The 2024 elections will be dominated by the presidential contest and the battle for control of Congress, but another series of races is shaping up to be just as consequential.
Crucial battles over abortion, gerrymandering, voting rights and other issues will take center stage in next year’s elections for state supreme court seats — 80 of them in 33 states.
The races have emerged as some of the most hotly contested and costliest contests on the ballot since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion. The decision shifted the abortion debate to states, creating a “new era” in state supreme court elections, said Douglas Keith, senior counsel in the judiciary program at the Brennan Center for Justice, which tracks spending in judicial races.
“We have seen attention on state supreme court elections like never before and money in these races like never before,” Keith said.
Heated court races in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2023 handed victories to Democrats and saw tens of millions of dollars in TV ads, offering a preview of 2024. They're also prompting groups to consider investing in states they would not previously have considered.
ABORTION AND GERRYMANDERING TOP ISSUES
At least 38 lawsuits have been filed challenging abortion bans in 23 states, according to the Brennan Center. Many of those are expected to end up before state supreme courts.
“After Roe v. Wade was overturned, we had to turn to state courts and state constitutions as the critical backstop to protecting access to abortion,” said Brigitte Amiri, deputy director at the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project. “And the stakes are unbelievably high in each of these cases in each of these states.”
The ACLU was among major spenders on behalf of Democrats in this year's state supreme court contests in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Another big player in recent court races has been the Republican State Leadership Committee, which has said its focus is mainly on redistricting, or the drawing of political district boundaries. The group called state supreme courts the “last line of defense against far-left national groups,” but didn't say how much it intends to spend on next year's races or which states it's focusing on.
In Ohio, Democrats are expected to cast state supreme court races as an extension of the November election in which voters enshrined the right to abortion in the state constitution. The state has more than 30 abortion restrictions in place that could be challenged now that the amendment has passed.
“The state supreme court is going to be the ultimate arbiter of the meaning of the new constitutional amendment that the people voted for and organized around,” said Jessie Hill, law professor at Case Western Reserve University and a consultant for Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights. “That is a huge amount of power.”
With three seats up for a vote and a current Republican majority of 4-3, Democrats have an opportunity to flip the majority of the court while Republicans will try to expand their control. Hill said the “very high-stakes election” will serve as another test of the salience of the abortion issue in turning out voters.
“We saw an incredible number of voters come out to vote on that amendment and an incredible amount of investment in those campaigns,” Hill added. “I think we’ll see a similar attention and investment in Ohio come next year.”
Redistricting also is likely to be a main focus in the state's supreme court races, given the court will have realigned politically since it issued a series of rulings finding Ohio’s congressional and legislative maps unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Republicans, said David Niven, political science professor at the University of Cincinnati. He expects millions of dollars to be spent on those campaigns.
“There’s often little conversation about these races, but they are just so utterly consequential in very tangible, practical ways that touch voters’ everyday lives,” he said.
MAP BROADENS FOR CONSEQUENTIAL RACES
Pending legislative and congressional redistricting cases also could play a role in North Carolina.
Republicans in North Carolina are looking to expand their majority two years after the court flipped from Democratic control in the 2022 election. That flip to a 5-2 GOP majority led to dramatic reversals in 2023 on rulings made by the previous court, which had struck down a 2018 photo voter identification law as well as district maps for the General Assembly and the state’s congressional delegation.
Groups on both sides also are expected to focus on Michigan, where Democrats hold a 4-3 majority on the state Supreme Court. Candidates run without political affiliations listed on the ballot, though they’re nominated by political parties.
Two incumbents — one Democrat, one Republican — will be up for election in 2024. The court recently kept former President Donald Trump on the state's ballot, denying a liberal group's request to kick him off. It is currently weighing a high-profile case over a Republican legislative maneuver that gutted a minimum wage hike backed by voters.
2023 RACES A PREVIEW
In Wisconsin, abortion played a dominant role in the 2023 court race, with Democrats flipping the court to a 4-3 majority in a campaign that shattered previous national records for spending in state supreme court elections.
Liberal-leaning Justice Janet Protasiewicz defeated former Justice Dan Kelly, who previously worked for Republicans and had support from the state’s leading anti-abortion groups.
Protasiewicz was targeted with impeachment threats this year over comments she made on the campaign trail about redistricting as Republicans argued she had prejudged what then was an expected case on the state's heavily gerrymandered state legislative districts. Experts say the controversy is an example of how more money and attention have changed the dynamics of many state supreme court races to be increasingly partisan.
