As I wrote on Wednesday morning, Democrats losing their minds over the coming overturning of Roe v. Wade have been desperately searching for a way out. While their best hope is for Chief Justice John Roberts to somehow lure one of the five conservatives to his side, another ploy is to “codify” a “right” to abortion at the federal level.
Sen. Chuck Schumer has already come out and announced a vote on a bill that will legalize abortion through birth. In order to pass it, Democrats have been stumping to blow up the filibuster, a common refrain when it comes to anything they can’t otherwise pass in a legitimate manner.
Today, this Senate will vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act to codify the right to an abortion into federal law.
The American people will see where every single U.S. Senator stands.
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) May 11, 2022
Unfortunately for the pro-abortion fanatics, Sen. Joe Manchin has other ideas. He came flying in off the top rope and nuked not just eliminating the filibuster, but he’s a “no” on the bill itself.
New – Manchin tells us he’s a NO on Dem bill on abortion rights. Says it’s too broad of an expansion. Says he would support a codification of Roe but says this bill goes too far
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 11, 2022
This is a complete embarrassment for Schumer and the Democrat Party. Their cardinal issue is abortion, mainly because they have nothing else to run on, and they aren’t even going to get 50 votes on their big codification bill. Worse for them, what if Jon Tester or some other “moderate” senator also votes against it and this turns into a wipeout? The failure of the bill also makes a lot of Democrats look like idiots for once again stumping to blow up the filibuster when they don’t even have the votes to pass the bill regardless.
At some point, you lose your political capital regarding the push to get rid of the filibuster. If every single issue is worthy of blowing it up over, then onlookers are going to get the hint that the Democrats simply don’t care about our system of government and will do anything to get their way. Don’t like a Supreme Court decision? Pack the court. Don’t like our immigration laws? Want to pass a massive spending boondoggle? Abolish the filibuster. That’s not going to play well with most Americans.
The other thing that strikes me about this is how politically stupid the Democrat leadership is. They had a chance here to actually win an argument over Roe by proposing a limited codification that essentially protected abortion in the first trimester. Would I agree with that? No, but most Americans would have. That also would have garnered Manchin’s vote and several votes on the GOP side. Instead, because Democrats are so beholden to the far-left, they decided to propose a bill that allows abortion at a level only a small percentage of people support.
The failure theater on display here is enough to make Republicans blush. Schumer knows he’s going to lose this vote, but he’s naive enough to think that getting everyone on record will benefit Democrats. I just don’t think it will. Instead, I believe it’s going to provide fodder on how radical the left is. I guess we’ll find out.
