Republicans afraid of voters' views on abortion want to stop the voting altogether

Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft went so far as to try "decertifying" a ballot measure he previously OK'ed. The state's supreme court said he lacked that power.

Overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022 put abortion back in the political sphere, Justice Sam Alito told us — a long-sought goal of the right.

Then, people started voting.

Almost immediately, in Kansas of all places, the writing was on the wall: Taking away people’s rights is not acceptable.

Generations of people had lived their entire life understanding that abortion is a right. Even more, the generations before them who fought for that right — and remembered the days before Roe — certainly understood that abortion is a right.

The ballot box has shown that, without fail, since.

Now, with that knowledge, Republicans are shifting again, because they are afraid of letting voters have the chance to vote on abortion and other reproductive rights.

The new move, as voters in state after state seek to put abortion on the ballot, is to try and stop them altogether.

If voters are going to protect abortion rights when given the chance, the answer, Republicans are increasingly saying, is not to let them.

First, on August 22, the Arkansas Supreme Court, on a 4-3 vote, ended this year’s effort to put abortion on the ballot there, upholding the Arkansas secretary of state’s decision to reject all signatures collected by paid canvassers.

Nebraska has competing ballot measures — a first in state history and a likely source of confusion for voters — which led to questions in three challenges before their state supreme court on Monday.

Florida officials are, unsurprisingly, at it, as Jessica Valenti covered last week and again on Monday:

Florida Republicans Are Breaking the Law to Keep Abortion Banned

It was Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, though, who took the most extreme action — purporting to have “decertified” that state’s abortion measure on Monday after previously certifying it.

Here was Ashcroft’s office on August 13 (note the second item):

Here was Ashcroft on Monday, as reported by KMOV’s Alexis Zotos:

Supporters of the ballot measure immediately went to court, where litigation was ongoing already, seeking to get the Missouri Supreme Court to hold Ashcroft in contempt for the move.

After arguments on Tuesday, a majority of the Missouri Supreme Court ordered that the abortion measure remain on the ballot, reversing a lower court’s ruling. Although the court rejected the request for Ashcroft to be held in contempt, Chief Justice Mary Russell called Ashcroft’s September 9 letter a “nullity and of no effect.”

In short, a majority of the Missouri Supreme Court — consisting of five Republican appointees and two Democratic appointees — said that Ashcroft went too far with his lawlessness.

The court, instead, ordered him to take “all necessary steps to ensure that” the ballot measure is on the fall ballot.

Lawlessness is not only present in the Republican Party when it comes to abortion, of course.

JD Vance, when he’s not busy spouting racist lies about the state he purportedly represents in the United States Senate, is telling people that the January 6 insurrectionists wouldn’t have needed to threaten to kill him because he would have done Donald Trump’s “alternative slates of electors” bidding.

Trump and Vance don’t believe in the rule of law and do believe in racist, scapegoating lies, which are just two of the hundreds of reasons why they must lose.

And yet, to return to Florida once more before I close, Republicans there are already joking about Gov. Ron DeSantis “firing” Andrew Warren again — one of the elected prosecutors he suspended previously because he doesn’t like their policy positions — if Warren wins re-election this fall.

One of the reasons DeSantis cited for suspending Warren in August 2022: His position opposing abortion-related prosecutions.