WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court’s change of heart on abortion began in the US Senate.
It was the collaboration of Republican senators with former President Donald Trump to confirm conservative judges and transform the federal judiciary that paved the way for the Court’s momentous decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell set the strategy in motion to seize control of the Supreme Court by blocking Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland and changing Senate rules to easily confirm Supreme Court-appointed justices. Trump. It was a long-term plan that sought to secure a conservative majority on the court for decades to come. Trump and McConnell couldn’t have done it on their own, and they needed the support of nearly every Republican senator to transform the court.
Now, Republicans head into a midterm election that appears fast to turn into a referendum on the court’s decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade precedent, with voters deciding which party should control Congress. The country is divided, with Democrats promising measures to protect access to abortion while Republicans seek more restrictions, including a national abortion ban.
“We’re going to take back the Senate in November and we’re going to dominate the Senate for a long time,” Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley said Friday, celebrating the ruling in a conference call with reporters.
The stakes are high, with control of Congress at stake. Biden’s popularity is low and economic conditions are bleak, due to high gas prices and other signs of inflation, and Republicans are favorites to win seats in both chambers and regain control of Congress. Democrats have a slim majority in the House of Representatives and are narrowly holding on to a 50/50 Senate because Vice President Kamala Harris can vote in the event of a tie.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned that Republicans would be held accountable for their actions and that they were planning even more draconian measures if they controlled Congress, including a nationwide ban on abortion.
“They cannot be allowed to do this,” Pelosi said. “Make no mistake: the rights of women and all Americans are going to the polls this November.”
Before Trump was elected, the abortion debate in the country had settled into an uneasy truce in Congress. The Court’s decisions in the cases of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey affirmed the constitutional right of access to abortion. There were sometimes legislative controversies, but rarely were there large majorities in both chambers to overturn a consolidated law.
But McConnell put his plans in motion to secure a conservative judiciary in early 2016, even before Trump became president. Aware of the power that issues like abortion had for conservative voters, he refused to consider Obama’s candidate to fill the vacant seat left by the unexpected death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia in February. McConnell argued that there was too little time left for the November election.
It was a shocking and measured political move. McConnell made his decision in haste just before the GOP hopefuls began a primary debate in South Carolina, drawing the line for the GOP.
Outraged, Democrats pushed for Garland’s candidacy only for McConnell, as Senate majority leader, to decline to even consider it. Trump won the presidential election in November, and one of his campaign promises was to fill that court seat with a conservative in the style of the late Scalia.
The Trump era brought three new conservative justices: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, all confirmed under new rules designed by McConnell that lowered the threshold to a simple majority of 51 votes, to prevent opposition filibustering.
Although Republican senators have disagreed with Trump on many issues, almost all Senate Republicans stuck with him on this issue, given expectations about what a conservative majority on the Supreme Court might mean, not just for abortion, a controversy over which some senators are more convinced than others, but also because of other measures and regulatory issues.
No Democrat voted for Barrett, and of the three Democrats who voted for Gorsuch, only Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia remains in office. He also voted for Kavanaugh.
Manchin said he was “alarmed” by the abortion decision, because he trusted Gorsuch and Kavanaugh when they testified under oath that Roe v. Wade was established legal precedent.
Maine Senator Susan Collins expressed the same disbelief. Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are the only two Republicans in the Senate who publicly support abortion access.
“Any Republican senator knew this would happen if they voted to confirm these radical justices,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York.
Collins seemed furious Friday as she called the ruling “inconsiderate” and “inconsistent” with what Gorsuch and Kavanaugh told her in private meetings and their public testimony about the importance of upholding judicial precedent.
“To wipe out overnight a precedent that the country has depended on for half a century is not conservative,” Collins said in a statement. “It is a sudden and radical turnaround for the country that will produce political chaos, anger and further loss of confidence in our government.”
Murkowski and Collins have introduced a bill that would begin to enact protections from Roe v. Wade, an alternative to a Democratic initiative already approved in the House of Representatives but blocked in the Senate on grounds of overreach. by expanding the right to abortion.
The two Republicans said that finding a legislative solution was paramount and should be a priority, despite the slim chance that both chambers would pass a measure.
“It’s up to Congress to answer,” said Murkowski, who is up for re-election in the fall.
But Republicans are moving in the opposite direction, willing to impose tougher restrictions if they take control of Congress in the election.
Asked what kind of abortion bill Republicans would prepare if they take control of the House, GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, who would succeed Pelosi as speaker of the house, said “we’ll continue to see where we can go to save as many lives as possible.”
Congress is in a two-week recess. Crowds have gathered outside the Supreme Court across the street since the abortion decision was made public.
McConnell, who is not up for re-election this fall but is confident of winning enough seats to become Senate majority leader again, seemed pleased with the outcome of his many years of work.
“Millions of Americans have spent a half century praying, rallying and working for today’s historic victories,” he said in a statement Friday. “I have proudly supported them during our long journey and I share their joy today.”
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Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.
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