While most Senate Republicans are avoiding mere mention of Roe v. Wade during Brett Kavanaugh\u2019s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is talking about abortion at length.<\/b>
\nMost Senate Republicans are avoiding mere mention of Roe v. Wade during this week\u2019s hearings on whether Brett Kavanaugh should become a Supreme Court justice. Sen. Lindsey Graham isn\u2019t one of them.
The South Carolina Republican is readily, even eagerly, wading into the abortion debate. A senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who could become chairman in 2019, Graham used his allotted hearing speaking time over the past three days to remind the public that the Supreme Court could soon hear a case triggering the reversal of the 1973 ruling that guaranteed a woman\u2019s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.
It\u2019s a potentially risky gambit for Graham\u2019s party. Republicans have sought to neutralize controversy surrounding Kavanaugh, going through great pains to avoid saying he would become the deciding vote to outlaw abortion. So far, few Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans have brought up the landmark case at all or spoken about it at length.
Democrats, meanwhile, have been relentlessly painting Kavanaugh as an existential threat to women\u2019s rights. Graham continuing to engage the nominee on Roe v. Wade is all the proof Democrats need that Republicans enthusiastically support Kavanaugh because he\u2019s the vote they\u2019ve sought for decades that will reverse the decision.
\u201cDonald Trump made it clear that Kavanaugh would be the deciding vote to overturn Roe v. Wade automatically, in his words,\u201d said Dana Singiser, Planned Parenthood Federation of America\u2019s vice president for public policy and government relations. \u201cIt\u2019s been confirmed by… Sen. Lindsey Graham.\u201d
Asked why he was emphasizing abortion during his questioning of Kavanaugh, Graham said he wanted \u201cthe country\u201d to have a debate about the legal precedent that led to Roe v. Wade, which he called a slippery slope.
Graham\u2019s strategy, however, is ultimately one that will endear him to his conservative base in South Carolina, where he is likely in 2020 to face a primary challenge from a far-right candidate critical of the incumbent\u2019s frequent teamwork with Democrats.
\u201cIt\u2019s amazing watching Lindsey morph into this ideologically pure, ultra-right wing conservative right before an election season,\u201d Tyler Jones, a longtime Democratic strategist in South Carolina, said last year, just as Graham was becoming a Trump ally. \u201cAnd then it\u2019s even more amazing watching him morph back into an independent-minded moderate after the election\u2019s over.\u201d
On Thursday afternoon, in a nod to that more temperate side Jones cited, Graham told McClatchy he could understand the abortion rights point of view: \u201cOn a good day, abortion is hard. This is a tough choice for people. I can imagine the woman\u2019s point of view very much. This is not easy.\u201d
But Graham also didn\u2019t hesitate to confirm he was using his line of questioning at the Kavanaugh hearings to speak for the anti-abortion community, saying the feedback from that constituency has been strong and positive.
He also said the Supreme Court would \u201cdefinitely\u201d some day hear a challenge to states that have passed laws banning abortion after 20 weeks, the point at which some medical experts say a fetus can begin to feel pain. Graham has been a champion since 2013 of the so-called \u201cPain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act\u201d to impose this ban on the federal level.
Graham said he didn\u2019t know how the Supreme Court would rule on such a case. Yet while Kavanaugh has been careful not to say how he would rule on Roe v. Wade, the decision\u2019s most vocal supporters and opponents say his record is clear that he would likely vote to strike it down \u2014 and vote against a challenge to a 20-week abortion ban, too.
On Tuesday, the first of four scheduled days of Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, Graham said Democrats were hypocrites to be angry that Trump promised to appoint an anti-abortion Supreme Court justice when 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton promised to appoint an abortion rights supporter.
On Wednesday, Graham encouraged Kavanaugh to agree with the statement that Supreme Court justices couldn\u2019t just say, \u201cWhat are you doing for lunch? Let\u2019s overrule Roe v. Wade.\u201d Graham then prompted Kavanaugh to affirm that there was a legal process by which established precedent can be overturned. The two men essentially laid out a road map for doing just that.
On Thursday, Graham used his allotted speaking time to build his own case that there was nothing in the Constitution that specifically addresses abortion.
He worked with Kavanaugh to point out that Supreme Court justices in 1973 found a woman\u2019s right to an abortion lay in the \u201cpenumbra of rights\u201d around the definition of \u201cliberty,\u201d which can be redefined at any time depending on who is sitting on the bench.
Over the course of this back-and-forth, Graham also suggested \u2014 without mentioning his 20-week abortion ban bill specifically \u2014 that the Roe v. Wade ruling made it difficult for states to pass laws that roll back abortion rights.
\u201cYou got one word (liberty) that has opened up the ability for five people (on the Supreme Court) to tell everybody elected in the country, \u2018You can\u2019t go there,\u2019 that this is off limits in the democratic process, whether you agree with Roe v. Wade or not,\u201d Graham said.
Later, Graham told McClatchy he wanted to defend legal scholars who argue Roe v. Wade relied too heavily on an expansive definition of \u201cliberty.\u201d
He also wanted to show Democrats that such a definition sets dangerous legal precedent for countless other cases that could come before the court, or have already \u2014 just look, he said, at the 2010 \u201cCitizens United\u201d campaign finance ruling Democrats mostly hate.
He conceded he was defending defenders of Roe v. Wade, too.
\u201cThere is a split in the legal community about how sound is this idea,\u201d Graham said. \u201cI\u2019m trying to say, \u2018you can be concerned about Roe v. Wade and not be a neanderthal.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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