Kansas v. Alito

A huge victory for reproductive freedom as Kansas voters tell the GOP, “keep your rosaries out of our ovaries"

On Twitter, the race was called at 9:26pm ET by Dave “I’ve Seen Enough” Wasserman of The Cook Political Report.

The AP called the race at 10:38pm.

A proposed constitutional amendment in Kansas that would have removed abortion rights went down bigly.

As Lindy Li said on Twitter, the Kansas referendum was a resounding defeat for “Opus Dei Catholics, Christian Dominionists and power-hungry Republicans telling us what to do.”

“Keep your rosaries out of our GD ovaries,” she added.

As Aman Batheja noted, Kansas Republicans had specifically chosen the August primary for this vote because that’s when GOP voters traditionally turn out, while Democrats in Kansas often have uncontested primaries.

Turnout, according to Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab, was YUGE.

Meanwhile, Schwab, a Republican who repeatedly rejected former Trump’s voter fraud lies in 2020, easily won his GOP primary.

The vote on abortion rights came just days after Justice Samuel Alito gave a highly political speech at a religious liberty summit in Rome where, as Laura Bassett wrote in Jezebel, he:

Mocked foreign leaders who condemned the Supreme Court’s decision last month that overturned Roe v. Wade—a group that included Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, Prince Harry (sure?), and soon-to-be-former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who recently resigned following several scandals. Johnson had called the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs a “backwards step,” which—if you know anything about Johnson at all—is pretty humiliating for the U.S.

A statement from President Biden noted that the Kansas vote reflected the national mood:

This vote makes clear what we know: the majority of Americans agree that women should have access to abortion and should have the right to make their own health care decisions.

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg noted that Kansas was the state in which a “pro-lifer” had committed the ultimate sin by murdering Dr. George Tiller, seemingly at the urging of stochastic terrorist and falafel aficionado Bill O’Reilly.

Democrats on Twitter including @goldengateblond spoke in terms of a “political earthquake,” with the Kansas vote indicating the religious extremists in the GOP had “maaaassively overreached.”

Of course, with less than 100 days until the midterms, and with Republicans getting even more outrageous in their desperate lies and propaganda, this is no time to be complacent.

If you do want to seize the moment and help make sure the Blue Wave that’s building doesn’t crash too early, or that you don’t waste too much time an effort on unwinnable races, please take an extra minute to read my recent Q&A with Jason Sattler (aka @LOLGOP): How Democrats Win in November.

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