Over a decade ago, when political parties didn’t treat their rivals as mortal enemies, the Republican president of the Florida Senate, Jeff Atwater, would remind his colleagues: “Don’t fear the debate.”
I remember them as simple words uttered when tensions mounted during particularly contentious partisan disagreements. But anyone with a reasonable understanding of American history recognized in his message the wisdom of the nation’s founders, who encountered acrimonious differences and frustrating deadlocks and yet hammered out an American Constitution in a sweltering convention hall in Philadelphia 237 years ago by talking it out.
Now would be a good time for Republican officials in states with abortion amendments on the November ballot to follow the founders’ example. Rather than debating the merits of their positions, however, there is an orchestrated effort to undermine the will of the people and deny voters the opportunity to decide the issue.
Donald Trump and his supporters have been boasting for two years that it was his Supreme Court appointees who overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the abortion issue to states — where they say it belongs. But when voters in eight states followed the prescribed process for putting abortion-rights amendments on the ballot, Trump and his allies went back on their word.
Instead of letting the debate play out in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada and South Dakota, Republicans tried to kick the amendments off the ballot or raise doubts about their legitimacy.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis sent his election police to knock on the doors of voters who signed the petition to put a measure on the ballot that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. In a state with a large population of immigrants and people of color, many of whom rightfully fear police, the tactic was meant to intimidate.
And Republican officials in Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and South Dakota have launched legal challenges to knock amendments off their ballots.
In Missouri, Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft agreed to decertify an amendment that would establish the constitutional right to an abortion and grant constitutional protections for reproductive health care, such as birth control. Less than three hours before a deadline to finalize the ballot, the Missouri Supreme Court overruled him and ordered the amendment on the ballot.
In Montana, Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen attempted to block a voter-backed initiative, claiming the language was unclear. The state Supreme Court rejected his argument.
In Trump’s world of “let the states decide,” voters in Nebraska should have the purest choice with two voter-initiated proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot. One would expand abortion access until fetal viability and the other would enshrine Nebraska’s current 12-week ban. But Republicans there tried to keep the expanded access amendment off the ballot. A court ruled that it would remain.
In each of these states, Republicans have near-total control of government at a time when public opinion on abortion is soundly against the policies lawmakers have enacted. According to Pew Research, 63 percent of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, yet 22 states have enacted bans on the procedure.
Americans understand the stakes. A robust debate would focus on the pros and cons of abortion, the risks of banning the procedure, its impact on women and families, the moral implications and the effectiveness and impact of alternatives. That debate would be focused on facts, not demagoguery and misinformation.
Instead, Republicans have shown they don’t trust voters to make up their own minds. They have deluded themselves into thinking they know best and they’ll prevail by taking away voters’ choices. It’s an authoritarian move, and it’s undemocratic.
We’ll know soon enough what voters think. But one thing is certain: When Trump and other Republicans say they want states to decide, they don’t really mean it.
Mary Ellen Klas is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion.
