Wednesday, April 10, 2024

Arizona -- this was not what I was planning on writing when I got up this morning

I had a fun repost of some cool turn-of-the-century tech ready to go then this happened...

... so we're back in quotes and anecdotes, trying to get a feel for what smart people like Josh Marshall are saying and collecting material for the actual posts I'm planning on writing when the smoke clears. 

Marshall posted twice on this story today, first with a general overview.

The court decision out of Arizona reminds us there are lots of unknowns still to reveal themselves over the course of this election. This is a pretty big one. The state court ruled that Dobbs means the near complete ban on abortion under an 1864 law must be enforced in the state. If I’m understanding the ruling, it is for the moment stayed. So it doesn’t go into effect today. But it likely will pretty soon. Arizona abortion rights advocates say they already have sufficient signatures to get an abortion ballot initiative on the ballot for November. That’s not confirmed yet. But these groups have a lot of experience knowing the number of excess signatures required to be certain you’re going to get on the ballot. So it’s a safe assumption that that ballot initiative will be on the ballot. It’s just not certain.

 At the risk of pointing out the obvious, that's two large, strongly pro-choice, red or reddish states with horribly oppressive anti-abortion laws that will almost certainly have ballot initiatives addressing those laws come November. No one knows how big or small the impact of this will be, but we can say it has the potential to be huge.

Arizona Republicans are in what Marshall called "full panic mode."

 Whatever happens in Arizona in November we got a preview of the difficulty Republican candidates will have in states where high stakes ballot initiatives literally put abortion on the ballot. Shortly after Arizona’s high court ruled that the state must go back to the 1864 abortion law which forbids virtually every abortion, Kari Lake, probable GOP senate nominee (and governor over the water) released a remarkable statement. She first denounced the 1864 law, which she said she supported as recently as last fall. She said she opposed today’s ruling. She then demanded Gov. Katie Hobbs and the Republican state legislature “come up with an immediate common sense solution that Arizonans can support.” She then said that the decision will be up to voters in the ballot initiative that will be on the November ballot, that is, the initiative she actually opposes.

Lake's efforts to wriggle out of this quandary are great impeded by the fact that people have recorded what Lake has been saying for the past couple of years.  

Kari Lake in 2022: I don’t believe in abortion. The older 1864 abortion ban is going to go into effect. Life begins at conception. I don’t think abortion pills should be legal

 

 

The people who supported her because of those statements are not happy.

 

 And Lake is not an isolated case.


Former governor, but in office when things went down.


 Again at the risk of stating the obvious, the timing of this cuts off Trump's "moderate" spin of at the knees.

The Democrats are wasting no time going on the attack.

 




  And we close with a shameless ear worm. You have been warned.

 

 

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