Have you heard a loud public outcry for Republicans in the Florida Legislature to use their unprecedented new power to increase restrictions on abortion, even more than they did last year?
Yeah, me neither.
It’s understandable that the total rout by the GOP last week would be intoxicating. Republicans have been in control of the governor’s office and both the House and Senate since the late 1990s, but this year’s elections gave Gov. Ron DeSantis an emphatic mandate with super majorities in both chambers.
The Democrats can kibitz from the back of the House and Senate, offer symbolic amendments to be rejected by party-line rollcalls, and hold news conferences to decry whatever DeSantis and Republican lawmakers ram through the Legislature. Basically, they’ll be treated pretty much like the Democrats treated the GOP when they ran the show, long ago.
When the U.S. Supreme Court reversed its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which had legalized abortion, several states had “trigger laws” to ban the procedure in different ways. Florida last year passed a law forbidding abortion after 15 weeks gestation, with no exceptions for victims of rape or incest, and the state Supreme Court has not said whether it will hear a constitutional challenge to it.
There’s a good argument that the privacy provision of the Florida Constitution — which has blocked previous attempts at limiting medical choice — should invalidate last year’s law. But the high court is more conservative than it was when past rulings were rendered.
Charlie Crist made abortion a big issue against DeSantis, and Democrats all over the state cited the new law in their campaigns. We can see where that got most of them.
After the elections, incoming Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, said she’d support lowering the legal abortion threshold to 12 weeks, with exceptions for rape and incest. House Speaker-designate Paul Renner, R-Palm Harbor, declined to choose a number but said he’d consult House and Senate leadership in crafting any new restrictions.
DeSantis said after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that he was amenable to further limits.
Anti-abortion activists plan a rally at the Capitol as legislators convene their organizational session. DeSantis could add abortion to the call of a special session planned to deal with property insurance issues after recent hurricanes, but it’s more likely that the matter will be left until the regular 2023 session.
With their steamroller-sized legislative majorities, the Republicans can do anything they want. If the rules get in the way, they can waive them.
More Bill Cotterell:
President Biden said last week the Democrats probably don’t have the votes in Congress to codify Roe v. Wade into law, assuring women the abortion choice they had for almost 50 years before last summer. But several states are acting individually and there will probably be a signature campaign to put a pro-choice amendment into the Florida Constitution as early as 2024.
The “pro-life” cause has been on somewhat of a losing streak nationally. First, voters in conservative Kansas voted down an anti-choice initiative. This month, the public voted to protect abortion rights in five states.
California, Michigan and Vermont approved ballot measures assuring personal privacy in matters of reproduction and contraception. Kentucky voters soundly defeated an initiative that would have stated there is no right to abortion in that state. In Montana, an edict requiring doctors to do all they could to save aborted babies went down to defeat.
That’s a wide range of fairly conservative states (well, except California). Does anyone think Florida voters are all that different?
Poll after poll, taken after the Supreme Court ruling was leaked last May, indicated most Floridians believe abortion should remain legal in all or most cases. There is a hard core of anti-abortion absolutists, but nobody really gets elected or defeated for their positions on abortion.
After the Nov. 8 red tide that washed over Florida, DeSantis and the Legislature can clearly do whatever they want. But just because they can doesn’t mean they should.
Bill Cotterell is a retired Tallahassee Democrat capitol reporter who writes a twice-weekly column. He can be reached at bcotterell@tallahassee.com.
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