Democrats in Pennsylvania added to their majority on the court after a race with tens of millions of dollars in spending. Democrat Dan McCaffery won after positioning himself as a strong defender of abortion rights.
CONTESTED SEATS EVEN IN DEEP RED STATES
It remains to be seen whether abortion rights will play a factor in states where party control isn't at stake. That includes Arkansas, where the court is expected to maintain its 4-3 conservative majority. The seats up next year include the chief justice position, which has drawn three sitting justices.
A fight over abortion could wind up before the court, with a group trying to put a measure on the ballot next year that would scale back a state ban on the procedure that took effect once Roe was overturned.
Abortion rights supporters also aren't writing off longshot states such as Texas and its all-Republican high court, which rejected the request from a pregnant woman whose fetus had a fatal condition to be exempted from the state's strict abortion ban.
In Montana, Republicans have spent huge sums to try to push the court in a more conservative direction. The liberal-leaning court is expected to hear cases related to restrictions on transgender youth and abortion. A landmark climate change case also is pending before the court, which will have two of its seven seats up for election.
Jeremiah Lynch, a former federal magistrate running for the open chief justice position, has cast himself as a defender of the court's independence and has warned voters to expect a barrage of negative advertising. Cory Swanson, a county attorney also running for the post, announced his bid on a conservative talk show and recently vowed to weed out any “radicalized” applicants for law clerks in response to antisemitism on college campuses.
In West Virginia, where conservatives have a current 5-4 majority on the court and two seats will be up for grabs, GOP chair Elgine McArdle said Republicans aim to focus more on judicial races than in years past.
“One area the state party has never really engaged much in is nonpartisan races, including the judicial races," McArdle said. “That won’t be the case this time around.”
When possible, Republicans have enacted some of the most extreme abortion bans, and Texas has among the worst. But cases like this one, which expose the GOP’s cruel and heartless attitudes toward women, have further galvanized national opposition to the bans. They’re also giving Democrats ammunition heaving into an election cycle with a generally favorable environment.
In fact, Paxton’s unhinged response is beyond absurd, and must be read to be believed.
House Republicans seem hell-bent on moving forward with their sham “impeachment inquiry” against President Joe Biden, but they don’t even pretend to have a reason for doing so.
Only hours after a judge issued a ruling allowing a Texas woman facing a nonviable, life-threatening pregnancy to seek an abortion, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton stepped in to threaten hospitals and doctors with both civil and criminal penalties if they comply with the judge’s ruling.
Kate Cox is a 31-year-old mother of two who was initially excited to discover she was pregnant with her third child. Several weeks into her pregnancy, Cox’s doctors informed her that the fetus had full trisomy 18, a chromosomal condition linked to abnormalities in many parts of the body. Not only does this create a high risk of either stillbirth or miscarriage, but continuing the pregnancy places Cox at high risk of a uterine rupture. This is a serious threat to her health and would imperil her ability to carry another child in the future.
Under Texas’ draconian abortion ban, even someone facing such extreme circumstances as Cox has few options. However, she went to court to seek relief, and as The Texas Tribune reports, Travis County District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble handed down a temporary restraining order that would allow Cox to obtain an abortion. However, Paxton wrote to three Houston-area hospitals within hours, threatening any facility or doctor who provides Cox with medical relief.
Under the current Texas abortion ban, abortions are permissible after six weeks of gestation only if the life of the mother is threatened. In Cox’s case, there is a possibility she could die as a result of continuing the pregnancy. However, the greater threat is to her long-term health.
Even if there are no further complications, the child will either be stillborn or suffer extensive abnormalities leading to rapid death. There is also a high likelihood of a miscarriage. Because Cox's previous two children were delivered via cesarean, a miscarriage at this point in her pregnancy creates a threat of uterine rupture, which would harm her future fertility.
In her ruling, Gamble wrote, “The Court finds that Ms. Cox’s life, health, and fertility are currently at serious risk. The longer Ms. Cox stays pregnant, the greater the risks to her life.”
In Paxton’s letter to three Houston-area hospitals, he calls Gamble an “activist” judge and claims she is unqualified to determine whether Cox faces a life-threatening situation. Paxton tells the hospitals that the temporary restraining order issued by Gamble “will not insulate you, or anyone else, from civil and criminal liability for violating Texas’ abortion laws, including first degree felony prosecutions.”
