Heather Cox Richardson: What Does the Republican Party Believe in?

Historian Heather Cox Richardson writes today about some latest votes in Congress that described what Republicans are towards.

Republicans feel that states ought to command which legal rights are secured inside their borders. They do not consider in abortion rights. They do not believe that in the appropriate to have access to contraception. They do not believe in relationship equality. They do not consider that gals have the ideal to cross condition traces if they are expecting. (How Will states implement that past belief? By administering being pregnant assessments to each and every girl underneath 50 who is attempting to go away a state where by abortion is illegal?)

What do they consider in? Not flexibility or liberty, since they legislate constraints on non-public action. They do feel in censorship, bans on habits in the privacy of your bedroom, bans on matters that may possibly be talked about in the classroom. Republicans want to restore a legendary planet of white male supremacy.

Richardson writes:

Significantly from rejecting the idea of minority rule soon after viewing wherever it led, Republican Get together lawmakers have doubled down.

They have embraced the plan that point out legislatures must dominate our political program, and so in 2021, at least 19 states passed 34 legal guidelines to limit accessibility to voting. On June 24, in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Well being determination, the Supreme Court stated that the federal authorities did not have the electricity, less than the Fourteenth Modification, to safeguard the constitutional appropriate to abortion, bringing the other legal rights that amendment safeguards into question. When Democrats established out to safeguard some of all those legal rights as a result of federal laws, Republicans in Congress overwhelmingly voted to oppose these kinds of legal guidelines.

In the House, Republicans voted versus federal protection of an individual’s right to pick whether to proceed or close a being pregnant and to protect a health treatment provider’s capacity to supply abortion expert services: 209 Republicans voted no 2 did not vote. Which is 99% of Dwelling Republicans.

They voted from the right to use contraception: 195 out of 209 Republicans voted no 2 didn’t vote. That is 96% of Dwelling Republicans.

They voted towards marriage equality: 157 out of 204 Republicans voted no 7 didn’t vote. Which is 77% of Household Republicans.

They voted from a monthly bill guaranteeing a woman’s appropriate to vacation across point out lines to receive abortion companies: 205 out of 208 Republicans voted no 3 did not vote. That’s 97% of Dwelling Republicans.

Sixty-two per cent of Us residents feel abortion really should be legal. Seventy % assistance gay relationship. Much more than 90% of Americans feel delivery handle ought to be authorized. I just can’t locate polling on regardless of whether Americans guidance the strategy of girls staying equipped to cross state lines without the need of limits, but a single would hope that idea is also well-liked. And still, Republican lawmakers are at ease standing firmly from the agency will of the people today. The legal guidelines preserving these legal rights handed by means of the Residence many thanks to frustrating Democratic guidance but will have difficulty receiving earlier a Republican filibuster in the Senate.