“Contraception Is Not Controversial”: The Last Time The Supreme Court Meddled In Women’s Health, It Was A Big Setback For The GOP
By ruling that family-owned businesses can deny contraceptive coverage to their employees, the Supreme Court handed a victory to a handful of businesses whose owners equate contraception with abortion. But the conservative justices may have dealt a blow to Republican political chances in 2014 and even in 2016.
Polls show, of course, overwhelming public support for contraception, even among Catholics. A Gallup poll in May 2012 found that 89 percent of all respondents and 82 percent of Catholics believed that contraception was “morally acceptable.” If Democrats can paint their Republican opponents as supporters of the Roberts Court and its decisions, they could help their cause significantly, especially among women who might otherwise vote for Republicans or not vote at all.
One can look at the effect an earlier court decision regarding women’s rights had on Congressional and gubernatorial elections. In July 1989, the court handed down Webster v. Reproductive Health Services upholding Missouri’s right to restrict the use of state funds and employees in performing, funding, or even counseling on abortions. It was the first court decision restricting the rights bestowed under Roe v. Wade.
The nation, of course, was divided on the issue of abortion. How the issue played politically depended on which side of the debate saw itself under attack, and in this case the Webster decision mobilized pro-choice supporters. The right to abortion became a hot issue in the 1990 elections, and in the final results, abortion-rights supporters came out ahead. There were several telltale races. In Florida, Democrat Lawton Chiles defeated incumbent Republican Governor Bob Martinez, who, in the wake of Webster, had championed restrictive laws for Florida.
In the Texas governor’s race, Democrat Ann Richards defeated Republican incumbent Clayton Williams. According to polls, Richards, who made opposition to Webster a centerpiece of her campaign, garnered over 60 percent of the women’s vote, including 25 percent of Republican women. In the final tally, abortion-rights supporters, running against or replacing anti-abortion candidates, secured a net gain of eight seats in the House of Representatives, two Senate seats, and four statehouses.
What was also striking was the overall size of the gender gap. According to the National Election Studies survey, there was no gender gap between male and female supporters of Democratic congressional candidates in 1988. In 1990, gender gap was ten percentage points—the highest ever. All in all, 69 percent of women voters backed Democratic congressional candidates that year. Of course, there were other issues than Webster that were moving votes, but there is no doubt that the court ruling played an important role that year.
Fast forward to 2014. If Webster improved Democratic chances in 1990, the court’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby could prove a boon to Democrats. Abortion rights remain controversial but contraception is not, and the opposition to contraception raises hackles among most voters, but especially among women. If Democrats, who had seemed destined for defeat in November, can tie the ruling around the necks of their Republican opponents, they could do surprisingly well in November.
By: John B. Judis, The New Republic, July 2, 2014
“A Good Reminder To Voters”: The Political Repercussions Of The Hobby Lobby Decision
Normally it’s not a good idea to jump right into the political implications of a major Supreme Court decision like Hobby Lobby, but in this case there’s no point in waiting. This was a political decision and it is absolutely proper for Democrats to use it as a weapon in the midterm election campaign.
Minutes after the court ruled that closely held corporations have religious rights that permit them to deny contraceptive benefits to employees, Democrats made clear that they would use the case to remind women of the personal consequences of this kind of conservative ideology. An e-mail blast from the Democratic Party called the case a “wake-up call,” and urged recipients to “stand up for women’s rights” by electing Democrats to Congress.
Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the party chairwoman, tied the case to other Republican policies regarding women, including blocking the Paycheck Fairness Act. “It is no surprise that Republicans have sided against women on this issue as they have consistently opposed a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions,” she said.
The Supreme Court, in other words, could become a high-profile stand-in for the offensive remarks of Tea Party candidates (remember “legitimate rape”?) that helped elect several Democrats in 2012, but have largely been quieted this year.
Of course Republican politicians are trying to portray the Hobby Lobby decision purely as a win for religious freedom, which is a more attractive spin than the loss of reproductive freedom for women who work for these companies.
“Today’s decision is a victory for religious freedom and another defeat for an administration that has repeatedly crossed constitutional lines in pursuit of its Big Government objectives,” Speaker John Boehner said in a statement. A more honest statement of the party’s thinking came in this tweet from Erick Erickson, the conservative blogger: “My religion trumps your ‘right’ to employer subsidized consequence free sex.”
The White House — aware that most Americans oppose letting employers choose contraception plans based on religious beliefs — wasted no time in trying to transform the public’s anger at this kind of thinking into political action. Josh Earnest, the new press secretary, urged Congress to take action to assist the women affected by the decision, implicitly reminding voters that the future of this issue is truly in their hands. And Senator Patty Murray of Washington, a leading Democrat, quickly took up the challenge.
