Watch for it, red staters
Chris Cooper, a poli-sci professor at Western Carolina University, observes a GOP move you’ll likely see in your red-state legislature if you have not already. This one is from North Carolina.
Republicans can’t have private donors who support democracy stepping in to prop up state and local Boards of Elections the GOP means to starve of funds.
What? No mention of a Hungarian-American businessman in the bill? Attend your local Board meeting. It will likely come up among conspiracy theorists there.
The GOP really is pulling out every stop to sabotage elections and undermine any of your rights they can get their hands on.
Women’s rights, their personal autonomy and freedoms, are under assault too. You’ve noticed? North Carolina Republicans rolled out their abortion ban legislation on Wednesday too:
RALEIGH, N.C. (WGHP) – Four Republicans in the North Carolina House have filed a bill that would ban legal abortion in the state except as necessary to save a mother’s life.
House Bill 533 was filed Wednesday by state Rep. Keith Kidwell (R-Beautfort), its primary sponsor, Rep. Ben Moss (R-Moore), Rep. Edward Goodwin (R-Chowan) and Rep. Kevin Crutchfield (R-Cabarrus), and it would ban abortion processes except in cases of a spontaneous abortion of the fetus or an ectopic pregnancy.North Carolina sports gambling is on to Senate after final OK from much-debating House
There are specific requirements for how those exceptions must be carried out – such as only through a licensed physician – and the bill creates felony charges for any action prohibited in the bill that “results in the death of an unborn child.” It specifies civil penalties and disciplinary action that includes the removal of medical licenses.
Take some time to read Rebecca Traister’s excellent analysis of how Democrats can fight back and defeat the “omnidirectional storm” Republican extremists have launched to infringe women’s decision-making as part of their project to undermine democracy:
For some Democrats, the project ahead may mean casting abortion as a draw for employers, businesses, and students deciding where to attend schools. For others, abortion may land smack in the middle of a series of health-care priorities that should support Americans from birth to death. For still others, it is one of the many civil rights that generations of Americans fought for, part of the inclusive vision of the American promise that Republicans are eager to tear up. In every case, Democrats should present abortion as simply and plainly integral to an American ideal, a promise made without apology but also without fetishization.
As Morpheus said, “Free your mind.”