{"id":1544081,"date":"2022-07-08T08:05:27","date_gmt":"2022-07-08T12:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1544081"},"modified":"2022-07-08T08:05:38","modified_gmt":"2022-07-08T12:05:38","slug":"by-flocking-to-dc-post-roe-flyover-democrat-lawmakers-show-their-allegiance-is-to-abortion-radicalism-over-constituents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/by-flocking-to-dc-post-roe-flyover-democrat-lawmakers-show-their-allegiance-is-to-abortion-radicalism-over-constituents\/","title":{"rendered":"By Flocking To DC Post-Roe, Flyover Democrat Lawmakers Show Their Allegiance Is To Abortion Radicalism Over Constituents"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">34<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fby-flocking-to-dc-post-roe-flyover-democrat-lawmakers-show-their-allegiance-is-to-abortion-radicalism-over-constituents%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1544081&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/pexels-derek-french-12616196-1-scaled-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>State Democrat leaders appear to care more about abortion than they do the Constitution or their local citizens. This became clear after the Supreme Court overturned <em>Roe<\/em> and <em>Casey<\/em> last month in <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/21pdf\/19-1392_6j37.pdf\">Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization<\/a><\/em>, stressing that the court was returning the authority to regulate abortion to the people and their elected representatives, where it rightly belongs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe permissibility of abortion, and the limitations, upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting,\u201d the <em>Dobbs<\/em> court explained, adding \u201cthat is what the Constitution and the rule of law demand.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>The Lawsuits<\/h2>\n<p>The abortion lobby, however, has no intent of allowing citizens to have a say and proved that point by promptly filing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2022\/06\/29\/1108251712\/roe-v-wade-abortion-ruling-state-constitutions\">lawsuits<\/a> in four states, Utah, Kentucky, Idaho, and Mississippi, arguing that a right to abortion exists in those states\u2019 constitutions. Prior to the <em>Dobbs<\/em> decision dropping last month \u2014 a decision that ruled solely that there was no federal constitutional right to abortion \u2014 abortion apologists had likewise filed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2022\/06\/29\/1108251712\/roe-v-wade-abortion-ruling-state-constitutions\">lawsuits<\/a> in Florida and Michigan in anticipation of the Supreme Court overturning <em>Roe<\/em> and <em>Casey<\/em>, arguing those states\u2019 respective constitutions contained a right to abortion.<\/p>\n<p>Just as five justices in <em>Roe<\/em> commandeered from the people the authority to regulate abortion through the \u201cexercise of raw judicial power,\u201d the abortion lobby demands the justices of the states\u2019 highest courts do the same. While <em>Dobbs<\/em> accelerated the left\u2019s litigation efforts, abortion apologists have been turning to activist state court judges for decades, seeking declarations by those individual high courts that their state constitutions compel an abortion-on-demand regime.<\/p>\n<p>To date, this strategy has <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/06\/27\/post-dobbs-the-abortion-battle-hits-activist-state-courts\/\">succeeded<\/a> in least nine states, with the highest courts have declared that a state constitutional right to abortion exists \u2014 and a \u201cright\u201d that far surpasses the framework that previously controlled in <em>Roe<\/em> and <em>Casey<\/em>. <\/p>\n<p>For instance, in Alaska, based on a supposed state constitutional right to abortion, courts have <a href=\"https:\/\/kansascatholic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Kirk-Testimony-on-VTB.pdf\">struck<\/a> down legislation requiring parental consent and parental notification, Furthermore, under the Alaska constitution, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/kansascatholic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Kirk-Testimony-on-VTB.pdf\">state courts<\/a>, there is a right to taxpayer-funded abortion. California <a href=\"https:\/\/kansascatholic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Kirk-Testimony-on-VTB.pdf\">did<\/a> almost the exact same thing. Florida courts had similarly <a href=\"https:\/\/kansascatholic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Kirk-Testimony-on-VTB.pdf\">declared<\/a> parental-consent and parental-notice laws unconstitutional under its the state constitution. <\/p>\n<p>In Iowa, the state\u2019s constitution was held to <a href=\"https:\/\/kansascatholic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Kirk-Testimony-on-VTB.pdf\">invalidate<\/a> a 72-hour waiting period, while the courts in Montana, declared unconstitutional the state\u2019s law requiring only physicians to perform abortions. \u201cTennessee struck down informed consent and waiting period\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/kansascatholic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Kirk-Testimony-on-VTB.pdf\">provisions<\/a>, while Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New Jersey courts have <a href=\"https:\/\/kansascatholic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Kirk-Testimony-on-VTB.pdf\">held<\/a> that their respective constitutions require taxpayer funding of abortions. Massachusetts also <a href=\"https:\/\/kansascatholic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Kirk-Testimony-on-VTB.pdf\">struck<\/a> a parental-consent statute and New Jersey a parental-notice law. \u201cAll of those statutes and regulations would have been <a href=\"https:\/\/kansascatholic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Kirk-Testimony-on-VTB.pdf\">upheld<\/a> under <em>Casey<\/em>, but were struck down under independent state constitutional analyses.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>A Trip to Washington<\/h2>\n<p>The abortion lobby\u2019s success in installing an abortion-on-demand regime through litigation and activist justices is not limited to blue states, however. In 2019, two abortion providers prevailed using that same strategy in conservative Kansas, when in <em>Hodes and Nauser v. Schmidt<\/em>, they argued the state\u2019s ban on dismemberment abortions \u2014 those in which live human beings are killed by being ripped apart limb by limb \u2014 violated the state constitution. The Kansas Supreme Court, which included four justices appointed by Democrat Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a supporter of legal abortion, agreed and held that the state constitution provided a right to abortion.