“Since the Supreme Court decided it will not protect women’s access to health care, I will,” she said in a statement. “In the coming days I will work with my colleagues and the Administration to protect this access, regardless of who signs your paycheck.”
The court based its decision not on a Constitutional principle but on an act of Congress, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. Acts of Congress can be overturned or changed if the right lawmakers are in place, and Hobby Lobby is a good reminder to voters that important policies are often not in the hands of nine justices, but in their own.
By: David Firestone, Taking Note, The Editors Blog, The New York Times, June 30, 2014
“Down Another Political Blind Alley”: Three Reasons Why Reviving ‘Benghazi’ Is Stupid For The GOP
House Speaker John Boehner has made what appears to be the remarkably stupid decision to set up a “select” committee of the House to once again “investigate” the 2012 Benghazi incident in which U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stephens was killed.
He apparently believes that another “investigation” of this tragedy will be politically advantageous to Republicans in the mid-term elections — and somehow tarnish the reputation of the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as she prepares a potential run for the White House in 2016.
Already the GOP has bet heavily that its obsession with Obamacare will bolster its political position — a bet that increasingly looks like a loser. Now, in its never-ending attempts to mollify the tea party fringe, the GOP leadership has turned down another political blind alley.
There are at least three reasons why their renewed obsession with “Benghazi” is politically stupid for the GOP.
Reason #1: There is no “there,” there. The Benghazi attack has been investigated over and over and there is simply no evidence that there is any scandal to be had at all.
The latest “revelation” is that Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes wrote an email aimed at helping former ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice frame her description of what happened in Benghazi before she went on various talk shows. Problem is that his suggestions were entirely in line with the talking points produced by the intelligence community — which believed early on that the attack was mainly the result of reaction to an anti-Muslim videotape and demonstrations that had erupted in Cairo in protest.
Of course, it turned out later that there was more to the story — though both The New York Times and the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation of the event did in fact confirm that the response to the video tape did play a role — and Al Qaeda did not.
David Corn of Mother Jones pointed out that The New York Times, after a comprehensive investigation, reached this conclusion:
Months of investigation…centered on extensive interviews with Libyans in Benghazi who had direct knowledge of the attack there and its context, turned up no evidence that Al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups had any role in the assault. The attack was led, instead, by fighters who had benefited directly from NATO’s extensive air power and logistics support during the uprising against Colonel Qaddafi. And contrary to claims by some members of Congress, it was fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.
The Times continued:
Benghazi was not infiltrated by Al Qaeda, but nonetheless contained grave local threats to American interests. The attack does not appear to have been meticulously planned, but neither was it spontaneous or without warning signs…
The violence, though, also had spontaneous elements. Anger at the video motivated the initial attack. Dozens of people joined in, some of them provoked by the video and others responding to fast-spreading false rumors that guards inside the American compound had shot Libyan protesters. Looters and arsonists, without any sign of a plan, were the ones who ravaged the compound after the initial attack, according to more than a dozen Libyan witnesses as well as many American officials who have viewed the footage from security cameras.
The Senate intelligence committee report released in January concluded that the attack was, “not a highly coordinated plot, but was opportunistic.”
It went on to say:
It remains unclear if any group or person exercised overall command and control of the attacks or whether extremist group leaders directed their members to participate. Some intelligence suggests the attacks were likely put together in short order, following that day’s violent protests in Cairo against an inflammatory video.
And is anyone really surprised that the actual circumstances surrounding the attack were unclear at the outset? The same was true of the circumstances surrounding the Boston bombing and the Newtown shootings that took place right here in the United States — events involving our own law enforcement. That is the nature of chaotic violent events.
The right wing has done everything in its power to turn “Benghazi” into a politically salient scandal without success. CBS’ Sixty Minutes even bought into the right wing narrative when correspondent Lara Logan based an entire story on a tale about Benghazi that turned out to be entirely fictional. The story was fabricated by contractor Dylan Davies in order to sell his book. Ultimately CBS suspended Logan as a result.
On its face, the loss of life at Benghazi demonstrated a breakdown in diplomatic security. That’s why the independent State Department Inspector General did a study of what went wrong and how to prevent a future loss of life. Procedures needed to be changed. But there was never a shred of evidence that any U.S. official did anything intentionally — or because of some political motivation — that caused this event.
And what did the Republicans who are so fixated on embassy security do in response? They actually cut the budget for State Department security.
If you were in the position of making it harder to prevent future attacks like the one at Benghazi would you really want to focus attention on the subject?
Reason #2: The “Benghazi scandal” does not resonate with most voters — except, of course, the extreme right wing.
Republicans counter that polls show a plurality of Americans disapprove of the way the Benghazi attack was handled. In fact, a Huffington Post/You.gov poll show showed 42 percent disapprove and 27 percent approve of the way “Benghazi” was handled by the administration. But of course people are dissatisfied with the way the event was handled — four people were killed.
