(NEW YORK) — The move to add new abortion bans “will be swift” if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Sunday, adding that the Senate will do everything it can to codify a woman’s right to choose.
“With this leaked opinion, the court is looking at reversing 50 years of women’s rights and the fall will be swift. Over 20 states have laws in place already,” Klobuchar, D-Minn., told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz.
“I think the question that voters are going to be asking when 75% of people are with us on this, is who should make this decision,” Klobuchar said. “Should it be a woman and her doctor or a politician? Should it be Ted Cruz making this decision or a woman and her family? Where are women’s equal rights?”
On Tuesday, Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed a leaked draft opinion of a Supreme Court ruling indicating that five conservative justices, three of whom were appointed by former President Trump, are poised to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The bombshell that the high court could soon overturn the landmark 1973 ruling sparked outrage across the country among people, including elected leaders, who support abortion rights.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that the Senate would hold a vote Wednesday to codify federal abortion protections by way of the Women’s Health Protection Act, but not enough votes are expected for the measure to pass. To overcome a filibuster, the bill — which passed the House but has stalled in the Senate — needs support from 60 senators.
“If we are not successful, then we go to the ballot box,” Klobuchar said of the bill. “We march straight to the ballot box, and the women of this country and the men who stand with them will vote like they’ve never voted before.”
All House Democrats except for Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, voted for the Women’s Health Protection Act.
Raddatz pressed Klobuchar on whether the Democratic Party should only back members and candidates who support abortion rights.
“Do you believe there should be a litmus test?” Raddatz asked. “The Democrats have several candidates who do not support abortion rights.”
“You have people who are personally, personally pro-life, but yet believe that that decision should be a woman’s personal choice, even if they may not agree with them,” Klobuchar responded. “So I think it’s important to note that we have people in our party that vote to uphold Roe v. Wade that may have personal opinions that are different.”
The Minnesota senator added that the Democratic Party is “clearly pro-choice.”
“That is the position of our party and I think you see in primary after primary, that matters to our voters — certainly now more than ever,” she said.
While she said abortion will not be the “only issue” for Democrats in the midterm elections, noting voters are also focused on the economy and Ukraine, she said “a new generation of women” are seeing their rights pulled back and saying, “Wait a minute, my mom and my grandma are going to have more rights than I’m going to have going forward?”
Raddatz pressed Klobuchar on public polls showing that while a majority of Americans support the right to an abortion in most cases, within the states that would almost immediately ban abortion if Roe is overturned, a majority of adults believe abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, a New York Times analysis found.
“Why should a woman in Texas have different rights and a different future and a different ability to make decisions about her body and her reproductive choices than a woman in Minnesota?” Klobuchar responded. “How can that be in this country, that we’d have a patchwork of laws?”
Klobuchar added that a reversal of Roe v. Wade would disproportionately affect poor women and women of color.
“This is just wrong, and that is part of why Justice [Harry] Blackmun, who is a Republican-appointed justice, no less, made that thoughtful decision, looked at the Constitution and said, the right to privacy includes the right for women to make a choice like this.”
(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — Vice President Kamala Harris gave a sobering look at the “unsettled” world students are heading into as she delivered the commencement speech at Tennessee State University on Saturday.
The vice president discussed the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as the looming possibility Roe v. Wade will be overturned by the Supreme Court after a draft opinion leaked earlier this week.
“The world that you graduate into is unsettled,” Harris said. “It is a world where long-established principles now rest on shaky ground. We see this in Ukraine, where Russia’s invasion threatens international rules and norms that have provided unprecedented peace and security in Europe since World War II.”
“We believed that the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity had for the most part prevailed, that democracy had prevailed,” she continued. “But now the certainty of fundamental principles is being called into question, including the principles of equality and fairness.”
The crowd erupted in cheers when Harris remarked that the students were facing an unsettled world where Roe v. Wade may be overturned.
“In the United States, we are once again forced to defend fundamental principles that we hoped were long settled — principles like the freedom to vote, the rights of women to make decisions about their own bodies, even what constitutes the truth, especially in an era, when anyone can post anything online and claim it is a fact,” Harris said.
Harris congratulated the students on succeeding in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Class of 2022, you made it through and it cannot be denied also that your class has traveled a stony road — a pandemic that took away so much of the college experience that you once imagined,” she said.
Shifting to a more optimistic tone, the vice president said that each student is well-equipped to tackle the “biggest challenges of today” by drawing from their lived experiences and personal attributes.
“Most importantly, you have the ability to see what can be unburdened by what has been,” she said, drawing from her stump speech on the campaign trail.
As a fellow graduate of a historically Black college and university, she expressed “there is no limit to your capacity for greatness.”
“I want you all — each and every one of you — to always remember that you are not alone, that you come from people, that you come with people,” she said. “Because I promise you, there will be a time when you will walk into a boardroom or a courtroom or maybe even the Situation Room, and you will walk into the room and find you are the only person in that room who looks like you or has had your life experience.
