Dem
51
GOP
49
Many of the items above should disturb pretty much everyone. But here's one that should be disturbing to Republicans, particularly those members of the party who are hoping for a red wave (or even a red trickle) in 2024.
Since Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk effectively outlawed mifepristone by fiat last Friday, there has been much outrage on the Democratic side of the aisle. We'll have more on this tomorrow, but for now it's enough to say it was a deeply problematic decision for the Judge to make, since he substituted his extremely non-expert scientific opinion in place of the opinions of a gaggle of FDA scientists, not to mention more than 20 years of real-world experience.
In view of Kacsmaryk's presumption, many Democratic officeholders have called on the Biden administration to ignore the Judge's ruling. After all, it's not only problematic, it's also at odds with the decision announced on the same day by Washington judge Thomas Rice. And now, a sitting Republican members of the House has joined that chorus. It's Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who sat for an interview with CNN and expressed her view that there was "no basis" for Kacsmaryk's ruling, and said "I agree with ignoring it at this point... this thing should just be thrown, out quite frankly."
Many times, we have made mention of the 18 House Republicans who are in districts that Biden won in 2020, and how anti-abortion extremism might rebound to their detriment. But guess what? Mace is not one of those 18. She represents a non-swing district (SC-01, which is R+7) in the Deep South. If she thinks this new ruling is a loser, to the point that she's already speaking up, without waiting to see how the cards fall? Especially since she's a very shrewd political operator? Again, that should be very disturbing to members of Team GOP. (Z)