One irony of politics is that you are often punished for fixing a problem. The most famous example of this is Winston Churchill, who, after winning World War II, was promptly thrown out of office in 1945. No good deed goes unpunished; once you have solved our problems, we have no more use for you.
Today’s Republican Party seems to understand this concept (look no further than Donald Trump sabotaging border security in order to keep the issue alive), and Democrats in Arizona, at least, apparently, do not.
In case you missed it, the Arizona Senate voted on Wednesday to repeal the 1864 abortion ban that the Arizona Supreme Court reimposed last month. All 14 Democrats (with the help of two Republicans) voted for repeal, and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs immediately signaled she would sign the bill.
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Now, let’s put aside the seriousness of this issue for a minute, and just consider a hardball political question: If abortion is a winning issue for Democrats and Joe Biden, wouldn’t they be better off if voters had to live with this Civil War-era law, at least until November?
To put it cynically, wouldn’t it have been politically smarter for Dems to take their time repealing this “Republican”-imposed abortion law, the same way Trump’s Republicans prevented the border from being fixed before November?
If Dems wanted to keep their progressive base fired up, they could have done so—and they could have been more devious than Republicans, who telegraphed that they were intentionally killing border security for political purposes. Indeed, Democrats could have furtively stymied repeal of the 1864 law, while simultaneously blaming Republicans for causing—and prolonging—the problem.
House Republicans in Arizona blocked initial attempts to repeal the 1864 ban. As such, it would have been very easy for Democrats to drag this out and avoid solving the problem, à la Trump and the border crisis.
Of course, even before the 1864 ban was repealed, Democrats already seemed hellbent on making sure the abortion issue wouldn’t be fully supercharged.
Right after the court ruling was handed down, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, said that she wouldn’t prosecute abortion cases under the ban. In so doing, Mayes undercut the notion that restrictive abortion laws and court decisions matter all that much. Never mind that enforcing the law is her actual job.
Regardless of how you feel about abortion or immigration, the contrast between the way these two parties reacted to developments that each respective side’s base views as an “emergency” was telling.
Republicans prioritized Trump’s 2024 election chances; they decided they would rather have the immigration issue than the policy victory. Conversely, Democrats made the opposite choice: They prioritized securing abortion rights today over keeping the issue alive for November.
Will this cost them? “Abortion rights are very popular,” according to CNN’s Harry Enten, and “Biden is much more trusted on abortion than Trump. If this election is about abortion,” he tweeted on Thursday, “Biden wins.”
“The problem?” Enten continues: The election, at this point, is about the economy [and] immigration. Issues where Trump dominates.” If Democrats want the election to be about abortion, they would be well served to make sure that it is top-of-mind for voters in November. And fixing Republican errors, in this regard, would seem to be tantamount to interrupting their opponents while they are in the process of committing political suicide.
To be sure, there’s something to be said for doing the right thing for your constituents, and not playing games. In this regard, Arizona Democrats deserve credit for actually working to implement their values.
I’m tempted to give Republicans who wanted to stick with the 1864 law similar credit for being true to their convictions. But even as a center-right columnist who opposes abortion in most cases, it’s hard to support a law that was enacted before Arizona was even a state.
Rather than defend what is (in the minds of most mainstream Americans) indefensible, Arizona Republicans should craft a compassionate law that seeks to save babies and allows for the kinds of broader exceptions that could achieve a modicum of mainstream consensus.
Case in point: One of the two Republicans who voted with Dems to overturn the law was Shawnna Bolick, an anti-abortion Trump supporter. She gave a speech that shared details about her previous miscarriages: “Having a D&C my first trimester because the baby wasn’t viable was very tough.” She then asked, “Would Arizona’s pre-Roe law have allowed me to have this medical procedure, even though at the time my life was not in danger?”
Republicans would do well to consider that there are lots of Shawnna Bolicks floating around in swing states.
The events in Arizona suggest that at least some Republicans have not given up on governing; and, in at least one state, there are politicians willing to resist the pull of partisan incentives. The question now is whether they will live to regret it.
But never fear, progressives; this issue is still politically potent. The repeal won’t take effect for 90 days, which may give it some additional legs in Arizona. What is more, there will likely be abortion rights initiatives on the ballot in Arizona this fall.
And on top of all of that, the Arizona vote perfectly coincided with the enactment of Florida’s six-week abortion ban.
If national Democrats are looking for examples to make the abortion issue relevant in November, Arizona won’t be the only game in town.