“At that moment, you must remember you are not in that room alone. Always know that you carry the voices of everyone here and those upon whose shoulders you stand.”
Harris is also scheduled to give the commencement speech at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy on May 18.
(WASHINGTON) — As a leaked draft opinion of a Supreme Court ruling shows a conservative majority of justices appear poised to overturn federal protections of abortion rights, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday the Senate will hold a procedural vote to begin debate on the Women’s Health Protection Act next week.
WHPA is a bill that aims to codify Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that grants protections for a woman’s right to abortion, at the federal level. The bill prohibits governmental restrictions on access to abortion services, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed Tuesday that the leaked draft opinion that could overturn Roe v. Wade was authentic. He has since ordered an investigation into the draft’s public release.
After narrowly passing in the House last September, WHPA has been stalled in the Senate. Schumer had failed to get the entire Democratic caucus on board when he tried to start debate on the bill in February.
At a press conference Thursday, Schumer expressed skepticism over whether the bill will receive the Republican votes it needs to pass. To overcome a filibuster, the bill needs support from 60 members of Congress.
While a final vote in the Senate needs a simple majority of 51 votes, the filibuster procedural rule requires a supermajority, or 60 votes, to start or end debate on legislation so it can face a final vote. Even if a party has a simple majority in the Senate, it still needs a super majority in order to put a bill to a final vote.
“Republicans will have two choices. They can own the destruction of women’s rights, or they can reverse course and work to prevent the damage. Count me as skeptical that they’ll do the latter. Republicans have been on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of America,” he said.
What’s in the WHPA bill?
The bill would prevent state governments from limiting a health care provider’s ability to prescribe certain drugs, offer abortion services via telemedicine, or immediately provide abortion services when the provider determines a delay risks the patient’s health, according to CRS.
It also prevents states from requiring patients to make medically unnecessary in-person visits before receiving abortion services or forcing women to disclose their reasons for obtaining abortions and related services. WHPA would ban states from prohibiting abortion services before or after fetal viability when a provider determines the pregnancy risks the patient’s life or health.
WHPA also prohibits other governmental measures that single out and restrict access to abortion services, unless a state government can prove the measure significantly advances the safety of abortion services or health of patients and cannot be achieved through less restrictive ways, according to CRS.
It also allows the Department of Justice, individuals or abortion providers to bring lawsuits against violations of the bill, regardless of whether restrictions were put in place before or after the bill becomes law.
The proposed legislation, introduced in the House by Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., last June, was a response to increased attacks on abortion rights over the last decade, according to an abortion rights advocate who spoke with ABC News.
“WHPA is a response to the last decade, where anti-abortion lawmakers and states have passed more than 500 restrictions and bans on abortion care,” Leila Abolfazli, the director of federal reproductive rights at the National Women’s Law Center, told ABC News.
Anti-abortion activists see WHPA as far too sweeping. One anti-abortion advocate said the bill would take down almost all state laws governing abortions.
“What it does primarily is it creates a right to abortion, all nine months of pregnancy [and] it would invalidate pretty much all state legislation that’s been passed,” said Jennifer Popik, a lawyer and director of federal legislation at anti-abortion group, National Right to Life.
She also called it “pretty much the most permissive abortion bill that’s ever been voted on in Congress.” Popik said the bill is as comprehensive as a right-to-abortion bill gets.
“Anything that treated abortion differently than any other medical procedure would be struck by this,” she said.
Abolfazli, from the National Women’s Law Center, instead, said WHPA “comprehensively addresses the web of restrictions and bans that have been put in place to stop people from getting abortions” as well as the attempts to “shame and stigmatize” anyone getting an abortion.
Republicans, aside from Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins who publicly support access to abortion, have sought to roll back Roe v. Wade for decades. But, Collins said she opposes WHPA.
“My goal is to codify what is essentially existing law. That means Roe v. Wade, it means Casey versus Planned Parenthood, which established the undue burden test. And it means keeping the conscience protections which appear to be wiped out by the Democrats’ version. So I’m not trying to go beyond current law or, but rather to codify those Supreme Court decisions,” Collins told ABC News’ Trish Turner on Thursday.
Murkowski and Collins have authored their own legislation proposals to codify Roe that have yet to be put up for vote.
What are the chances WHPA will become law?
Popik, of National Right to Life, said the bill is unlikely to become law given how it passed the House along party lines.
“Not only would they have a hard time getting to 50 votes on this, but they would need to get to 60 votes on this … I would have a hard time seeing the current Congress getting to 60 votes on anything,” Popik said, citing the filibuster.
“Senate Democrats are in control of the floor schedule, but they do not have 60 senators who would vote in support of the Women’s Health Protection Act, or any effort to protect abortion, because, in fact, I think it’s 47 senators are on record asking the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. So it is simply that the numbers are not there,” said Abolfazli, of the National Women’s Law Center.