The real question is whether “Benghazi” is an issue ordinary people care about. The fact is that the Benghazi issue has no political saliency. It never appears on the list of major concerns the voters express might affect their choices in the 2014 mid-terms. That is partially because there is no real “Benghazi scandal.” It is also because ordinary people have much more important questions on their minds like the need to increase their wages and standards of living.
The fact is that “Benghazi” does not have the elements that have made “scandals” of the past — like Watergate or the Monica Lewinski affair — relevant to the voters.
To be politically salient, a “scandal” must include two key elements that are not present in “Benghazi”:
- Real “scandals” do not involve flawed procedures. They must involve actions taken — or not taken — for improper or immoral reasons. There is no indication whatsoever that the American ambassador or anyone in the administration short-changed security in Benghazi to advance their political fortunes or to make money. Instead you have a brave American Ambassador who was willing to risk harm to himself to accomplish his mission but with inadequate security procedures. The ambassador was President Obama’s personal emissary — the last thing he wanted to do was risk his death.
- To have staying power, real “scandals” generally involve a cover-up. The Republicans argue that the administration’s taking points after the event somehow constituted a “cover-up.” But instead they reflected the best information from the intelligence community at the time. Instead of a “cover-up,” what followed was an independent State Department Inspector General report that was very critical of procedures and proposed changes — but found no “scandal” whatsoever.
By reaching out for “Benghazi” the GOP looks desperate for something to talk about. And that’s for good reason. On virtually every other major issue that is really of concern to ordinary Americans, the Democrats have the high political ground — e.g. the minimum wage, unemployment benefits, the power of big money in government, immigration reform, equal pay for equal work, voting rights, reproductive choice, contraception, gay and lesbian rights, and increasingly even Obamacare — which by Election Day could actually help Democrats (especially with turnout).
Reason #3: Do the Republicans really want to turn the conversation to foreign policy?
The GOP launched the Iraq War — the most disastrous foreign policy catastrophe in the last half-century — and they want to talk about competency and honesty in foreign policy?
In fact, some of the same people who regularly go on Fox News to rail on about the “Benghazi conspiracy” helped promote the notion that we were invading Iraq because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — the most pernicious lie ever used in recent American politics.
The War in Iraq was an unmitigated disaster — killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, costing thousands of American lives, costing our economy trillions of dollars, and spoiling America’s reputation throughout the world.
Frankly, no self-respecting media outlet should allow any of the people who intentionally lied to the American people about Iraq on the air ever again.
If you were the political party that presided over such a horrific foreign policy disaster would you really want to turn the political conversation to the question of who is best equipped to conduct America’s foreign policy?
Apparently so. It appears possible that the Republican leaders are just as inept at formulating their own political strategy as they were at conducting America’s foreign policy.
By: Robert Creamer, The Huffington Post Blog, May 5, 2014
“Making The GOP Pay For Medicaid Obstruction”: National Democrats, Especially, Need To Stop Equivocating About The Benefits Of The Law
Jonathan Martin wrote a primer this weekend on why many nervous Democrats won’t take President Obama’s advice – or mine — and run on the Affordable Care Act in the 2014 midterms. To me, it seems like a chicken and egg problem: Vulnerable Democrats won’t run on the ACA because key groups of voters don’t like it. But why should voters like it if even Democrats won’t defend it?
But there is one ACA issue where Republicans seem to be on the defensive, and that’s on the question of Medicaid expansion. Even Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Michelle Nunn and gubernatorial candidate Jason Carter, who have been wishy-washy on the law, support Medicaid expansion – and that’s partly because polls show 59 percent of Georgians support it too. Gov. Nathan Deal has tried to pass the decision off to the state Legislature, which is widely seen as an effort to pass the buck. Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback just managed to do the same thing, on Friday signing a bill that gave the Republican-dominated Legislature the power to decide on Medicaid expansion – but they won’t meet again until 2015.
In Florida, newly minted Democrat Charlie Crist is hitting Gov. Rick Scott hard for his refusal to accept Medicaid funding. Much like in Georgia, 58 percent of Florida voters want to see their state take the federal funds. Crist leads Scott in the latest polling.
And Republican Senate candidates Scott Brown of New Hampshire (it seems wrong not to write Massachusetts, Scott), Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Terri Lynn Land of Michigan have all refused to take a stand on Medicaid expansion, which might make them the biggest cowards of all.
In Louisiana, Democrats are trying to bypass Gov. Bobby Jindal and let state voters decide whether to accept $16 billion in expanded federal Medicaid funding, to cover 242,000 newly eligible Louisianans. The federal funding would create 15,600 new healthcare jobs, according to Families USA. Vulnerable Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu has been hitting Jindal hard on the issue, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune just called on the state Legislature to back the referendum notion, blaming Jindal’s presidential ambitions for his decision to turn down the funds. Even conservatives, the paper suggested (perhaps with a little sarcasm), ought to back an effort to give voters a say on the matter. What are they afraid of? Well, the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, for one thing, which has promised to campaign against Republicans who support Medicaid expansion.
