In North Carolina earlier this spring, 14 Republican lawmakers co-sponsored a bill asserting the General Assembly’s right to establish an official state religion, because “the State of North Carolina does not recognize the authority of federal judicial opinions” prohibiting it.
In Michigan, nine Republican state representatives put forward a bill last month requiring journalistic “fact-checkers” to register with the state and provide proof of at least $1 million in liability insurance in the event that they’re found in civil court to have committed “wrongful conduct.” Those who fail to register would be fined “not less than $1,000 per day.”
In Alabama, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey last month signed a bill allowing for yoga instruction in public schools so long as “all poses, exercises and stretching techniques shall have exclusively English descriptive names … and ‘namaste’ greetings shall be expressly prohibited.”
In Kentucky, a Republican bill passed the state Senate earlier this year making it a crime if a protester “accosts, insults, taunts or challenges a law enforcement officer” if such verbal abuse has a “tendency to provoke a violent response from the perspective of a reasonable and prudent person.”
The Kentucky measure, similar to a proposed prohibition on taunting police in Ohio, is one of scores of anti-protest bills introduced in statehouses around the country this year, including several red-state proposals granting immunity under certain circumstances to drivers who plow into protesters marching on public roadways.
Dozens of conservative legislative chambers have been racing to enact stringent anti-abortion measures in anticipation that the U.S. Supreme Court will dramatically curtail constitutional protections for abortion rights in its upcoming decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
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And let’s not forget efforts by Republican legislators in several dozen states to erode ballot access and empower partisan lawmakers to control the vote-counting process based on baseless claims that cult leader Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
The North Carolina, Michigan and Kentucky bills haven’t advanced. Yet. But overall, it’s clear that a battle for the soul, character and future of the United States is raging in the state capitals.
On one side are those who want to crack down on peaceful if obstreperous protesters, on women’s reproductive rights and on journalistic freedom while limiting minority voting rights and promoting religious conformity.
On the other are those who don’t.
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Columns are opinion content that reflect the views of the writers.
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Consider Texas.
Republicans there hold 55% of the seats in the state House, 58% of the seats in the state Senate and the Governor’s Mansion.
Gov. Greg Abbott recently signed a law that not only bans abortion at six weeks of gestation, when some women aren’t even yet aware that they’re pregnant, but also allows citizens to help enforce the law by suing anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion after six weeks. Potential defendants therefore include those who offer referrals or spiritual guidance, lend money to patients or provide transportation to the clinic.
A Republican-backed bill is now on Abbott’s desk that threatens professional sports teams with loss of subsidies if they don’t play the national anthem before home games. “We must always remember that America is the land of the free and the home of the brave,” declared Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick without a hint of irony.
Another GOP bill sent to Abbott will allow people to carry handguns without a license because, Patrick said, “In the Lone Star State, the Constitution is our permit to carry.”
You may believe every idea above is just dandy, and so you may be rooting for the GOP vision of America. You’re clearly not alone.
But if you don’t — or maybe even if you do — you’ll understand why Democrats in such blue states as Illinois aren’t eager to be conciliatory or bipartisan when it comes to such issues as how political maps are drawn or where budget priorities should lie.
At first I shake my head, too, at how heavy-handed the Democratic supermajorities in Springfield were at the close of the legislative session that ended this week; how they steamrolled the men and women across the aisle.
Then I look around our deeply polarized country, see how high the stakes are in the fight for the future and how important it is for the Democrats to hold the line where they can.
Twitter @EricZorn
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