Abolfazli added, “We have never had the numbers to pass something like this.”
(WASHINGTON) — It was an eyebrow-raising moment in the confirmation hearings for the first Black female Supreme Court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson — a grilling about her stance on child porn offenders.
Several Republicans availed themselves of their time in front of a national audience to question Jackson about her philosophy around sentencing guidelines, to the frustration at times of the judge and Democratic lawmakers.
The words “pedophilia,” “grooming” and “child abuse” have also been tossed around by conservative figures and legislators in the debate about LGBTQ content, inclusion and treatment in schools.
Some Republicans seem to be resurfacing these false stereotypes as a political tool to rile up their base and further marginalize LGBTQ people, experts say.
The focus, the experts say, echoes the language used by the far-right conspiracy theory of QAnon, which promulgates the false notion that there is a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophile power players who control the government.
“It’s yet another opportunity to exploit people who are feared, because they actually may obtain power,” said Susan Englander, historian at San Francisco State University.
“You’re gonna lie … you’re gonna give [voters] the worst-case scenario regarding what happens if these [progressive] things become normalized.”
Focusing on ‘grooming’
The Parental Rights in Education law, what critics call the “Don’t Say Gay” law, spurred debate over whether young children should learn about the LGBTQ community in schools, with several legislators calling such lessons “indoctrination.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill in March to ban curriculum mentioning sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through grade three “or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”
“We will make sure that parents can send their kids to school to get an education, not an indoctrination,” DeSantis said at the bill signing.
In a tweet, DeSantis’s press secretary, Christina Pushaw, claimed that anyone who opposes the Parental Rights in Education bill was “probably a groomer.” Grooming generally refers to when someone manipulates a person — typically a child or teen — in order to commit a sexual offense, according to the American Bar Association.
More than 6 in 10 Americans oppose legislation like the Florida bill that would prohibit classroom lessons about sexual orientation or gender identity in elementary school, according to a March ABC News/Ipsos poll.
DeSantis’ office did not respond to ABC News request for comment.
Shortly after, in April, a so-called “anti-grooming” protest by far-right extremists and conspiracy theorists took to the Disney World grounds where protestors falsely accused Disney, the parent company of ABC News, of helping groom children after the company criticized Florida legislators for implementing the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
QAnon goes mainstream
Some conservatives have seemingly co-opted language used by far-right extremists such as those who espouse the QAnon conspiracy theories over the last several years.
Former President Donald Trump, alongside other Republican lawmakers, helped push QAnon conspiracies into the mainstream.
During an NBC town hall in 2020, Trump said: “They are very strongly against pedophilia and I agree with that. And I agree with it very strongly.”
Some lawmakers across the country have followed suit about this claim and others.
In Michigan, state Republican Sen. Lana Theis falsely claimed in April her Democratic colleague Sen. Mallory McMorrow wants to “groom” and “sexualize” kindergartners and teach “that 8-year-olds are responsible for slavery” in a fundraising email, according to Traverse City ABC affiliate WGTU.
In New Jersey, the National Republican Congressional Committee claimed Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski was protecting pedophiles, an accusation he told Yahoo News was a ploy to rile up their QAnon base.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, a Georgia Republican who continuously expresses support for a number of QAnon theories, called Democrats “the party of killing babies, grooming and transitioning children, and pro-pedophile politics” in April.
And during Judge Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, the jurist faced misleading allegations by several Republican legislators that she has a “long record” of letting child porn offenders “off the hook” during sentencing.
Doug Berman, a leading expert on sentencing law and policy at The Ohio State University School of Law, told ABC News: “If and when we properly contextualize Judge Jackson’s sentencing record in federal child porn cases, it looks pretty mainstream” and several lawmakers have agreed.
“It’s a way of smearing liberalism,” Englander said.
She believes the Republican Party is creating a politics of fear around supporting the queer community or the Democratic party — so even non-LGBTQ people question their allyship and affiliation with the Democrats as to not be falsely connected to pedophilia.
The RNC, however, has not officially used language on “grooming” or “pedophilia,” nor has it endorsed such attacks on Democrats. And other Republicans, including former Vice President Mike Pence and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. have publicly denounced QAnon conspiracies.
The DNC did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment. The RNC declined to comment.
The criminalization of the LGBTQ community
Historians say the sentiment being associated with this new wave of legislation about sexuality and gender identity, however, is reminiscent of a long history of the demonization of the LGBTQ community.
Sodomy laws, which have roots in some of the earliest laws of the U.S., made same-sex relations or sexual activity illegal.
Throughout the 1900s, historians say law enforcement had several avenues to pursue against LGBTQ people, via laws against disorderly conduct, indecency, loitering, lewdness and more.
