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While Rep. Nancy Mace continues to move sharply to the right, the South Carolina Republican still believes her party should exercise greater caution when it comes to reproductive rights. The congresswoman’s message has been fairly consistent: The GOP and the American mainstream simply aren’t on the same page when it comes to abortion, and the more Republicans pretend otherwise, the more they invite an electoral backlash.
With this in mind, late last week, House Republicans decided it was time to attack the Pentagon’s existing policy that ensures all U.S. troops have access to reproductive health care. As Politico reported, Mace made her dissatisfaction known.
“We should not be taking this f---ing vote, man. F---,” a visibly frustrated Mace was overheard venting to her staff in an elevator, apparently referring to Thursday’s vote to reverse Biden administration policy on reimbursing travel costs for service members seeking abortions. “It’s an a--hole move, an a--hole amendment.”
I should probably note that I edited the profanity; the original report quoted the congresswoman using the words themselves.
But here’s the punchline: The South Carolina Republican saw the measures as “an a--hole amendment”; she saw the introduction of the amendment as “an a--hole move”; and she was firmly of the belief that House members shouldn’t have been forced to take the “f---ing vote” — and then Mace voted for it anyway.
In fact, the amendment passed with 221 votes. A total of 220 votes would’ve been just as effective. In other words, given the margin, Mace could’ve opposed the measure without derailing it, but she went along with her party anyway, even as it ignored her concerns and advice.
When it comes to imposing new restrictions on reproductive rights, it’s as if the Republican Party in 2023 just can’t help itself. A New York Times report added over the weekend:
Democrats pointed to the vote as a prime example of Republicans taking votes that could ultimately cost them their House majority. Strategists in both parties have suggested that the Supreme Court’s abortion decision, and Democrats’ subsequent efforts to spotlight Republican opposition to abortion rights, weakened the G.O.P. during last year’s election, costing them support from independent and suburban voters.
“For the swing districts they represent, they should be doing the opposite — but they’re not,” Courtney Rice, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s communications director, told the Times. “Their decision to put party politics over pocketbook issues is going to cost them the House in 2024.”
The vote to curtail U.S. troops’ access to reproductive care stood out, but it was hardly the only recent example. Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s blockade on military promotions, for example, is also part of a radical tantrum on the same issue.
About an hour after House GOP members passed a defense package filled with culture war priorities, Iowa’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, signed a new six-week abortion ban in her state — despite the fact that 61% of Iowans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
This keeps happening. The more the American mainstream tells policymakers that abortion should be legal — both at the ballot box and in polling — the more GOP officials thumb their noses at voters’ wishes.
Revisiting our earlier coverage, whenever the topic comes up, I find it’s worth re-emphasizing an important detail: This is a health care issue about people, not politics. To be sure, it’s a multifaceted discussion, but what matters most are the real-world consequences for real-world people, many of whom are being forced to endure horrific hardships, imposed by their Republican representatives, in the wake of the demise of Roe v. Wade.
But there’s obviously a political dimension to this, too: We’re talking about politicians, engaged in a political process, in pursuit of a political goal ahead of a political election.
And with this in mind, I wonder if GOP officials fully appreciate the prospects for a political backlash.