The Arizona state House voted Wednesday to repeal the state’s 1864 near-total ban on abortion, apparently after deciding to stop embarrassing the state quite so much. It was the third attempt to repeal the Civil War-era law after the state supreme court decided earlier this month that it was still perfectly valid, even though it was originally passed when Arizona was still a territory, women were decades away from having the vote, and the world was so recent that many things lacked names, so in order to indicate them it was necessary to point.
If the 1864 law isn’t repealed, it would go into effect June 8, and would impose prison sentences of two to five years on anyone who performs an abortion or helps a woman obtain one.
Three Republican state representatives joined all 29 Democrats in the House to overturn the 160-year-old law, which had no exceptions for rape or incest and only a very narrow exception to save the life of the pregnant patient. The repeal bill will now go to the state Senate, which also has a narrow Republican majority but is also expected to pass it.
Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) already plans to sign the repeal, and once that happens, Arizona will revert to a mere 15-week ban on abortion that was passed in 2022. A voter initiative to amend the state constitution to protect abortion rights is expected to have more than enough petition signatures to make it onto the ballot for this fall’s general election.
Two previous efforts to repeal the law stalled in the state House on April 10 and April 17 because only one Republican, state Rep. Matt Gress of Phoenix, supported the repeal effort. The Arizona Mirror notes that Gress is “facing reelection in a swing district that has a history of punishing anti-abortion politicians,” and was unable until yesterday to persuade any of his GOP colleagues to join him in a procedural vote to bring the repeal to the floor.
On Wednesday, another Republican, Tim Dunn of Yuma, joined Gress to allow the vote, and when the actual repeal bill was voted on, they were joined by a third, Justin Wilmeth of Phoenix, plus all the chamber’s Democrats.
What with this being the Republican Party in 2024, House Speaker Ben Toma immediately kicked Gress off the House Appropriations Committee for his disloyalty. For good measure, Toma also removed Democratic Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos from Appropriations and Rules, because how dare the Democratic leader vote with Democrats.
The Arizona Mirror reports that Toma
refused to explain the reasoning behind the removal to reporters.
“’Cause I’ve decided so,” he said.
Wilmeth and Dunn, who also voted to repeal the 1864 law, were not similarly punished and Toma said they wouldn’t be.
When Republicans blocked the first effort to repeal the 1864 law, De Los Santos was among the Democrats who chanted “Shame! Shame!” at them, and Toma is clearly still pissed over that. Republicans complained at the time that the chanting was “insurrectionist behavior,” because they are fucking idiots.
During yesterday’s session, Toma brought it up again when he explained his vote against the repeal, complaining that “The lack of decorum we saw from members of the other side of the aisle displayed on this very floor two weeks ago is completely unacceptable,” and sniffling that the Lege is “not a place for activism.” Mmm-hmm, Republican legislatures, not activists.
That’s some especially hilarious shit considering that, as Jessica Valenti points out at Abortion, Every Day, Arizona Republicans — like others around the country — are cooking up their own little scheme to ratfuck this fall’s ballot initiative protecting abortion rights. NBC News recently reported on an Arizona GOP strategy document outlining a plan to introduce other constitutional amendments, possibly with titles that imply they’re pro-choice, which would actually cement stricter abortion bans in the state constitution, like a 14-week abortion ban, or maybe even a five-week ban. Such measures, the document suggests, could be promoted as complementing the amendment that would protect abortion rights, even though they would actually gut it. So clever!
Of that leaked PowerPoint presentation, Speaker Toma explained that it simply
“presents ideas drafted for internal discussion and consideration within the caucus. I’ve publicly stated that we are looking at options to address this subject, and this is simply part of that.”
But it wouldn’t be any sort of activist ratfucking.
As many as three separate proposals might be tossed on the ballot to compete with the actual initiative to preserve abortion rights. Dawn Penich, a spokesperson for the group advocating for the real initiative, Arizona for Abortion Access, said the GOP plan “shows yet again why Arizonans can’t leave our most basic and personal rights in the hands of politicians in the state Legislature.” To say the least.
The Arizona Mirror also reports that, an hour before the vote on repealing the 1864 law, Republicans on the House Rules Committee took a vote to advance three resolutions that are almost certainly the ratfuck ballot measures, although Rs didn’t release any information on what the bills were. But all three are sponsored by House GOP leaders, including Speaker Troma, who hates activism, along with Rules co-chair Travis Grantham, Majority Leader Leo Biasiucci, and Majority Whip Teresa Martinez, although we can’t say for sure whether any of them are similarly horrified by the prospect of activism in the form of legislation.
It’s too early to say whether there will be enough Republican votes to ultimately put the ratfucking measures on the ballot, yesterday’s vote on repealing the 1864 law notwithstanding. Because they’re constitutional amendments, if the proposals do make it through the full Lege, they won’t be subject to veto by Gov. Hobbs like other terrible Republican laws, but would go right to the fall ballot, there to cause mischief and confusion.
Should things get that far, it’ll just be one more thing that Arizona for Abortion Access and Democrats will need to make noise about. Given the huge failures of other Republican efforts to confuse voters about abortion-related ballot measures, we suspect that not only will Arizona Republicans’ ratfuck amendments fail, they’ll mostly just have the effect of pissing off supporters of abortion rights even more, and sparking a backlash against those who tried to con voters. Can’t think of a better outcome than that.
[NBC News / AP / Arizona Mirror / Abortion Every Day / NBC News / Arizona Mirror]
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Acyn:
Jackson: The most powerful person in the world could go into office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes … I'm trying to understanding what the disincentive is from turning the Oval Office into the seat of criminal activity in this country
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