Cross-dressing laws, which are believed to have first appeared in Columbus, Ohio, in 1848, also encouraged officers to harass and abuse trans or queer people for dressing in clothes that didn’t correspond with their biological sex.
In the 1930s through the 1950s, so-called sexual psychopath laws began conflating homosexuality with sexual psychopathy, according to Organization of American Historians LGBTQ committee board member and Sonoma State professor Don Romesburg,
In a 1950 study on these laws, it states that people deemed to be sexual psychopaths were considered people “with criminal propensities to the commission of sex offenses.” This included homosexuality.
These laws steered the narrative in painting LGBTQ people as a harm to society, people to be considered as dangerous, according to historians.
Even still, in the 1990s, anti-homosexual laws barred educators from discussing LGBTQ topics in many school classrooms. Some of these laws are still on the books today, enshrining anti-LGBTQ sentiment in school systems in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma.
This kind of rhetoric can have dangerous effects, historians say.
They say painting the community as criminals or predators will likely lead to violence and hate against LGBTQ people and allies. And after this talking point is abandoned by conservatives, the laws that arose from this will continue to impact lives:
“Long after those on the right have abandoned this tactic for the next rhetorical strategy that they move to, these laws will stay on the books,” Romesburg said.
(WASHINGTON) — The extraordinary leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade has triggered an equally extraordinary whodunnit focused on a small universe of court employees who have regular access to the institution’s most sensitive and confidential documents.
“I think the most likely explanation is that it’s an insider, and the only question is what is the motive?” said Cardozo Law professor Kate Shaw, a former clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens and ABC News legal analyst.
For the first time in court history, the Marshal of the Court – the institution’s little known chief operations officer, who also oversees an independent police force – is leading an internal investigation to identify the source of a leaked opinion draft.
“This was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here,” Chief Justice John Roberts said in a statement Tuesday announcing the probe.
Court Marshal Gail Curley, a career Army lawyer and West Point graduate with expertise in national security law, will take the lead, Roberts said. Her office has declined to provide details on how the investigation will be conducted or whether any findings will be made public.
Attorney General Merrick Garland declined Thursday to say whether any Justice Department or federal law enforcement resources have been requested or would be involved.
A likely key early focus of investigators will be the paper trail, since draft opinions are closely-held and not widely accessible.
Sources familiar with the drafting process said it can produce dozens of drafts and hundreds of pages of documents over the course of several months, particularly in high-profile cases.
After oral arguments in each case, the justices take an initial private vote and then begin writing opinions. They circulate copies among each other for feedback, often in multiple rounds electronically, according to former clerks. During that time views – and votes – can change.
“If it was the case that somebody from inside the Supreme Court’s building deliberately leaked this outside to the press, it’s outrageous. It’s really awful,” said Rachel Barkow, vice dean of NYU Law School and a former clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia. “It’s only when everyone agrees an opinion is ready to go out that all the opinions go public.”
Independent law enforcement analysts suggested investigators were likely to consider the possibility of a computer hack or computer carelessness — such as leaving a sensitive system unattended — but that the primary theory would likely be a deliberate act.
“A family member, a friend, someone who came across an opinion draft left in a restaurant or a hospital or something like that,” said Shaw. “But these opinions, again, are very closely held. They’re ordinarily not left sitting around.”
Possible suspects in the leak include each of the nine justices; roughly 30 administrative staff who work behind the scenes in the justices’ private chambers; and, the 37 law clerks who do research and writing of draft opinions.
“The justices trusted us implicitly,” said Thiru Vignarajah, a former clerk to retiring Justice Stephen Breyer. “There were two different servers — one for draft opinions and another for you to do your research — to make sure that an external hack didn’t happen to the Supreme Court.”
Sherif Gergis, a former clerk for Justice Samuel Alito, told ABC News the consequences for leaking were a widely known and compelling deterrent.
“There’s a very strong unspoken sense of confidentiality that does get spelled out when you begin,” Girgis, now a Notre Dame Law professor, said. “The clerks have extremely high personal incentives not to do anything like this because of the way that it could completely ruin their chances at a serious legal career.”
Investigators will hope to learn not just who leaked the draft but why — specifically whether there a political motive behind the act. The Alito draft in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health was marked “first draft” and dated Feb. 10; the court’s final decision is not expected until the end of June.
“The court really relies more than any other on the perception of the public that it’s doing something other than politics. And this doesn’t look like something other than politics,” Barkow said.
Politico, which first obtained the draft opinion, identified its source as a “person familiar with the court’s deliberations.” If an employee insider is outed, experts said he or she could be fired, sanctioned or disbarred as a lawyer.
However, if the leak was perpetrated by a justice directly, potential punishment is less clear. “There’s not a whole lot you can do to sanction a Supreme Court justice short of impeachment,” said Shaw.