Additional threats are aimed specifically at Dr. Damla Karsan, who has been identified as the doctor offering to perform the abortion procedure. “We remind you that the [temporary restraining order] will expire long before the statute of limitations for violating Texas’ abortion laws expires,” Paxton writes.
In September, despite clear evidence of his guilt, Paxon was acquitted in an impeachment trial before the Texas Senate. He still faces a federal investigation into the corruption charges at the heart of that impeachment.
According to the Texas Tribune, Cox burst into tears as Judge Gamble handed down her decision on Thursday. Cox issued a statement, saying, “It is not a matter of if I will have to say goodbye to my baby, but when. I’m trying to do what is best for my baby and myself, but the state of Texas is making us both suffer.”
Paxton is doing everything in his power to make sure that suffering continues.
Donald Trump has done something remarkable over the past week: He’s actually remained focused on something. During Sunday’s “Meet The Press” debacle, he told his hapless interlocutor, Kristen Welker, that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had made a “terrible mistake” in signing a six-week abortion ban. He also vaguely claimed that, if reelected in 2024, he’d be able to negotiate a “compromise” and impose some type of national abortion prohibition acceptable to everyone.
Facing predictable hand-wringing and consternation from his fellow Republicans, on Wednesday Trump did what he always does: He doubled down, telling an audience in Iowa that Republicans need to learn how to “properly talk about abortion,” and warning Republicans that they could lose the House majority “and perhaps the presidency itself” if they kept pushing more violent and draconian intrusions into people’s personal reproductive lives.
First, let’s be clear on one thing: As Adam Serwer concisely puts it in the title to his latest essay for The Atlantic, “Trump Is the Reason Women Can’t Get Abortions,” and, of course, that’s true for anyone who may become pregnant.
The person most responsible for what might be the greatest assault on individual freedom since the mid-20th century is Donald Trump, who appointed fully one-third of the justices on the Supreme Court, hard-core right-wing ideologues who overturned Roe just as he promised they would.
If you cannot get an abortion, if you fear leaving your state to get an abortion, if you are afraid to text your loved ones or type abortion into a search bar, if you are scared to ask a friend or loved one to help you get an abortion, if you know someone coerced into remaining in an abusive relationship because they fear prosecution, if you cannot find an obstetrician in your state, if you have a relative who was left at the edge of death by doctors afraid to risk prosecution by violating an abortion ban—you have Donald Trump to thank.
Trump, of course, is not changing his tune on abortion because he’s actually had a change of heart. He is, in typical fashion, simply running a con, his dirty work having been accomplished. He may not have personally cared about abortion, but he knew what to say in 2016 to earn the votes of the white evangelicals who elect Republicans in this country, and he knew exactly what to do to please them once he attained the presidency. Most importantly, Trump realizes how much credit those religious voters grant him, how blindly devoted to him they are, and that they’ll never, ever vote for a Democrat, no matter what Trump says or does.
So since those voters are already in his pocket, he’s searching for what he can say to try to neutralize the abortion issue among those who voted against him in 2020.
The short answer is “nothing,” and anyone who takes what Trump says seriously should rightly have their head examined. No one should even entertain the possibility of giving Trump any credibility—on any issue, but especially abortion. In that vein, Serwer’s article skewers the wholly predictable, knee-jerk reactions of the press to Trump’s statements.
So let’s go beyond just gawking at Trump’s obviously cynical trial balloon, and instead look at what he’s really acknowledging: This issue is hurting him and Republicans, badly, and it’s not going to go away.
No one is fooled by this nonsense. When given the chance, Trump used his power in office to strip away a right in place for 49 years. Republicans in state legislatures around the country then followed up by turning on the tools of state control, and they’re manifestly intent on finishing what they’ve started. There’s no getting around that fact, even if the (overwhelmingly white and male) proponents of these laws remain oblivious to the horrific,real-world implications of what they’ve done.
For Trump to even raise this issue—multiple times in a week—confirms that both he and the Republican Party are simply running scared. On a national level, those voter-rich, highly-educated, suburban enclaves that can spell the difference between a Democratic or a Republican Congress, a Democratic or Republican governor, or a Democratic or Republican president? Those districts are swiftly falling out of reach for Republicans, specifically because of the abortion issue. The GOP is losing young people as well, because (among other reasons), it’s younger people who tend to have unwanted pregnancies.
