Yesterday was a terrible day for the long-term future of the Republican Party, in Michigan but nationally as well. Worse nationally, as a matter of fact, than you might think.
Their embarrassment in Michigan is easy to understand. State Rep. Larry Inman, a Republican from the Traverse City area, was indicted by the feds on charges of trying to solicit a bribe from a labor union in exchange for a vote, extortion and – oh yes – lying to the FBI.
Inman, an odd character known for an obsession with Amelia Earhart, seems to have been stupid enough to put his extortion demand in a text message. The Speaker of the House asked him to resign, but Inman refused. Whether he is expelled remains to be seen, but he’s likely to be out of the legislature before long, one way or another.
That would mean a special election, in which case it is quite likely Democrats would pick up the seat (Inman barely won last year) and narrow the GOP majority to four.
Of course, nobody can claim either party is ethically pure; last year, Jennifer Suidan, a Democratic candidate for the legislature, had her candidacy torpedoed when the inconvenient truth surfaced that she had embezzled $100,000 from the county treasurer’s campaign funds.
But that was then and this is now, and every day Inman remains is a further blow to the Republican Party’s image. There’s a far greater long-term threat to the GOP, however.
And that is abortion. Alabama, as you likely know by now, has passed a bill which would outlaw virtually all abortions, even in the case of rape or incest, a bill clearly unconstitutional. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has vowed to veto a bill the Michigan legislature is passing that would block a particular late-term abortion method called dilation and extraction.
Right to Life of Michigan expected this all along, and will use it to try to whip up sentiment for a petition drive for a state constitutional anti-abortion amendment “if she won’t sign these bills to stop babies from having their arms and legs torn off.”
Never mind that the fetuses are dead when this procedure is used, or that it is used because it is frequently the safest procedure for the woman involved.
What is really behind all these efforts, of course, is the theory that if they can just get one or more of these bills before the U.S. Supreme Court, the new right-wing members of the court would vote to reverse Roe v. Wade.
Well, that’s by no means certain.
The Supreme Court operates under a tradition called stare decisis, which means they are historically extremely reluctant to overturn precedent. But if they did overturn Roe, the voters would be furious, and might well punish Republicans for taking that choice away from them.
For despite all the noise anti-abortion protestors make, poll after poll shows most Americans support abortion rights. A recent Gallup poll found that adults support making abortion completely legal in the first trimester by a margin of 60 percent to 34 percent.
The numbers go down the longer the pregnancy goes on, but overall, outlawing abortion would not help Republicans; they’ve had solid support for years from those who want to completely ban the procedure. But most people feel, as a sensible Roman Catholic and Republican congressman once told me, that abortion should be safe, legal and rare.
Or as columnist Ellen Goodman once put it, a lot of women tend to oppose abortion except in three cases – “rape, incest, and me.” Most voters are not fond of politicians who want to take away their rights or dictate what medical procedures they can have.
For years, many Republicans have had the cynical strategy or trying to please and appease the anti-abortion lobby, while secretly feeling there was no real chance Roe would be overturned. Now, they might want to be careful what they pretend to wish for.
They might be in big trouble if they get it.
