Some of us have been talking about this for a long time and are usually told to sit down and shut up, it will never happen. Let’s hope that’s true. But here are a couple of signs that they’re going to give it a good old fashioned try:
It may have been the last question of last week’s debate for the three men seeking the GOP nomination for Michigan attorney general, but the inquiry seeking their stances on a 1965 Supreme Court ruling has garnered the most attention.
The question concerned the high court’s decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, a landmark decision that struck down Connecticut’s ban on the sale of contraception. Citing a “right to marital privacy,” Griswold helped to pave the way for 1973’s Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion that many experts expect will be overturned or gutted by the right-wing-majority Supreme Court this year.
However, at Friday night’s forum at Alpena Community College, all three candidates — Former House Speaker Tom Leonard (R-DeWitt), state Rep. Ryan Berman (R-Commerce Twp) and Kalamazoo-based attorney Matthew DePerno, indicated they thought the issue was wrongly decided and trampled on states’ rights.
After seeking clarification as to what the Griswold decision was, Leonard was the first to respond. “This case, much like Roe v. Wade, I believe was wrongly decided, because this is…it was an issue that trampled states’ rights and it was an issue that should have been left up to the states.”
Berman then echoed that, after indicating that he was unaware of the decision.
“You know, what? I wasn’t familiar with Griswold vs. Connecticut, but I’m an advanced legal researcher, so I pulled it up real quick to look what it was about,” he said. “And it says the court ruled that the Constitution did in fact protect the right of marital privacy against state restrictions on contraception. Again, I would have to look more into it and the reasoning behind it, but I’m all about states’ rights and limiting federal, and especially federal, judicial activism.”
DePerno followed suit, saying, “I didn’t know we could have our phones up here.”
The line drew laughter from the audience and prompted Berman to quip, “You gotta be quick.”
DePerno then continued, saying that the Griswold and Roe decisions were states’ right issues and predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court would rule that “the privacy issue currently is unworkable.”
DePerno, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump and is known for espousing conspiracy theories, then finished with a flourish.
“We need to start defending state rights as attorney generals, across this country,” he said. “Too many people, even in our own party, too many people have lost the idea of what states’ rights means. They haven’t read the works of our Founding Fathers. They haven’t read The Federalist Papers. They continue to push the idea that we need to give rights away to the federal government. We don’t. We need to take state rights back. We need to stand in our borders. When the feds come and try to take our rights, we need to stand as citizens in Michigan and hold the line and protect states’ rights.”
While that drew a hearty round of applause from Friday’s audience, it prompted a less than celebratory response from the woman all three candidates are hoping to replace this November. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, tweeted out afterward it was “terrifying” that the three Republicans running for Michigan attorney general “just stated that they oppose the ruling in Griswold v Connecticut which outlawed prosecuting married couples for using contraception.”
They aren’t the only ones. Here’s Florida:
In case you aren’t following along, Florida Republicans — having pushed through a ban on rape & incest victims getting abortions — are now coming after birth control:
And yes, the guy speaking here is the former assistant attorney general of Michigan, who was fired after it was discovered he was running a homophobic blog dedicated solely to attacking a gay University of Michigan student.
Originally tweeted by Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) on February 21, 2022.
Can they get this done? Who knows? But now that they are on the cusp of getting their dream ban on Roe vs Wade, they have to keep the folks engaged with something. They’ll just start equating birth control with abortion and many of their people will just carry on as if it’s exactly the same thing.