Below is an ad currently being run by Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.
And yet Republicans continue to double down. In Ohio, a right-wing state Supreme Court rubber-stamped pejorative forced-birth ballot language inserted by Republicans desperate to dissuade Ohioans from voting Yes on a November referendum enshrining reproductive freedom in the state’s constitution. In Wisconsin, Republicans in the state Legislature continue to threaten baseless impeachment proceedings against a newly elected state Supreme Court justice who won her seat largely because of her pro-choice positions. In Texas, a Trump-appointed federal district judge and his right-wing Court of Appeals issued rulings threatening to outlaw mifepristone (the “abortion pill”), sending the issue to the same Trump-riddled Supreme Court responsible for this situation in the first place.
And all this time, the horror stories of patients who were denied abortions even when their life was at risk continue to mount. Obstetricians and gynecologists, fearing criminal prosecution, simply pack up and leave states like Idaho, leaving patients to fend for themselves. A new bill in Texas would block internet service providers from allowing sites that inform users about abortion, much like China blocks sites about democracy.
No “magic language” or “consensus ban” is going to solve these problems for Republicans, and nothing Trump says is going to help him on this issue in 2024, or “separate” him from other Republicans.
As Serwer emphasizes in his Atlantic article, what Trump and Republicans saymeans nothing; it’s what they’ve done—and continue to do—that matters.
They were always in this together. And now they’re going to have to face the consequences. Together.
Texas wants Planned Parenthood to give back millions of dollars in Medicaid reimbursements — and pay far more in fines on top of that — in a lawsuit that appears to be the first of its kind brought by a state against the largest abortion provider in the U.S.
The case now before him in America's biggest red state does not surround abortion, which has been banned in Texas since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. But Planned Parenthood argues the attempt to recoup at least $17 million in Medicaid payments for health services, including cancer screenings, is a new effort to weaken the organization after years of Republican-led laws that stripped funding and imposed restrictions on how its clinics operate.
At issue is money Planned Parenthood received for health services before Texas removed the organization from the state's Medicaid program in 2021. Texas had begun trying to oust Planned Parenthood four years earlier and is seeking repayment for services billed during that time.
“This baseless case is an active effort to shut down Planned Parenthood health centers," said Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Texas brought the lawsuit under the federal False Claims Act, which allows fines for every alleged improper payment. Planned Parenthood says that could result in a judgement in excess of $1 billion.
It is not clear when Kacsmaryk will rule.
The lawsuit was announced last year by Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is now temporarily suspended from office pending the outcome of his impeachment trial next month over accusations of bribery and abuse of office.
Spokespersons for the office did not return a message seeking comment Monday. Last year, Paxton said it was “unthinkable that Planned Parenthood would continue to take advantage of funding knowing they were not entitled to keep it.”
Jacob Elberg, a former federal prosecutor who specialized in health care fraud, described Texas' argument as weak.
Elberg said it is “hard to understand” how Planned Parenthood was knowingly filing false claims at a time when it was in court fighting to stay in the program and Texas was still paying the reimbursements.
“This just isn’t what the False Claims Act is supposed to be about,” said Elberg, faculty director at Seton Hall Law School's Center for Health & Pharmaceutical Law.
Planned Parenthood has roughly three dozen health clinics in Texas. One has closed since the Supreme Court ruling last year that allowed Texas to ban abortion.
If the Republican Party was even remotely normal, Senate Republicans would be counting down the hours until Election Day 2024, when they would almost assuredly win the two seats they need to retake control of the upper chamber.
Instead, they are biting their tongues and ducking for cover as they face incoming hits from every corner of the Republican Party.
The latest debacle keeping Senate Republicans up at night is the House GOP’s push to impeach President Joe Biden over, well, they're not exactly sure what … but they may or may not bother to find out.
After House Republicans voted Thursday to refer an impeachment resolution over border security to the committees of jurisdiction, Senate Republicans started to review their life choices.
"I don't know what they're basing the president's impeachment on. We'll see what they do. I can't imagine going down that road," Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia told Axios.
Capito even added the most obvious yet damning observation: "This seems like an extremely partisan exercise."
Senate Minority Leader John Thune would prefer his caucus’s attention and energy be directed toward pretty much anything else. “I’d rather focus on the policy agenda, the vision for the future and go on and win elections," the South Dakotan—and Mitch McConnell’s #2—explained to Axios.
