Ten years ago, as Michigan’s Republican-led Legislature was on the verge of passing one of the nation’s most restrictive anti-abortion laws at the time, a 42-year-old state senator from East Lansing took to the Senate floor to speak out against what she knew was about to happen.
Minutes into her speech, Democrat Gretchen Whitmer tossed aside her prepared remarks and revealed for the first time publicly that she had been raped while attending college. Had she become pregnant, Whitmer said, she would not have been able to afford an abortion under the proposed law.
The bill, which Whitmer had derisively called “rape insurance” because it required women to declare when buying health insurance whether they expected to receive an abortion, passed anyway. But Whitmer, now in her second term as Michigan’s governor after winning reelection by nearly 11 percentage points in 2022, this week removed the requirement from state law with the stroke of a pen after Michigan’s Democratic-controlled Legislature sent her a bill tossing it aside.
“It’s kind of a stunning full-circle moment where it does reinforce that these fights are worth having and they’re winnable, even if sometimes it takes a little longer than it should,” Whitmer said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press.
The state government turned blue finally.
The messed up (and woefully misattributed) thing is that sort of has nothing to do with Democrats or even Whitmer.
In 2018, Whitmer won while on a midterm ballot that featured Marijuana legalization, and a redistricting measure that promised to dramatically reduce gerrymandering. Both of these initiatives had been widely talked about by the Democratic Party, but were not supported as a platform of theirs.
In 2020, the democrats saw huge gains amidst continuing anti-trump sentiment, a voter-led abortion rights amendment, and a presidential election (which historically benefit democrats).
In 2022, the 2018 redistricting measure had born fruit, and Michigan had elections that fairly represented the populous, all while the Republican Party in Michigan continued to be disorganized and an abject failure as a political body.
Don’t get me wrong - I think Whitmer is actually a pretty great governor, and I do believe she is very capable. But I think a lot of folks are ascribing capability to happenstance. I’d hate for a lot of hopes to be pinned on her, and then those hopes never bear fruit.
2022 was the voter-led abortion amendment. I think you’re right though, Whitmer is a standard liberal in a similar vein as Joe Biden. She’s a very much a politician benefitting greatly from the Michigan GOPs absolute chaos. I’d honestly love for her to be the conservative candidate vs. an actual progressive change.
Oh, you’re right! Serves me right for relying on memory.
Agree fully with you about the rest.