The blow to the court’s credibility comes at a critical moment ahead of expected major rulings on not just abortion but school prayer, immigration and gun rights before the end of the term.
“I find it very hard to imagine a healthy functioning court next year if the person who made the leak isn’t identified, publicly identified and sanctioned for it,” Girgis said.
Other observers emphasized that the likely decision itself — overturning Roe v. Wade after almost 50 years of being considered settled and reaffirmed precedent — would do the most damage to the court’s reputation.
“We’ll talk about this leak for the next few days or the next couple weeks, but we will be talking about the impact of this decision — if it holds — for a decade or a generation,” said Vignarajah. “And we’re taking one of the most divisive issues in American history and turning it back into a political football.”
ABC News’ Miles Cohen and Alex Mallin contributed to this report.
(ATLANTA) — An administrative law judge in Georgia on Friday ruled that GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene can stay on the ballot for the state’s 14th Congressional District following a challenge to her reelection candidacy.
A group of Georgia voters had argued that Greene was not eligible to run for reelection under the “disqualification clause” of the Fourteenth Amendment due to her alleged support for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
In his 19-page opinion, Judge Charles Beaudrot said that the burden of proof is on the challengers and that they “failed to prove their case by a preponderance of the evidence.”
Beaudrot also said that the evidence in the case was insufficient to establish that Greene “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or [gave] aid or comfort to the enemies thereof under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.”
The judge’s ruling is a recommendation; the final decision on whether Greene stays on the ballot for the May 24 primary will be made by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
Free Speech For People, the legal organization representing the challengers, released a statement saying that the judge’s “decision betrays the fundamental purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment’s insurrectionist disqualification clause and gives a pass to political violence as a tool for disrupting and overturning free and fair elections.” The statement also urged Raffensperger to take a “fresh look” at the evidence and to reject the judge’s recommendation.
Passed after the Civil War, the disqualification clause bars any person who has “engaged in insurrection” against the United States or “given aid or comfort” to its “enemies” from holding federal office if they have previously taken an oath to protect the Constitution. That includes members of Congress.
In his opening statement at Greene’s hearing, Ron Fein, a lawyer representing the five voters and the legal director of Free Speech For People, argued Jan. 6 was an insurrection and was Greene was one of its leaders.
“This was not the type of insurrection where the leaders were standing in Richmond, Virginia, giving long-winded speeches,” Fein said. “Rather, the leaders of this insurrection, of whom there were a number, were among us — on Facebook, Twitter and corners of social media that would make your stomach hurt. The evidence will show that Marjorie Taylor Greene was one of them.”
“The most powerful witness against Marjorie Taylor Greene’s candidacy, the most powerful witness in establishing that she crossed the line into engagement of insurrection, is Marjorie Taylor Greene herself,” he said.
In his opening statement, Greene’s attorney James Bopp, argued that the voters of Georgia’s 14th Congressional District have the “right to vote for the candidate of their choosing. And they have a right to have their vote counted,” adding that Greene was not a perpetrator but a “victim” of the attack, which he argued was “despicable” but not an insurrection.
“Her life was in danger, she thought,” Bopp said. “She was scared and confused.
Greene said that while in lockdown she went inside the cloakroom and made a video directed at those storming the Capitol.
“Obey the law,” Greene said in the video, also played in the courtroom. “This is not a time for violence. This is a time to support president trump and support election integrity. God bless.”
Greene repeatedly denied that she or her office gave tours to or met with protesters ahead of the Jan. 6 rally or that she provided maps of the Capitol building.
“I would have to talk to people on my campaign, but I don’t think we did,” she said. “How would we have done that? We didn’t do anything like that.”
She also insisted she didn’t recall sending tweets and making other social media posts presented as evidence, or the circumstances around many of her statements that were shown on a video monitor in the courtroom.
The hearing heated up when Andrew Celli, another lawyer for the voters, pressed Greene about whether she encouraged former President Donald Trump to impose martial law after the riot.
“And you had meetings with him between the election in 2020 and January 20th of 2021, right?” he asked.
“Yes,” Greene responded.
“And in those meetings, you discussed with him your advocacy for the idea that there should be martial law declared in the United States?” Celli pressed.
“No, I don’t recall ever discussing that,” she responded.
“Are you saying it didn’t happen or you’re saying you don’t recall one way or the other?” Celli continued.
Bopp objected to the line of questioning, but the judge allowed it to continue.
Celli then asked Greene whether she ever advocated for martial law in conversations with then-chief of staff Mark Meadows or Trump prior to President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
“I don’t recall,” Greene said.
Evidence later emerged showing Greene did have conversations with Meadows advocating for martial law to keep Trump in power.
“In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall law [sic],” Greene texted Meadows on Jan. 17, 2021, 11 days after the pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol to try to stop the certification of the vote.
