Riding on Roe
Warren banking on backlash to reignite her White House hopes
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is banking on using the backlash from the Roe v. Wade reversal to rescue her from political irrelevance and reignite her White House hopes.
The Massachusetts Democrat has become a lead crusader against the Supreme Court since its ruling last week that there is no constitutional right to an abortion, using strident, angry rhetoric that has become her trademark.
The high court “burned whatever legitimacy they may still have had” with its ruling, Warren said in national interviews over the weekend.
“They just took the last of it and set a torch to it,” Warren said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Enough with the “burn” and “torch” references. Warren’s comments come amid tense protests and clashes between abortion rights advocates and opponents in states across the country.
Anti-abortion lawmakers have cheered the court’s ruling and some states have already taken action to ban abortion.
Warren has long advocated packing the Supreme Court with more justices to negate the conservative tilt of the court — even though that is never going to happen.
“I believe we need to get some confidence back in our court and that means we need more justices on the United States Supreme Court,” she said. “We’ve done it before, we need to do it again.”
Warren has been on the brink of political irrelevance since her failed 2020 presidential run, when she couldn’t even win her home state and was blasted by Joe Biden in the primaries.
Even in some Democratic circles, the 73-year-old Warren is largely viewed as a has-been. Other younger Democrats like Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar have gotten most of the attention.
But she clearly hopes to be among the Democratic hopefuls in 2024 if the highly unpopular Biden decides not to run, and has been positioning herself on several issues to gain national traction.
The question now is whether her attacks on the Supreme Court and her attempts to galvanize the prochoice movement will bring her back out of the woodwork or just give her more baggage.
Warren has no power to do anything to fight the court ruling and if Biden decides to take action — like making medication abortion more available or using federal lands for abortions — he’s certainly not going to give Elizabeth Warren any credit.
And as the battle over abortion rights moves to a state-by-state clash, Warren lacks any clout and certainly doesn’t have any standing in states that rejected her presidential campaign.
Massachusetts is one of the states where a woman’s right to an abortion is protected, so Warren doesn’t need to fight here, where she is known the best.
But it’s far from clear whether Massachusetts voters even want Warren to run again.