San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Abortion rights backers need to win big on Prop. 1
Democrats believe there is less than zero chance that Proposition 1 — which would enshrine abortion rights into California's Constitution — will fail.
But abortion rights advocates don't just want to squeak out a victory, they want to win big.
A big win — as in at least 60% of support — will send a national message that advocates hope will inspire other states to fight back against the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Since the court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 12 states have banned most abortions and eventually half of the states are expected to forbid the procedure in the coming months.
Michigan and Vermont also have measures guaranteeing abortion rights on the November ballot, but neither pack the influence of California. Coupled with Gov. Gavin Newsom being expected to sign several bills this week that will cement California as an abortion haven, a resounding Prop. 1 win “would send a big public statement that the public supports abortion rights,” Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst with the Guttmacher Institute, a research outfit that supports reproductive rights, told me.
“It does need to be a really solid majority for this message to reverberate,” Nash said. “Other states are watching to see how successful this is and to see if that is something they can do in their own state.”
The biggest challenge isn't coming from Prop. 1 opponents, who have raised a paltry $66,200 — or enough to buy a minivan full of yard signs in Temecula (Riverside
County).
Instead, the biggest challenge is coming from inside the Democratic house: voter apathy. While a nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California survey this month found that 69% of likely voters support the measure — including 67% of independents — that doesn’t mean all those people will go to the polls.
There aren’t a lot of scintillating statewide races on the November ballot to draw in new voters. More Californians (12.8 million) voted in last year’s gubernatorial recall election than cast ballots in June’s gubernatorial primary (7.2 million).
Prop. 1 was drafted to create a state constitutional right to abortion, which would be secure from future Republican lawmakers who’d want to remove it, or conservative judges who might not agree the state Constitution’s right to privacy includes abortion unless it’s explicitly spelled out. And while that possibility currently seems remote in politically blue California, Republicans in Washington have made no secret that they want roll back abortion protections.
This month, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., introduced legislation that would ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy — blatant hypocrisy just a month after he said “states should decide the issue of abortion.” On Friday, top House Republican Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, unveiled the party’s “Commitment to America,” the legislative agenda Republicans would push should they win back Congress. It includes a promise to “protect the lives of unborn children and their mothers.”
So Prop. 1’s supporters have to convince people to vote to strengthen a right that they already have in California. That can be a tough nuance to explain.
It was easier for abortion rights advocates to make that case in Kansas. Last month, 59% of voters rejected a proposed state constitutional amendment that said there was right to an abortion. In other words: the right to an abortion there was actually on the line.
“The difference between us and Kansas is there is a little bit more of a sense of complacency in a state like California that has championed reproductive rights,” said Democratic strategist Robin Swanson, who is not working on Proposition 1.
“That’s the case that the Prop. 1 team has to make:
Protesters marchers at the State Capitol in Sacramento in June after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
(Abortion rights) are actually under threat and this is absolutely urgent and needed. The most challenging part of the case is the urgency, not the yes or no (vote). The urgency.”
Making that even tougher to get a big win: Fewer of the Democratic Party’s core supporters — including people under 35 years old and voters of color — traditionally have cast ballots in midterm elections than they do in presidential election years.
Prop. 1’s recent internal polls, however, show that interest in voting doubles among those voters when they’re told that abortion is on the ballot.
One problem is that organizers haven’t had a lot of time to get out their message. In anticipation of the Dobbs decision, the Democratic-controlled state Legislature rushed to get the measure on the ballot before the June deadline, leaving organizers little time to mount a campaign. They’ve raised nearly $9 million, far more than their opponents, but only enough for roughly a week of broadcast TV time statewide.
Because it was put on the ballot by the Legislature, Prop. 1 doesn’t have the institutional support that a measure sponsored by, say unions, might have. It has to build that on the fly.
“Most people start planning (a ballot measure) a few years out, and we had a very short
runway,” Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California CEO Jodi Hicks told me. “So awareness is certainly a challenge right now. But we know that when people hear and are aware and understand that abortion is on the ballot, that they’ll come out and vote for it.”
Prop. 1’s opponents say abortion rights advocates aren’t telling the complete story of what the measure would do. Richard Temple, the No on 1 campaign’s strategist, said that the measure is written so vaguely that it would allow abortions up until birth. Current state law permits abortions until the moment a fetus is viable — typically around 24 weeks —or if the patient’s life or health is endangered.
Legal experts dismissed those concerns.
Luke Boso, a professor of law at the University of San Francisco, said that the proposition is worded broadly and could be interpreted to allow late-term abortions. But he believes that the California Supreme Court would follow the pre-Dobbs precedent of allowing abortions until the point of viability, with exceptions for a threat to the pregnant person’s health.
“I suspect that the California Supreme Court would interpret Proposition 1 in a similar way given the existing body of past precedent,” Boso
said.
Similarly, UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky said,“I think that the clear intent is to protect current law, which protects abortions until viability. It does not create an absolute right to abortion; just as other rights in the state Constitution are not absolute.”
The anti-Prop. 1 campaign also erroneously asserts that the measure “spends more than $200 million a year on abortions, much of it for those living in other states.” While the state budget includes more than $200 million in additional funding for reproductive health services, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office found that Prop. 1 would have “no direct fiscal effect because reproductive rights already are protected by state law.”
While there is little organized opposition, small antiProp. 1 hubs have appeared. One is centered in the Vietnamese American community of Orange County dubbed Little Saigon, in part around religious congregations there.
“I don’t want to change the California Constitution so people can have 100% freedom to have an abortion at any time,” Linh Pham, a Prop. 1 opponent who works as TV anchor for a Vietnamese American TV outlet in Little Saigon, told me.
Their challenge is likely to fall short, according to polls. The real question about Prop.
1 is whether it will fall short of a big win that reverberates beyond California.
A year ago, abortion rights advocates formed a California Future of Abortion Council, a group of more than 40 organizations and providers including Planned Parenthood, that crafted legislation designed to solidify California as an abortion haven. While several other states are trying to copy portions of those bills, none has created a similar body looking at the future of reproductive rights policy.
California has led on the political side, too. Last week, Newsom spent $100,000 from his campaign fund to post billboards in seven antiabortion states featuring phrases like “Need an abortion? California is here to help” as a way to encourage out-of-staters to visit California’s new website that offers help securing an abortion, abortion.ca.gov.
But little would inspire more states to fight back in the pro-Roe world than a big win on Prop. 1.
“Nobody has done what California has done,” said Nash, Guttmacher’s state policy analyst. “People in other states are following the footsteps of California.”