Sounds smart. But does anyone have any clue at all what the GOP "vision for the future" is— other than rounding up all of Donald Trump's perceived enemies, locking them up, and contemplating whether to throw away the key or worse?
The Senate Republican chairing the effort to retake the chamber, Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, also chimed in, saying he hadn't "seen evidence that would rise to an impeachable offense," before conceding that’s what trials are for.
Sure—assuming House Republicans bother to conduct an investigation. That little hiccup appears to have occurred to Sen. Thom Tillis of South Carolina.
"Impeachment is a serious process. It takes time. It takes evidence," he noted. Now, there's one to grow on.
As former Harry Reid aide Jim Manley tweeted about the House GOP's impeachment scheme: "As a so-called democratic strategist—thank you."
But House Republican plans for impeachment (not to mention a potential government shutdown, abortion ban push, or effort to yank aid to Ukraine) aren't the only things keeping Senate Republicans awake at night.
They're a tad uncomfortable with the fact that the party's current 2024 front-runner and possible nominee stole state secrets, refused to return them, and then obstructed justice during a federal probe of the matter.
Several weeks ago, On June 13, Minority Leader McConnell was asked during a press gaggle whether he would still support Trump as nominee if he were convicted. He dodged.
"I am just simply not going to comment on the candidates," McConnell responded. "I'm simply going to stay out of it." He has said anything on the matter since.
Finally, when looking toward 2024, so-called candidate quality is still a sticking point for Senate Republicans. Though they have had some wins on candidate recruitment to date, they have also suffered some missed opportunities. Further, many of their candidates—even the good ones—will be haunted by their extreme anti-abortion views on the campaign trail.
Voters across the battleground tilt heavily pro-choice and largely believe Republicans will try to ban abortion if they gain control of Washington/Congress. Driving these strong views is a fundamental belief that women should make their own decisions, not politicians.
Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher, Senate Republicans top pick to challenge Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin, announced earlier this month that he’ll be taking a pass on a run. The Badger State’s GOP primary promises to be a mess, but former Milwaukee County sheriff and conspiracy theory enthusiast David Clarke has looked dominant in polling.
In response to Gallagher's June 9 news, Clarke, who's eyeing a bid, tweeted of his rivals, "None of them energizes or excites the base voter like I do."
He's not wrong—and that is some very bad news for Senate Republicans hoping to put Baldwin's seat in play.
Republicans also have extreme hurdles in other top-tier target states, such as Montana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. As Daily Kos previously reported, even their best candidates hold downright radical positions on abortion:
Senate Republicans’ top choice in Montana, businessman Tim Sheehy, who has accused Democrats of being "bent on murdering our unborn children";
Another Senate GOP darling, Pennsylvania hedge fund CEO David McCormick, doesn't support exceptions for rape and incest, and only approves of "very rare" exceptions for the life of the mother;
In Ohio, MAGA diehard Bernie Moreno, who's earned the endorsement of freshman Sen. J.D. Vance, is "100% pro-life with no exceptions," according to HuffPost. During his failed Senate bid last year, Moreno tweeted, “Conservative Republicans should never back down from their belief that life begins at conception and that abortion is the murder of an innocent baby";
and then there’s West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, who McConnell has convinced to run for the seat of Sen. Joe Manchin. He signed a near-total abortion ban into law last year.
Whether it's Trump, House Republicans, or abortion—the issue that turned the midterms upside down in 2022—Senate Republicans face an uphill battle to recruit and present candidates with broad appeal in a party that thrives on alienating a solid majority of the country.
Joining us on "The Downballot" this week is North Carolina Rep. Wiley Nickel, the first member of Congress to appear on the show! Nickel gives us the blow-by-blow of his unlikely victory that saw him flip an extremely competitive seat from red to blue last year, including how he adjusted when a new map gave him a very different district, and why highlighting the extremism of his MAGA-flavored opponent was key to his success. A true election nerd, Nickel tells us which precincts he was tracking on election night that let him know he was going to win—and which fellow House freshman is the one you want to rock out with at a concert.
The Supreme Court case that eliminated the federal right to obtain an abortion was preceded by years of legislative attempts by congressional Republicans to chip away at those protections.
But a year after the high court handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, there is little appetite among Republicans in the House — the only chamber where they control the majority — to take steps to restrict abortion at the national level.
Though House Republicans passed 20-week abortion ban bills three times in the last decade, many of the same abortion opponents behind those proposals now say the issue should be handled at the state level.
