s how the minimum age for purchasing tobacco used to work in the US; if states wanted a specific chunk of federal funding, their minimum age had to be set to at least 18.
Look, republicans suck ass, it’s true. But if Dems had codified Roe into law either time they had the supermajority (two chances in the last 20 years), then the corrupt SC wouldn’t have been able to do jack shit. If dems had any integrity, they would shoulder a significant amount of the blame for this issue, because they had their chance and deemed it “not a priority.”
Sure, Dems absolutely should have codified it. However, a federal law protecting abortion rights as health care against the religious freedom of a regional Catholic hospital’s beliefs not to save a mother’s life with an abortion would be the test case and I’m pretty sure I know how 5 of the Justices would vote. This SCOTUS know they have unchecked power and are no longer afraid to wield it.
Would be interesting to see that play out fully. Here’s hoping we get the chance to do so in the next few years. Its so heartbreaking that so many women are suffering/dying because of these regressive policy positions.
I’ll never, ever forget the very first thing Democrats did when Republicans successfully overturned Roe.
They sent out a mass text asking for $15 donations because of what had just happened.
They had that shit ready to go immediately. Maybe if they had put a fraction of that preparation into having legislation ready to go, they wouldn’t have wasted their opportunities to protect Americans’ rights.
But at least they did for the only thing that matters. Fundraising.
Well yeah, the decision was leaked early.
Republicans were trying to overturn Roe for half a century. Best Democrats were willing to do in response was to cynically regard it as a fundraising opportunity.
They had that text waiting to be sent for years. The story was hot off the press when I got mine begging for money
Turns out the party that does nothing and calls it incrementalism can move pretty quickly when they’re panhandling.