“Thinking Small”: Liberals, If You Really Want Your Activism To Have Impact, Set Your Sights Lower And Be In It For The Long Haul
There’s a discussion starting to bubble up in some corners, one that will grow in intensity as we approach 2016, asking where the left should go as Barack Obama heads for the exits a couple of years hence. In the latest issue of Harper’s, Adolph Reed offers a critique from the left of not just Obama but the liberals who support him. Our own Harold Meyerson offered a typically thoughtful criticism, to which Reed responded, but I’ll just add briefly that one of the many things I didn’t like about Reed’s piece was the way he poses a dichotomy for liberals between investing too much in winning presidential elections even if the Democrat is imperfect (not a complete waste of time, but close) and building a movement (much better), but doesn’t say what, specifically, this movement-building should consist of.
That’s a common problem. Movements are great, but creating and sustaining them is hard work, work most of us would rather not do. It also takes skill, timing, and a bit of luck. Most of us would agree that the decline of labor unions has been disastrous for the country in many ways, and I sometimes hear people say that what the left needs is a revival of the labor movement. That’d be great! If you have any ideas about how to do it, we’d all like to know.
Eight years ago I wrote a manifesto for liberals, and though not very many people read it, whenever I would speak to an audience about it, someone would always ask, “So what should we do? This isn’t an easy question to answer, but since the theme of the book was that liberals should learn from what conservatives had done right over the prior couple of decades, my best answer was to think nationally and act locally, in the same way conservatives do. Get a couple of friends together and stage a coup of your local Democratic committee. Run for school board, or dog catcher, or whatever office you think you can win. If you want to push the Democratic party to the left, trying to get Bernie Sanders to run for president isn’t going to do it. (Remember what a profound and lasting impact Kucinich for President had? Yeah.)
Reed would object that that sees activism only in relation to the Democratic party, which is true. It’s not the only kind of movement-building, but it’s a kind that works. Think about it this way: Mitch McConnell isn’t scared of the National Right To Life Committee; he knows that if they think he isn’t doing enough to outlaw abortion, there isn’t much they’re going to do about it. But over the last five years, he and every other national Republican have been absolutely terrified of the Tea Party. Why? Because the Tea Party has actually gotten Republican scalps.
Now the Tea Party is a unique case in the speed with which it accumulated power. But the principle of starting electorally at a low level still holds. The trouble is, the state rep race just isn’t as glamorous as the presidential race. Andrew Sabl gives an excellent account of why that is. He was responding to Markos Moulitsas’s argument that since Hillary Clinton is all but unbeatable, there’s no point in getting behind some kind of challenge to her from the left, and instead liberals should accept that Clinton is going to be the 2016 presidential nominee and focus on getting strong progressives elected in down-ballot races. I’ve weighed in on the presidential primary question (short version: HRC might be beaten by somebody, but not by an ideological crusade), but Sabl hits the nail on the head:
… the larger problem, not unique to progressives, lies in the incentives and capabilities of presidential campaigns, in their systematic, structural (and rational) attempts to obscure the above lessons in the service of driving donations and turnout. National campaigns, through the best technology and psychology money can buy, persuade us that giving them our money and time means becoming part of something important. (True! But it’s a small part.) They portray the consequences of every election as more epic and final than they are likely to be. They encourage the Hollywood fantasy that the presidential speeches that inspire partisans have the potential to sway huge numbers of moderate, and inattentive, voters. They crowd out our background awareness of how much policy that really matters—regarding taxes, roads, public transportation, schools, colleges, policing and public safety, public health, Medicaid coverage, and now health exchanges—is set by states, counties, and cities, not primarily by the President, nor by Congress. And the media, desperate to attract mass readers and viewers whose attention is drawn to the excitement and pageantry of national campaigns, have an interest in reinforcing these distorted impressions.
Indeed. And like Sabl, I’ll admit that I’m part of the problem—in 2016, I’m going to spend a lot more time writing about the presidential race than I will about anything else. But if you really want your activism to have impact, you have to set your sights lower, and be in it for the long haul. There’s a not-very-old saying that Republicans fear their base, while Democrats hate theirs. If you’re a liberal and you want to change that, the answer is to make high-ranking Democrats fear you. The reason they don’t isn’t that there haven’t been enough left-wing populist presidential campaigns. It’s that, unlike the right, the left hasn’t taken over the grass roots and started climbing up the tree, hurling off those who displease them along the way until the people at the top look down and conclude they have no choice but to give the base at least part of what they want.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, March 13, 2014
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