Lessons from Red States on How to Push Back :: Peterr at EmptyWheel

[erronis]

https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/11/15/lessons-from-red-states-on-how-to-push-back/

I hope this helps me and others deal with the situation. Good to have my college town Lawrence, KS noted in his post.

The comments on Marcy’s post yesterday telling folks to go stare at the ocean to get their heads in a better place, instead of becoming paralyzed and stuck in the face of last weeks election, make it clear that she struck a nerve with how folks are feeling 10 days after the election. I’ve had a bunch of face-to-face conversations with friends and parishioners on both sides of the Missouri/Kansas state line, encouraging much the same kind of self-care. But once your head is clear, then what?

Why, then it’s time for some good troublemaking, and if you want to know about making good trouble while at a serious political disadvantage, let me tell you a couple of stories from ruby red Missouri and her not-quite-so-ruby-red sister Kansas.

Back in 2019, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution’s declaration of fundamental rights includes the rights of women to control their own bodies, including the right to an abortion:

We conclude that, through the language in section 1, the state’s founders acknowledged that the people had rights that preexisted the formation of the Kansas government. There they listed several of these natural, inalienable rights—deliberately choosing language of the Declaration of Independence by a vote of 42 to 6.

Included in that limited category is the right of personal autonomy, which includes the ability to control one’s own body, to assert bodily integrity, and to exercise self-determination. This right allows a woman to make her own decisions regarding her body, health, family formation, and family life—decisions that can include whether to continue a pregnancy. Although not absolute, this right is fundamental. Accordingly, the State is prohibited from restricting this right unless it is doing so to further a compelling government interest and in a way that is narrowly tailored to that interest.

Predictably, the GOP’s evangelical right wing in Kansas went nuts. After whining about the state Supremes, they got to work to overturn this opinion by a constitutional amendment. They wrote their amendment very carefully, got all the necessary signatures, and made the political decision to put it on the August 2022 primary election ballot. That choice presumed that this would make it easier to pass, as primary elections tend to draw only the hard-core voters, which they thought would work in their favor.

To borrow a phrase, they chose poorly.

While everyone was preparing for that election, SCOTUS handed down the Dobbs opinion. The wingnuts cheered, and progressives wailed. But the progressives in Kansas did more than whine and whinge.

Young people, particularly young women in Lawrence (U of KS), Manhattan (K State), Wichita (Wichita St), and the KC suburbs of metro KC got to work. First, they recruited other young people, registered them in huge numbers, and got them fired up enough to get their friends to register and then fired up enough to actually turn out to vote. Second, and at least as important, the local KS folks driving the resistance convinced all the usual national groups that the language to use to fight this battle was not the language of women’s rights, but the language of choice in health care decision-making. “Do you really want bureaucrats in Topeka getting between you and your doctor?”