A hugely consequential vote that will decide the fate of abortion rights in Kansas will happen next month, during the sleepy dog days of summer on a sleepy primary ballot.
Mike Pompeo will fix it. In true ALEC fashion, this same play will replicate itself in every state. Guessing that David A. Koch is not a gambling man. Someone like David Koch cannot be a self respecting oligarch without “putting in the fix.” How can Koch diminish worker rights, elevate corporation rights, and decimate antitrust and environmental precedent without doing so?
One can only hope there are enough sane voters in Kansas to stop this ridiculous scam. As always, Republicans know they can’t win fairly, so they cheat.
You know what MAGA stands for don’t you? Maniac Almost Gutted America.
There are more unaffiliated voters in Kansas than there are registered Democrats, and those people usually don’t have any reason to vote during the partisan primaries.
Uh-huh. No reason at all to vote until suddenly they do. or, - maybe they won’t and will continue to bitch and moan anyway. And then - it’s too late.
It remains to be seen if we can find out “what’s wrong with Kansas,” after all…
It will be interesting to see if the courts allow them to get away with the ‘special election’ dodge. That’s a pretty transparent attempt to avoid the legal requirements, and ought to be sufficient to overturn the result.
Have the Kansas repubs also come up with a plan to overrule the results if they don’t like 'em? Seems like all the rage in gooper circles.
I have a hunch a lot of young women are going to make special arrangements to vote no. When combined with the gray haired Republican women who will also vote no, I don’t think the Republican plan is going to work this time.
What the Democratic party needs to do is organize all those young women and run the gray haired Republican men out of power. It isn’t just the Koch money that keeps the Republicans in power, it is Sinclair Broadcasting and the other right wing action news media companies. They will do all they can to suppress voter turn out.
Can’t the Democratic Party in Kansas invest in a few billboards in full view of rush-hour traffic? There are a variety of ways to get the word out that people had better vote in August if they want to preserve their access to abortion services in the state.
Most of the signs in my little burg are “NO” signs, which is a good sign for a place that borders rural.
IMO, the Democratic Party (State and national) isn’t the driving factor in this. It’s the women of Kansas. The issue has been made evident. They need to vote for their rights in large numbers. I don’t really see the Party as needing to do much. It’s on the voters (male and female); they know what’s at stake.
It’s good to see this article, first of all. Thanks, TPM!
As the article says, we here haven’t yet had this vote because in 2020, the people who want the amendment to pass did not want it on the November ballot. So here we are. It’s not so much that the pro-life people were too clever by half or something like that; it’s that, waaaay back at the beginning of the legislative session in January, they hadn’t anticipated the leak of the Alito opinion, which is what really began to make things interesting come next month’s vote. If there’d been no leak, it would have been harder to organize opposition to the amendment in less than a month’s time.
I think Republicans have really whacked the hornet’s nest on Roe, and have little idea the fury that’s headed their way. They’ve so isolated themselves in the tiny-but-deafeningly-loud echo chamber of Lunatic Fringe that they cluelessly think all of America is crammed in there with them.
As the saying goes: They f’ed around; they’re about to find out.
(Maybe after the semi-truck of backlash speeding toward them this election cycle, they’ll replace their elephant logo with a deer-in-the-headlights one.)
“On applications for advanced mail-in ballots, online when it initially generated the form, it only offered a choice of Democrat or Republican — that leaves unaffiliated voters to believe they don’t have a choice here,” Pint said.
This is absolutely critical! Kansas Primaries traditionally EXCLUDE registered but unaffiliated voters. It cannot be allowed that only Party affiliated voters are permitted to amend the State’s Constitution. My wife is unaffiliated. She must also have a vote in our State’s Constitution!!!
Who knows how this vote will go? Kansans were sane enough to get rid of Brownback.
I’ve always felt that Kansans self identify as “independent” first ahead of “conservative.” Don’t tell me what to do!
Laura Kelly’s ads are great, they tie her opponent to Brownback and the funny thing is they’re 100% true.
Term limits did that. We did, however, repeatedly say no to Kris Kobach. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the message.
Or Robert Crimo’s creepy anime face.
Making him the GOP Gun-Rights poster boy and the killer of Aiden MCCarthy’s parents would be gratifying and damn accurate.
He’s the face of the party.