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2017\/11\/02\/kansas-supreme-court-rule-dismemberment-ban-important-abortion-case\/\">Kansans<\/a>, \u201cwho have consistently elected one of the most pro-life and pro-active state <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kfl.org\/legislation_legislativesuccesses.html\">legislatures<\/a> in this country,\u201d immediately moved to counter the judicial activism that led to the discovery of a right to abortion buried in the state\u2019s 150-plus-year-old constitution by seeking to amend it. And on August 2, 2022, citizens of the midwestern state will vote on the Value Them Both Amendment, which, if passed, will amend the Kansas constitution to clarify that there is no state right to abortion and that the people of Kansas, through their elected state legislators, retain the right to pass laws to regulate abortion.<\/p>\n<p>Passage of the Value Them Both Amendment would not dictate abortion policy but would return to the Kansas Legislature the authority to regulate abortion that the state Supreme Court had wrested away from it in <em>Hodes<\/em>. In turn, Kansans, through their exercise of the franchise and the election of lawmakers to represent them, could decide the permissibility of abortion and any limitations on it.<\/p>\n<p>Unsurprisingly, the abortion lobby opposes the Value Them Both Amendment because it knows Kansans would never vote for the extreme abortion regime forced upon the state by a handful of state Supreme Court justices. Laws establishing waiting period or parental-notification requirements \u2014 laws declared unconstitutional under other state constitutions \u2014 are solidly mainstream. Likewise, voters overwhelmingly oppose using tax dollars to pay for abortions, but again, under the reasoning of <em>Hodes<\/em>, the state must pay for abortions.<\/p>\n<p>While the abortion lobby opposes passage of the Value Them Both Amendment, logically Kansan legislators should strongly support its passage because it would return the authority to make the laws to the legislative branch. Top Kansan Democrat legislators <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/politics\/kansas-will-be-the-first-state-to-vote-on-abortion-rights-after-roe-ruling-heres-what-that-means\">oppose<\/a> the Value Them Both Amendment, however, demonstrating that they put abortion above the proper functioning of their representative democracy.<\/p>\n<p>Top Kansan Democrat legislators also value abortion more than state\u2019s rights and federalism, as demonstrated by the trip eight leading Democrat lawmakers made to D.C. last month to coordinate with White House officials on their opposition to the Value Them Both Amendment. Kansas Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, House Minority Whip Stephanie Clayton, Senate Minority Whip Pat Pettey, House Minority Caucus Chair Barbara Ballard, Senate Agenda Chair Marci Francisco, and Reps. Sydney Carlin, Gail Finney, and Christina Haswood all traveled to D.C. to meet with the Biden administration\u2019s Gender Policy Council Director Jennifer Klein and Intergovernmental Affairs Director Julie Chavez Rodriguez.<\/p>\n<p>While few details were released about the meeting, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/statements-releases\/2022\/06\/03\/readout-of-white-house-meeting-with-state-legislative-leaders-on-reproductive-rights-2\/\">readout<\/a> of the event made clear the focus concerned the upcoming vote on the proposed amendment to Kansas\u2019s constitution. But what business is that of the White House? State legislators properly focused on their role as representatives of Kansans should disdain federal encroachment in matters of state law. That the top Democrat state legislators seek the Biden administration\u2019s involvement tells their constituents everything they need to know about where the priorities of those lawmakers lie: with ensuring Kansas\u2019s extreme abortion regime remains unchecked.<\/p>\n<p>It is not merely their recent trip to D.C. that exposed the skewed priorities of these lawmakers. Rather, Kansas Democrats serving in the state House and Senate revealed they put the national party over their local constituents. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot one Democrat, including those who hold themselves out as pro-life, voted in favor of the Value Them Both Amendment,\u201d Elizabeth Kirk, a researcher and lecturer at Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America and director of the Center for Law and the Human Person, told The Federalist.<\/p>\n<p>Kirk, who testified before the Kansas Legislature during hearings on the proposed constitutional amendment, stressed the irony of the situation. \u201cMany of the same legislators who voted in favor of the dismemberment abortion ban voted against placing the Value Them Both Amendment on the ballot, when all the amendment does is return the power to the legislative branch to regulate abortion.\u201d Kirk added that for Kansas\u2019s supposedly pro-life Democrats to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kansascity.com\/opinion\/readers-opinion\/guest-commentary\/article239927298.html\">abandon their principles<\/a> shows just how strong the allegiance to abortion is to the party.<\/p>\n<p>On August 2, 2022, ordinary Kansans will show whether they share that allegiance when they decide the fate of the Value Them Both Amendment. And while they may not realize it, they will likely also be forecasting the future of federalism and representative democracy when it comes to abortion. For where Kansas goes, so too likely will the country.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Margot Cleveland is The Federalist&#8217;s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. <\/p>\n<p>Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize\u2014the law school\u2019s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. <\/p>\n<p>As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>State Democrat leaders appear to care more about abortion than they do the Constitution or their local citizens. This became clear after the Supreme Court overturned Roe and Casey last<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":499,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1544081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/499"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1544081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1544081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1544081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1544081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}