Washington
DNC ads warn voters that GOP wants nationwide abortion ban
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic National Committee is launching a digital ad campaign to energize its voters after last month’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, warning that Republicans’ ultimate goal is to outlaw abortion nationwide.
The committee is sponsoring an at least $10,000 ad buy beginning Tuesday on the websites of more than 20 lifestyle publications, including Teen Vogue, Refinery29, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Essence, GQ, Men’s Health and Esquire.
The ads feature a picture of Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell alongside pink, white and blue text that says: “Republicans are pushing to ban abortion nationally. Join us in fighting back.”
The cost is modest for a national campaign — especially when activists have accused President Joe Biden and other top Democrats of failing to respond forcefully enough to the Supreme Court’s decision. Still, Democrats are betting outrage over the high court’s action can fire up their base ahead of the midterm elections, while inflation is at record highs and Biden’s approval ratings sag.
The DNC says it also plans to launch a separate, six-figure television ad campaign encouraging activism to defend abortion rights later this week across a dozen media markets in battleground areas.
Many top Republicans, meanwhile, are eager to lean into the fight against abortion rights, seeing the overturning of Roe as a promise they kept to voters.
Since the Supreme Court nullified Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized the right to an abortion, in a ruling June 24, many Republican-led states have rushed to enact broad restrictions on the procedure. No federal legislation outlawing it exists, and getting such a bill through Congress would likely be difficult — but McConnell suggested even before the Supreme Court’s ruling that a future nationwide ban was “possible.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence said after the ruling that “we must not rest and must not relent until the sanctity of life is restored to the center of American law in every state in the land.”
The DNC’s digital ads are promoting what it is calling a “week of action” devoted to defending abortion rights.
“With this Defend Choice Week of Action, we’re giving people across the country a chance to turn their anger into action by holding anti-choice Republicans accountable and helping to elect Democrats,” DNC chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement.
The digital ads, and the television campaign beginning later this week, are also helping publicize DefendChoice.org, a website the various Democratic campaign arms created after the Supreme Court ruling.
The DNC says the site connects grassroots activists with the party’s existing national infrastructure, and it notes that its volunteers made 23,000-plus calls in the weekend following the ruling — its most active weekend since last November’s election. The committee says even before the ruling, it held briefings for state parties, elected officials and campaign staff to share research and messaging ideas compiled on the national level.
Tuesday’s digital ad buy and the upcoming TV buy follow a five-figure digital campaign launched June 29 in which the DNC proclaimed that Republicans “want to go further and ban abortion. Believe them.”
Minnesota
Long-running defamation lawsuit by coach finally settled
STILLWATER, Minn. (AP) — A Twin Cities area woman has agreed to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by her daughter’s basketball coach in a long-running case revived by the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Julie Bowlin, 55, of Chanhassen, has agreed to pay $50,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by Nathan McGuire and has signed documents admitting she made numerous false accusations which led to his dismissal as Woodbury High School girls basketball coach in 2014.
The case was settled Monday, the day it was scheduled for trial.
“It feels good to close this chapter,” McGuire, 47, said at the Washington County Courthouse in Stillwater. “Hopefully, some of what we’ve done here will create some safeguards for other coaches because it went to the Supreme Court.”
The settlement comes three years after the state Supreme Court revived the lawsuit, finding for the first time that a parent’s criticism of a high school coach is not protected by the First Amendment because a coach is not a public figure, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported.
According to the settlement, Bowlin became angry when McGuire had Bowlin’s freshman daughter scrimmaging with junior varsity players.
Bowlin accused McGuire of “bullying, pushing, manipulation, harassment, aggression and other forms of maltreatment” against numerous players, according to a signed letter.
Bowlin admitted in the letter that “all of these allegations were false,” and both the district and state investigations cleared McGuire of any wrongdoing.
Pennsylvania
Governor says he’ll protect abortion seekers
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Gov. Tom Wolf is following in the footsteps of other Democratic governors following the U.S. Supreme Court’s abortion ruling and looking to protect patients who travel to Pennsylvania for the procedure from being prosecuted by their home states.
Wolf on Tuesday said in a statement that he would refuse a request from any other state to arrest or detain any out-of-state resident who had traveled to Pennsylvania to seek an abortion, as well as anyone providing or assisting with it.
Wolf’s statement is similar to those of Democratic governors in California, Colorado, North Carolina and elsewhere.
Their attempts to protect abortion rights come as tighter restrictions and bans are going into effect in conservative states after last month’s Dobbs v. Jackson ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned the nearly half-century-old holding from Roe v. Wade that found that the right to abortion was protected by the U.S. Constitution.
States now may restrict the procedure, and many have taken steps to curtail or ban abortions.
Wolf signed an executive order on Tuesday to back up his statement.
“By signing this executive order, I am affirming that individuals seeking and providing reproductive health services are safe in the commonwealth from discipline and prosecution,” he wrote in a statement.
Abortion remains legal in Pennsylvania up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. Wolf supports abortion rights and has vetoed three bills from the Republican-controlled Legislature in the past five years to restrict the procedure.