And Republicans in swing districts are loath to spend political capital on a messaging bill that is dead on arrival in a Democratic-controlled Senate — particularly as more and more Americans say they are in favor of increasing abortion access.
“There's political realities in a four-seat majority,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who represents a district that President Biden won in 2020. While he supports some proposed anti-abortion measures in theory, he understands why others do not.
“Some people are very sensitive about it. Though they would agree to it, they're just afraid that it becomes a big issue in the next election,” Bacon said.
That concern isn’t unfounded. Abortion played a major role in the 2022 midterms, coming in behind only inflation as the issue voters were most concerned about. The liberal side prevailed in each of the five abortion-related referendums on state ballots in November — including in Montana and Kentucky — as well as in a Kansas special election last summer and a Wisconsin Supreme Court election earlier this year that turned heavily on the issue of abortion.
A Gallup poll conducted in May found record-high support for abortion access.
Meanwhile in the House, Republicans seem to be pulling back on taking even incremental steps against abortion.
A bill to permanently codify and expand the Hyde Amendment, a provision that prohibits certain federal funds from being used on abortion procedures, was included in a list of 12 pieces of legislation House Republicans planned to pass in the first weeks of the new House majority. That bill, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act was given the high bill number of H.R. 7 — symbolic of its importance to the Republican platform.
But it never came to the floor, with opposition from moderate House Republicans being a factor.
One of those is Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.), a first-term Biden-district Republican.
“I will continue opposing standalone federal action on limiting taxpayer funding for abortion. The Dobbs decision made clear that it's an issue that should be decided at the state level, and Oregonians recently rejected efforts to limit taxpayer-funded abortion overwhelmingly,” Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said that leaders are “going to keep working to move” the bill, and said Republicans will work to include provisions prohibiting spending on abortion in appropriations bills.
Staff for the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House, released a memo Friday urging Republicans to stand together to pass the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act — noting that it passed with universal GOP support in January 2017, the last time the party held the House majority.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) has been an outspoken critic of how her party has handled abortion issues, saying in April that Republicans could “lose huge” if they continued trying to enact strict bans, but is a cosponsor of the legislation.
She said the bill was supposed to get a floor vote last week but was pulled down due to concerns from GOP members in swing seats.
Some members took issue with the bill being “Hyde plus,” including prohibiting qualified health plans under the Affordable Care Act from providing abortion coverage.
While Mace supports bans on the procedures as long as there are exceptions, she thinks Republicans should put more focus on options such as expanding access to birth control and adoption.
“For me as a woman and as a victim of rape, it's really important that we as Republicans let women know we care about them,” Mace said.
The House did pass two measures related to “pro-life” issues in February: A bill to require care to be given to an infant who survives an abortion procedure (Democrats have argued that a 2002 law already guarantees infants’ legal rights), and a resolution condemning attacks on anti-abortion centers and churches.
And some moderate Republicans think the House should not go much further than that.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), another Republican who represents a district that Biden won, said he does not think there should be more action in the House GOP to implement more abortion restrictions.
“I think that it's a very divisive issue, and we need to start building a bridge on it,” Fitzpatrick said. “I'm a big believer in legislating between the 40-yard lines and eliminating extreme options on all sides.”
That marks a stark change from the abortion politics in Congress over the last decade, when incremental nationwide ban legislation helped gradually build momentum for the anti-abortion cause leading up to the Dobbs decision.
House Republicans passed a 20-week abortion ban when they controlled the House in 2013, 2015 and 2017. Last year, that bill was modified to ban abortions after 15 weeks.
“It works through committee. The Supreme Court has made that decision. It goes to the states, the states will take up that issue,” Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in a press conference in April when asked if Republicans will put forward a national ban on abortion in any form.
Interest in pursuing a national abortion ban also appears low in the Senate GOP.
“Most of our folks are of a mind that, you know, letting states decide is the best course of action,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said.
But Thune warned that Democrats will define Republicans by the most restrictive bans and will work to guarantee abortion access at the national level — which could push the debate to Congress eventually.
“At some point, there will be a debate here at the national level,” Thune said. “The position I've come behind is the 15-week ban.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he still thinks Republicans should support the 15-week ban proposal he spearheaded last year, calling it a reasonable “national minimum standard.”
But Republicans are long way away from having a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate that could usher an abortion ban into law.
It's not only vulnerable Republicans veering away from a national abortion ban. Conservative Republicans in solidly red districts also say the issue should be left to the state level.
