Dobbs Continues To Drive Turnout
The overturning of Roe v. Wade was seen, by Republicans, as the end of a very long road. Democrats, however, saw it as a call to action and just the start of their own long road, back to full rights for all American women. And the backlash to the Supreme Court removing rights from women continues to drive turnout at the ballot box. A primary election in Wisconsin last night showed how powerful the issue still is for voters, and it may have bigger repercussions than most elections since the office at stake is a state supreme court justice. Currently the court has a 4-3 conservative majority, so if a liberal were to be elected it would change the balance of judicial power in the state.
In Wisconsin, judicial races have to be non-partisan, meaning nobody runs with a political party identification, so instead they run as a "conservative" or a "liberal." Everyone knows who is on which side of the aisle, even without a "D" or "R" next to their name. Wisconsin ran an open primary, with all candidates on the same ballot where only the top two vote-getters will advance to the general election, which will be held in a month and a half. Four candidates ran, two conservative and two liberal. One of each will advance to the general, but things are definitely looking good for the liberal.
When the race was called by the Associated Press, Janet Protasiewicz led the pack with 46.5 percent of the vote. She will face conservative Daniel Kelly, who only got 24.2 percent last night. The race between the conservatives was a close one, with Jennifer Dorow pulling in 21.8 percent. The other liberal, Everett Mitchell, only received 7.5 percent.
Adding those up doesn't bode well for Kelly's chances. The liberals got 54 percent to the conservatives' 46 percent. And it might not be a case of straight addition on the conservative side, as the New York Times reports:
There is also the question of how Wisconsin Republicans coalesce after their second bruising primary contest in six months. Throughout the campaign, Justice Kelly declined to say that he would back Judge Dorow in the general election, while her supporters flatly said that he would lose the general election.
But what it really is going to come down to is turnout, where again the news is not good for Kelly. Not only did the liberals outperform expectations in what is about as close to a 50-50 purple state as you can get, Protasiewicz actually got a surprising amount of support from deep-red rural areas.
Which can almost certainly be chalked up to the abortion issue. Once again, as it has in just about every election since the Dobbs decision was handed down, abortion is proving to be an excellent "wedge issue" for Democrats. Some Republican voters apparently aren't happy with abortion rights disappearing, and they're casting crossover votes in the ballot box.
Protasiewicz has made abortion rights the central issue in her campaign, although there are two other major issues which are also very important: ending gerrymandering and protecting voting rights. Republicans have shamelessly gerrymandered their way into a permanent majority in the statehouse, and the state supreme court could always step in and declare the maps unconstitutional and demand new maps be drawn up. So this could affect the balance of power not just of the judicial branch, but in the legislative branch as well.
Turnout will be key, but it's a very important race and the momentum is clearly on the liberals' side. Already in the primary, Protasiewicz beat both of the conservatives combined, even without adding in the marginal liberal's share of the vote. Abortion rights voters are highly motivated in Wisconsin, which just serves to reinforce the potency of the issue for the Democratic Party at large in 2024. The conservatives in this race wanted to talk about anything but abortion, because more and more Republicans are realizing that their Draconian views are simply not popular. But Protasiewicz made it a centerpiece of her campaign, and it paid off.
So while Dobbs was seen by many on the right as the final word on the subject -- they'd just tune up some state laws and that'd be it forever -- what the actual effect has been so far is to energize an enormous backlash against it. To supporters of women's rights, Dobbs was the opposite -- not an ending, but instead the beginning of a fight to reinstate women's rights for all. And if Protasiewicz wins the general election, this could mean not only allowing Wisconsin women full control over their bodies, but also throwing out the gerrymandered state maps to make the Wisconsin legislature actually competitive -- as it should be, in a 50-50 state. Republicans' obsession with forced-birth laws could wind up losing them control over two branches of their state government. Which, due to it being an off year, will send a very strong message to all Democrats running in 2024: protecting women's rights is a winning issue.
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
@cw,
"forced-birth" is also a winning frame of the issue, because it is both 100% true and something people of any party wouldn't want to allow a government to do. i've said it before, and it bears repeating that "pro-choice" wasn't exactly terrible, but it was emotionally vacant. it made the decision seem more like shopping at a supermarket than protecting the sanctity of one's body from an intrusive government. the next step in the successful spin of this issue is to come up with an equally poignant counterpart to forced-birth. i'd propose something along the lines of "private pregnancy" - not a finished product, but perhaps an opening salvo in the quest to find a more successful frame than "choice." the general public can relate to someone wanting to keep their privates private.
JL
having slept on the matter, i think even the "abortion issue" is a pathological framing of a constitutional question that should never have needed to be asked. from a pragmatic point of view i understand why roe was decided the way it was - it finally granted women proper autonomy over their bodies that they had been denied for centuries. but that decision also planted the seeds of its own demise, because granting the right of an individual to abort a fetus was the focal point, not rejecting the role of government to dictate what goes on inside someone's own body.
a pragmatist might say that the difference is immaterial, but in the long term it isn't. the fifty-plus year conservative campaign to overturn roe, culminating in dobbs, definitively proves that it isn't. the reason why it isn't, is that the roe decision cuts against the grain of the bill of rights, rather than cutting with it, when either was possible to achieve a just result. the bill of rights was not about enshrining the positive right of an individual to do one thing or another, it was about preventing the negative right of a government from interfering in people's lives.
hopefully the court will swing back to the left before state laws restricting abortion can ruin too many millions of women's lives, and the new majority will affirm a woman's freedom from government interference in her womb. when that happens, hopefully the decision will be based on a stronger constitutional foundation, so travesties like dobbs are not allowed to happen again.
JL
Joshua,
it finally granted women proper autonomy over their bodies that they had been denied for centuries. but that decision also planted the seeds of its own demise, because granting the right of an individual to abort a fetus was the focal point, not rejecting the role of government to dictate what goes on inside someone's own body.
PRECISELY!
hopefully the decision will be based on a stronger constitutional foundation, so travesties like dobbs are not allowed to happen again.
What would be a stronger constitutional foundation?
@liz,
in my opinion, a stronger constitutional foundation would stem from the fourth amendment prohibition against search and seizure.
i know the first part of the 4th amendment is generally ignored, but the first thing it even mentions is that one must be secure from government search or seizure of one's "person" i.e. your body. perhaps a 9th amendment argument could also be made that a natural outgrowth of individual rights is that one's body must be free not only from search and seizure, but also from interference in its natural processes, whatever they may be.
in other words, the onus should be on the government to prove that someone has put something inappropriate in their body and to issue a warrant, not on the individual to avoid committing the crime of being female and wanting not to be pregnant.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/impotence-fourth-amendment-post-roe-world
This law blog seems to imply that the fourth amendment post roe is under massive threat due to forced birth legislation. My argument is that the fourth amendment implies the broad right to be secure, i.e. free from government interference, including all fertility decisions.
I like your thinking on this, Joshua!