“I don’t know on those things,” Greene continued. “I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next. Please tell him to declassify as much as possible so we can go after Biden and anyone else!”
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders and Will Steakin contributed to this report
(NEW YORK) — Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., joined “The View” Friday to reiterate what she says will be the devastating effects on women’s health if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
Since the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion that would repeal Roe v. Wade was released Monday, Warren has been vocal about her opposition to the court and Republican leaders who have been pushing laws in states to ban legal abortion.
Warren told “The View” that if the Supreme Court moves forward with the decision, it will be hardest on women who can’t afford to travel to locations that permit abortion, including those living in poverty and minorities.
“Who is this going to fall on? This is going to fall on the most vulnerable women in the country,” the senator told the View.
In the leaked draft regarding the Supreme Court’s case on Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, Alito contended the Constitution “does not prohibit the citizens of each state from regulating or prohibiting abortion.”
The leaked draft indicated that four other Supreme Court justices have sided with Alito. The document is not final and opinions can change before the final ruling.
Senate Democrats have introduced the “Women’s Health Protection Act” which would codify Roe v. Wade at the federal level; however, it is unlikely that the bill will get the 60 votes needed to pass.
Warren said it is important that the American people see which of their leaders supported abortion rights under oath.
“The plan gets everyone on the record,” she said. “If we don’t have enough people to get this done right, this is the time to get into the fight.”
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told ABC News that she would vote no on the bill. However, she and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, D-Alaska, have proposed another bill dubbed “Reproductive Choice Act,” which would prohibit states from imposing an “undue burden” on the ability of a woman to choose to terminate a pregnancy before the fetus is viable.
The bill would allow states to keep other restrictions in place.
Warren told “The View” that she doesn’t support the alternate bill because there are too many loopholes that allow for abortion access to be restricted.
“What this is really about is about making sure there is full protection,” she said.
Warren also warned that Alito’s leaked draft could open up future legal challenges to fundamental American rights such as marriage for same-sex couples, the right to contraception and interracial marriage.
“When you read Justice Alito’s opinion, he focuses on history,” she said. “We don’t have a long history of protecting same-sex marriage, we don’t have a long history of interracial marriage.”
(WASHINGTON) — With a leaked draft opinion revealing this week that the U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to overturn nearly 50 years of abortion rights precedent, Democrats and activists are sounding alarms that other rights not explicitly listed in the Constitution — but long-considered protected as implied rights of privacy — could be threatened next.
“If the rationale of the decision — as released — were to be sustained, a whole range of rights are in question — a whole range of rights,” President Joe Biden told reporters on Tuesday, offering his first public reaction to the document as the court confirmed its authenticity.
“If the right to privacy is weakened,” said Vice President Kamala Harris, “every person could face a future in which the government can potentially interfere in the personal decisions you make about your life.”
Their anxiety, legal experts told ABC News, is not only with Roe being overturned but in how it would be overturned — and whether the final opinion’s language and reasoning could set the stage for other unenumerated rights — those not directly listed in the Constitution — to be similarly sent back to be decided by the states.
While Justice Samuel Alito writes in the draft opinion that the court’s decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization concerns only abortion and does not extend to other rights, experts say his current justification for overturning Roe opens the door to imperil other long-standing liberties the court has upheld for decades.
Here’s what legal experts are saying about the draft text:
Alito’s ‘originalist’ approach
The Supreme Court grounded its 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade on the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause, which the court has said guarantees Americans an implicit “right to privacy,” though that phrase is not used in the Constitution.
Justice Harry Blackmun described the constitutional underpinnings of that right when authoring the opinion: “This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy,” the 1973 decision read.
But Alito — rejecting stare decisis, the legal doctrine intended to bind courts to abide by past rulings, as it relates to abortion — called the court’s decision on Roe “egregiously wrong from the start.” Taking an originalist approach, he argues in the draft opinion obtained by Politico that there’s no explicit right to privacy, let alone the right to an abortion, in the Constitution.
“It held that the abortion right, which is not mentioned in the Constitution, is part of a right to privacy, which is also not mentioned,” Alito writes, calling the Roe decision “remarkably loose in its treatment of the constitutional text,” and arguing that stare decisis “does not compel unending adherence to Roe’s abuse of judicial authority.”
Taking issue with Alito’s reasoning, Biden said Wednesday he believes the court’s current conservative majority would agree with failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork’s view that the right to privacy should not have been guaranteed with the court’s ruling in 1965 in Griswold v. Connecticut, which overturned a ban on married couples’ access to contraception.
“Griswold was thought to be a bad decision by Bork, and my guess is, the guys on the Supreme Court now,” Biden said.
Marc Spindelman, a professor at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, said it’s because of Alito’s reasoning — appearing to reject court precedent and the right to privacy in favor of an originalist interpretation of the Constitution — that puts other precedents, like the right to same-sex intimacy in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 and same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, at-risk, since those rights were also bound to the Fourteenth Amendment.