“Nobody's bringing up a national ban. Nobody is trying to push that,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) said. Donalds said that his read of the Dobbs decision is that “abortion is now to be regulated by the states, as it should have been this entire time — not by the Supreme Court and not by Congress.”
They also worry that being too assertive with anti-abortion messaging could endanger Republicans — and the anti-abortion cause — overall, now that voters have a much heightened awareness of the issue.
“I think going into a ‘24 election, presidential election, you have a lot of lessons learned from the midterms. And I think, collectively, you're seeing the states step up, particularly after Roe v. Wade, making decisions that we for the longest time have advocated for — that this was a states rights issue,” Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), co-chairwoman of the Pro-Life Caucus.
“But people are very cognizant of where they need to fall in terms of the messaging on this, because we certainly lost seats and had missed opportunity as a result of some pretty aggressive, extreme messaging,” Cammack said.
"Without these leaders in place, these holes severely limit the department's ability to ensure the right person is in place at the right time, and to ensure a strategic readiness and operational success," said Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh at a Tuesday briefing.
Singh said the holdup was placing Washington's ability to counter Russia and China at risk.
"These holds set a dangerous precedent and puts our military readiness at risk at a time when our military is expected to defend the nation and meet the acute threat of Russia and address the pacing challenge of the PRC," she continued, referring to the People's Republic of China.
Tuberville has been blocking the nominees from confirmation in the Senate since March over the Pentagon's policy, which provides paid time off and reimburses travel costs for servicemembers who travel for an abortion.
Last week, the White House also blasted the holdup, following rebukes from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and seven former Pentagon chiefs who have also warned about the precedent of blocking the nomination of important military officers.
The blockade could also end up impacting nominees for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, including the replacement for chairman and Gen. Mark Milley later this year.
President Biden this week said Tuberville's block on the nominees was "bizarre," prompting a response from the senator.
"What is actually bizarre is Joe Biden's obsession with making taxpayers pay for abortion without Congress ever taking a vote," Tuberville tweeted. "It’s bizarre and it’s wrong."
Tuberville says the policy, enacted last year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, is a violation of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds to pay for abortion services.
The Alabama senator is refusing to back down and has reportedly rejected off-ramps from fellow Republican colleagues, saying he will only support an end to the blockade if the Pentagon drops the policy or if the policy is codified in law.
Editor’s note: Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) says she supports Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-Ala.) hold on military promotions. A previous version of this story contained incorrect information.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) has placed himself at the center of a growing storm touching on abortion, the military and white nationalism, irritating colleagues and turning himself into a more high-profile political target.
The former Auburn University football coach turned first-term Alabama senator has annoyed fellow Republicans with a hold on military promotions, earning rare criticism from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — who loathes to publicly criticize a fellow GOP senator.
He then made his troubles worse by criticizing Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a local NPR interview for wanting to get “the white extremists, the white nationalists” out of the military. Pressed on those remarks, Tuberville said he’d call white nationalists “Americans.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) pounced on those comments from Tuberville, one of former President Trump’s most vocal advocates in the Senate, labeling them “revolting.”
“Does Sen. Tuberville honestly believe that our military is stronger with white nationalists in its ranks?” Schumer said. “I cannot believe this needs to be said, but white nationalism has no place in our armed forces and no place in any corner of American society, period, full stop, end of story.”
Abortion politics
Tuberville’s battle with the military is about the subject of abortion, an issue that has repeatedly helped Democrats in elections and hurt Republicans since the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
Tuberville has effectively blocked promotions for roughly 200 senior military officials in key regions over the Pentagon’s abortion policy, which allows service members to take leave and provides travel reimbursements for those who need to travel to get an abortion. That is a more common need since the end of Roe.
Tuberville has said he would lift the holds in exchange for a vote on legislation to change the Pentagon policy, but Democratic senators have been unwilling to give in on that point. Tuberville said he would lift the holds even if his bill did not pass — a likelihood since it would need 60 votes to overcome procedural hurdles.
“I find the senator’s approach to the men and women who are seeking advancement in our military to really be painfully wrong,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, when asked whether Democrats would be amenable to voting to end the Pentagon abortion policy.
McConnell has made it clear he opposes Tuberville’s holds.
“No, I don’t support putting a hold on military nominations,” McConnell told reporters last week in response to a question about Tuberville’s blockade. “I don’t support that. But as to why, you’ll have to ask Sen. Tuberville.”
