Kansas abortion vote should alarm Florida Republican leaders
The message on abortion has been loud and clear for decades. The polls show it. Protest marchers proclaim it. Even if most Republican politicians and their ideologically tilted U.S. Supreme Court justices won’t acknowledge it, Americans believe women have the right to make their own decisions in such an intensely private matter.
And this past week, voters in Kansas, that most conservative of heartland states, showed that belief translates into action at the ballot box. They hit back at the high court’s June rejection of Roe v. Wade in landslide proportions, turning out from farm country to city precincts, not just Democrats but even Republican voters, supporting choice to an extent that stunned supporters and opponents.
So, now, what about you, Florida?
In its ruling, the Supreme Court released states from any federal mandate on abortion rights, so it’s up to Florida to make its own rules. Will the state’s GOP-weighted Legislature and Governor dare to challenge what national polls tell them and Kansas voters confirm, and make it still harder or impossible for women to obtain legal abortions?
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We don't expect Gov. Ron DeSantis or the Legislature to execute a turn-around on abortion. But political pragmatism alone should tell them to ease off the throttle when so many constituents scream that they’re driving in the wrong direction.
DeSantis this week suspended a Tampa-area state attorney who pledged not to prosecute anyone under the state’s new, more restrictive law that is under a court challenge, that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. That made all the right noises to satisfy his arch-conservative base. DeSantis is all anti-mandate and pro-personal freedom, except when he doesn't want to be. But he’s been notably quiet on whether he would take advantage of the Supreme Court decision to further tighten that timeframe.
That’s a political calculus he’d be foolish to ignore, with his re-election campaign bumping up against November. Florida has been shifting more deeply into red territory in recent years, but as Kansas showed, even Republican voters don’t want important personal freedoms wrested from them by an intrusive government. And we don’t think that three months is far-enough away that voter passions over this issue will fade out. There’s a reckoning on the horizon.
Abortion isn’t the only issue testing Tallahassee’s regressive instincts.
This governor and his minions have made book on the gender bigotry of their so-called "Don’t Say Gay" legislation and on the Old South racism of their political redistricting maps, drawn blatantly to diminish the sway of Black voters. But we believe Florida voters have moved past the point where those strategies will gain the DeSantis crew as much political capital as it will cost them. Similarly, all the election fraud dissembling, the court-packing, the appeals to white victimization, the tacit support of Jan. 6 sedition – we're over it.
The Kansas ballot initiative would have removed the right of access to abortion from that state’s constitution and put abortion restrictions in the hands of state lawmakers. Total ban? No exception for incest and rape victims? Life starts at conception? — Any extreme would have been possible.
The message we project from Kansas’ vote is that Americans are losing patience. Regardless of where they are on the political spectrum, Americans are angry about the tactics and posturing holding this country back, about the undoing of advances in civil rights and personal rights.
Here in Florida, it appears increasingly likely that the blend of bigotry and bravado that Trump and DeSantis rode to power appeals to an ever-smaller base. And if abortion is no longer a red meat issue that they could rely upon, then they may be on shakier ground.
The political divide in Florida, where 33 percent of voters aren’t affiliated with a party, is narrow enough that voter turnout makes a difference. And anger is a potent ingredient in stirring up that turnout. If voters in a state as red as Kansas showed up in such vast numbers to support abortion rights, imagine what might happen this fall in a purple state like ours.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Kansas abortion vote should alarm Florida Republican leaders