“From the point of view of originalist reasoning, it’s difficult to see what is distinctive about abortion compared to other rights that are now constitutionally protected but that originalist methodology, in principle, threatens,” Spindelman said.
Kate Shaw, a professor at Cardozo School of Law and an ABC News contributor, echoed that view.
“The whole method that the Roe Court used, which is basically to say what are the kind of key attributes of liberty that the Constitution has to protect, whether or not they’re written in the document, Alito says that method is totally illegitimate,” she said. “And instead, what the Constitution should be read to protect is the explicitly enumerated rights and a small, a small list of unenumerated rights, but only rights that are deeply rooted in history and tradition.”
Spillover concern
Alito wrote in the draft opinion, “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”
“What sharply distinguishes the abortion right,” he said, is that it destroys “potential life,” and that “none of the other decisions cited by Roe and Casey involved the critical moral question posed by abortion.”
In deciding whether a right is protected, Alito said the court “has long asked whether the right is ‘deeply rooted in [our] history and tradition’ and whether it is essential to our Nation’s ‘scheme of ordered Liberty.'” In Alito’s view, abortion does not meet that standard.
“What Alito says is, don’t worry. Our decision today is only about abortion, not about anything else,” Spindelman said. “But if an originalist approach is the touchstone for judgment in the case, then it’s hard to see how or why the decision should not apply to other kinds of individual rights that the Court has said are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.”
That approach, in principle, could doom any right that didn’t exist since the country’s founding, Spindelman said.
“It’s difficult to see why if once you pull row up from the roots, why decisions of more recent vintage ought to stay in the ground to be counted by the court as part of its respect for its own precedent,” he added.
So, could the court find a way to pull abortion from the right to privacy without unraveling other precedents? Former Justice Antonin Scalia clerk and vice-dean at the NYU School of Law, Rachel Barkow, doesn’t think so.
“I think that you can’t coherently do it,” she said. “Unfortunately, that is actually what erodes the legitimacy of the court as an institution because it’s not the leak that’s going to damage the court’s legitimacy, it’s not upholding rationales and being consistent over time.”
The problem for the court, she said, is that the Roe decision is part of a line of cases bound to recognizing the right to privacy, “and the draft opinion shows no respect for the right to privacy, and in light of that, all the cases that rely on that right to privacy would also find themselves falling under the same rationale.”
“I think the bigger thing that the public sees is no precedent is safe,” Barkow said “The court’s willingness to just cast aside a 50-year-old precedent, not just any precedent, but one that has been the subject of these confirmation hearings, and it’s a reason that they’re sitting there is they gave assurances to senators that they weren’t going to overrule it, and then they did.”
“I don’t think anyone can really take that group of people’s word if they say, ‘Oh, no, the other precedents are safe,'” she added. “I think they cried wolf one time too many.”
The opinion could change
When the court confirmed the document’s authenticity on Tuesday, it stressed in a statement that it “does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.”
Experts stressed to ABC News that court opinions can change throughout their drafting. The leaked decision could potentially emerge with a different decision entirely — or completely unchanged.
“We don’t know exactly what this final opinion is going to look like when it is issued,” Shaw said. “But I would say absent something truly extraordinary and unexpected happening inside the court, some version of this opinion will be issued as the opinion of the court in a matter of weeks that will be the law of the land, and Roe versus Wade will be no more.”
And if so, the question becomes how soon the fate of other privacy rights will come before the court — from states and others challenging their constitutionality, using the conservative justices’ own arguments.
(WASHINGTON) — Reproductive rights were top of mind for Hillary Clinton and others at the grand opening of the new Global Embassy for Women in Washington, D.C., on Thursday — just days after an unprecedented Supreme Court leak revealed a draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.
“I know this is quite an ironic week for us to be opening the headquarters, but in a way, it’s probably appropriate because no advance is ever permanent,” said Clinton, former first lady and secretary of state, before hosting a panel on the state of women’s rights. “There are always forces at work to turn the clock back, particularly on women and we know there still is a double standard about what is or is not expected and appropriate for how women make the choices in our own lives.”
The headquarters was established by Vital Voices, an international nonprofit that invests in women’s leadership and empowerment. It was founded in 1997 by the late former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Clinton and Melanne Verveer, former U.S. ambassador for global women’s issues.
Clinton described the recent Supreme Court revelation and state-level abortion restrictions as hurdles to progress while touting the embassy as a call to action and a place for women leaders to gather, plan and mobilize.
“We’re not going back and we are not giving in,” Clinton said. “We’re going to do everything we can to organize and agitate and motivate everyone we can reach [to ensure] the forward movement of progress that has been the hallmark of this great country of ours.”
The Center for Reproductive Rights estimates that up to 25 states could outlaw abortion entirely if the draft opinion holds.