The military promotions in question include those in NATO and in the Indo-Pacific and would usually be passed unanimously all together. Austin argued in a letter last week the hold is also detrimental to military families and imposes “needless additional stress” on them.
Wrong direction
At the heart of Tuberville’s arguments on abortion and in the white nationalism remarks is that the military is moving in the wrong direction, specifically on recruiting and readiness.
He is quick to note the Army missed its recruiting goal in 2022 by 25 percent and attributes that to the leftward lurch in recent years and an attempt to freeze out Trump backers.
In seeking to clean up his remarks about white nationalism to the NPR station, Tuberville’s office said he was being skeptical of the notion that white nationalists were in the military, not that they should be in the military.
Later, however, in a separate interview with NPR, Tuberville said he considered someone who was a white nationalist to be a “Trump Republican” and a “MAGA person.”
Though some Republicans have opposed Tuberville’s holds, they are largely brushing off the Democratic criticisms of his remarks about white nationalism.
One Senate Republican told The Hill the one-two punch isn’t creating internal consternation for the GOP conference, adding the remarks last week are viewed as an “isolated event” and downplayed it as “one member acting on his own.”
At the same time, the Senate Republican said Tuberville might want to rethink his strategy.
“If you use holds strategically and you focus on an agency, there’s no reason why he can’t pick and choose,” the Senate Republican said. “I think he’d be wise to just go back and just identify the agency that Austin’s inaction is going to end up having a problem with and just create a problem for that agency versus a [Department of Defense]-wide issue. That’s going to be hard to hold up over time.”
“That really should have been the way he went into it to begin with,” the Senate GOP member added.
Back-slapping
Tuberville, despite the controversies, is well-liked by his conference. Commonly referred to around the Capitol as “coach,” Tuberville is seen frequently back-slapping colleagues before and after votes. Many Republicans see him as taking action with the holds that are well within his senatorial powers, regardless of whether they agree with him.
“[Tuberville’s] serious about this. He’s very serious. It’s not just some show that’s going on,” said Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), a fellow member of the Armed Services Committee who supports his hold though she has previously said it isn't necessarily the tactic she'd use.
His long-standing hold even has support in some corners of GOP leadership. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a McConnell ally, told reporters earlier this week the opposition is warranted.
“One of the biggest problems around here is people aren’t held accountable when they overstep their authority,” Cornyn said, referring to the Pentagon. “I regret that it’s necessary, but I think it is.”
For now, how to end Tuberville’s hold remains very much in question to members of both parties as the senator said earlier this week “nothing” will push him to compromise on the situation, short of the Pentagon reversing its policy.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told The Hill Tuberville should end his hold and instead seek an amendment vote on the issue via the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
However, Tuberville told reporters earlier this week he doesn’t want to hold the NDAA up with this ongoing push and added he wasn’t interested in a handshake deal with the Biden administration and Democratic leaders on the matter.
“They did that with [Sen. Joe Manchin], and they lied to him,” Tuberville said, pointing to Manchin’s attempt to get permitting reform attached to last year’s NDAA.
The abortion issue is also creating political headaches back home for Tuberville as the Biden administration may nix plans for the U.S. Space Command’s headquarters to move from Colorado Springs, Colo., to Huntsville, Ala. Multiple reports indicate the issue, headlined by the state’s restrictive law that bans nearly abortions, is at the heart of the potential decision.
“It’s not something that’s gone over super well [in the state],” one Alabama GOP source told The Hill, noting that is especially the case in Huntsville, where 10,000 jobs could be impacted.
Other Senate Republicans believe that if Democrats accede to Tuberville’s request for a vote on the Pentagon policy to end the hold, it’s not out of the question that another GOP member could fill his void and announce a blockade of their own.
“I’m not sure there aren’t other Republicans who would be more than happy to step in, particularly from strong pro-life places and say, ‘Wait a minute, I’m putting a hold on all these rascals until they change this policy,’” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said.
As of this week, Tuberville told The Hill he has yet to hear from anyone on the other side of the aisle about reaching a resolution. Instead, Democrats this week launched another effort to advance the horde of military promotions via unanimous request.
“I will come to the floor as many times as possible,” Tuberville said on the floor. “To this point, I hope I’ve been clear. I’ve laid out the conditions for my holds and when I will drop my holds. These conditions have not been met, and I will not drop this hold until they are met.”
