Has Trump eliminated an abortion ‘trump card’?
Former President Donald Trump announced recently that he supported the right of each state to determine their laws per the abortion issue in accordance with the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed the constitutional right for an abortion, was overturned. Thus, the only way to address the abortion issue on a national level is via the passage of a constitutional amendment establishing new rules and guidelines.
In the meantime, the state constitutions must take precedence per the Dobbs decision.
The Democrats and pro-choice groups understood the Supreme Court’s decision immediately. They organized to make changes to state constitutions in friendly states that needed to make them. However, in 2022 along comes South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham with his idea of ignoring the court decision and getting his allies to profess that there could be a federal law to ban abortions. The Republicans lost the midterm elections, thanks in part to this “political malpractice” of their party leaders in the Senate.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in his prime would have never allowed Graham’s proposed federal abortion ban to be carried. But, perhaps he didn’t want to be majority leader, or he wanted to help out his 50-year political friend, President Joe Biden. If the latter was the objective, then it was accomplished. But, Trump got it. Being unpredictable is his “trump card,” and who says that he hasn’t learned from experience? He left the extreme, impractical, idealistic Republicans behind on this one. Or maybe he is leading them. Either way, it’s a smart move.
An “assist” goes out to former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Trump adopted her position nearly verbatim. It was right on and the reason why former Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, as well as the rest of the Republican candidates, bit the dust so quickly during the Republican primary season. The sad part is that many of them did not know what hit them. It was their unreasonable and illogical position on abortion.
At best, the Graham crowd failed to look at history. This cannot be a revelation as he worked with me in the Congress to pass bills that the Supreme Court later declared unconstitutional. Let us remember that on the abortion question, the Supreme Court has already ruled it would be unconstitutional to pass a federal ban.
In the 1990s this happened with the Balance Budget and Line-Item Veto measures. Congress passed them, but neither became the law of the land because the Supreme Court deemed both unconstitutional. As would be the case in all constitutional amendments, the measure would need to be passed by 37 states. It would also have to get 60 votes in the Senate. The latter, as Haley and now Trump has inferred, “ain’t” going to happen.
If Biden does stop talking about the abortion issue, Vice President Kamala Harris would serve little purpose. She has been spending the bulk of her time campaigning on this singular issue, while totally abandoning her role of “Border Czar” (who remembers that?)
The white women vote – suburban and young women – will be pivotal in 2024. So, the Democrats are screaming “wolf” in an attempt to scare women into voting for them. They are also burning through tens of millions of dollars in television commercials pushing this false narrative. They are using the liberal media to give us hours upon hours of twisted fear-mongering on the abortion issue.
We will see if at least the abortion issue will be taken off the table when voters decide the presidency in 2024. After all, it is like arguing over how the food tastes on the Titanic. Important, but it does not make a difference if we do not deal with the icebergs ahead – multiple wars, inflation, the border invasion and correcting our inability to buy a $6.20 cup of coffee without borrowing $1.75 to pay for it Fiscally, we are on an unsustainable course.
For Biden and his campaign team, I guess it is back to the drawing board or should I say back to the scores of Trump indictments and court cases.
Gary Franks, a former Republican congressman, wrote this for the Tribune Content Agency.