In an exclusive interview with CBS News on Thursday, Clinton called the prospect “incredibly dangerous,” and said Americans should take action at the ballot box in November’s midterm elections.
“It is not just about a woman’s right to choose, it is about much more than that. And I hope people now are fully aware of what we’re up against, because the only answer is at the ballot box, to elect people who will stand up for every American’s rights,” she said. “
“And any American who says, ‘Look, I’m not a woman, this doesn’t affect me. I’m not Black, that doesn’t affect me. I’m not gay, that doesn’t affect me.’ Once you allow this kind of extreme power to take hold, you have no idea who they will come for next,” she added.
(WASHINGTON) — Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has spent much of this week defending the department’s newly established Disinformation Governance Board in response to Republican lawmakers’ concerns about partisan influence in federal law enforcement.
The board, according to DHS, was actually created to address privacy concerns that arise with disinformation campaigns when information is shared between departments as well as to ensure it’s done appropriately. But the Orwellian name and an admittedly clumsy rollout immediately raised eyebrows as well as ignited a pre-existing debate about free speech and partisanship — especially given the person tasked with leading the board’s activities.
“Given the complete lack of information about this new initiative and the potential serious consequences of a government entity identifying and responding to ‘disinformation,’ we have serious concerns about the activities of this new Board, particularly under Ms. Jankowicz’s leadership,” Mike Turner and John Katko, Republican leaders of the House Committee on Homeland Security, wrote in a letter to Mayorkas last week.
In a fact sheet released Monday, the department admits that “there has been confusion about the working group, its role, and its activities” and vows to work on building greater public trust.
That confusion over the board’s work stemmed from a comment Mayorkas made to Congress last week that it would be used to “more effectively combat” the threat of false information. DHS has now said the body will not be involved in managing department operations and Mayorkas said the group would “bring together the experts throughout our department to ensure that our ongoing work in combating disinformation is done in a way that does not infringe on free speech, a fundamental constitutional right embedded in the First Amendment, nor on the right of privacy or other civil rights and civil liberties.”
The White House on Friday pledged the board will operate in a “nonpartisan and apolitical manner.”
But Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, was not sold.
“I think you’ve got no idea what disinformation is, and I don’t think the government is capable of it,” he said during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing.
The secretary pushed back on the assertion from Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., that the board will be the “truth police.”
“The Department of Homeland Security is not going to be the truth police,” Mayorkas said. “That is the farthest thing from the truth. We protect the security of the homeland.”
The GOP criticisms also center on Nina Jankowicz, the former Wilson Center fellow tapped to lead the board. Jankowicz, who is routinely outspoken on Twitter, has publicly criticized Republicans and sowed doubt about the accuracy of press reports critical of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
Jankowicz was quoted by the Associated Press in 2020 refuting a story about the discovery of new emails that reportedly linked Hunter Biden and a Ukrainian energy executive with the president.
“We should view it as a Trump campaign product,” Jankowicz told the AP that October.
She later suggested on Twitter that the emails were “part of an influence campaign.”
“Voters deserve that context, not a fairy tale about a laptop repair shop,” Jankowicz wrote.
The New York Times and Washington Post confirmed the authenticity of the emails related to Hunter Biden with the help of security experts in March. ABC News has not independently confirmed the veracity of the emails, which were first reported by the New York Post in an article that was flagged as disinformation on Twitter. The social media company demanded the tabloid delete the posts but eventually backed down when it refused.
The debate over the new board takes place against the backdrop of a long-standing divide over regulating speech, especially online. Fueled by libertarian beliefs in an unregulated public sphere, leaders on the right have championed figures like Elon Musk, whose recent acquisition of Twitter was met with skepticism and concern from those who believe social media companies have a duty to remove vitriolic harassment, disinformation and misinformation on their platforms.
“Your priority is setting up a board and hiring someone who has gone to TikTok to talk about stopping speech she doesn’t like, who has mocked voters of the last president, that has been your priority, and to say your priorities are misplaced is a dramatic understatement, and the time I think has come, Mr. Secretary, for you to resign,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., told Mayorkas.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said Jankowicz has made “political statements” in the past that would disqualify her from holding the position on the board.
“I think it’s a terrible idea,” Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said.
Mayorkas, for his part, pushed back, saying he didn’t know about the TikTok posts and, as secretary, he is ultimately responsible for what occurs at DHS. He also declined to say who hired Jankowicz but stressed she must do her job in a nonpartisan way.
John Cohen, the former acting intelligence chief at DHS who helped stand up the disinformation board and left the department last month, said the board simply addresses a communication issue within the department.
“It didn’t coordinate operational activities, it wasn’t governing intelligence operations, it had no input on how organizations collect intelligence or information,” Cohen, now an ABC News contributor, said. “It was simply intended to be a working group that would gather on an ad hoc basis to address matters of policy.”
