The inordinate focus on presidential elections in our politics often forces congressional races to take a back seat. With all eyes on the Trump-Biden race, Nancy Pelosi is moving House Democrats to an even more radical position.
It’s no more evident than on abortion. According to the LA Times, Pelosi told a group of House Democrats that the Hyde Amendment would not be included in any government funding bill next year. House Democrats are looking to force taxpayers to fund abortions (while also raising taxes), and they think they have the votes to do it next year.
Pelosi is likely taking a premature victory lap, assuming that Democrats will take both the White House and the Senate like the polls suggest. Even if Republicans manage to hold a slim Senate majority, Pelosi will rely on the media pretending that only the presidency is important and browbeating Republicans into backing Joe Biden’s Hyde Amendment flip-flop.
Pelosi probably wouldn’t be pushing this if she were anticipating a fight from a Republican president and Senate, showing that she’s ready to push the party further to the left in a unified Democratic government. Democrats want to go on the offensive with abortion, as evidenced by the radical abortion laws passed in states like New York to allow abortions moments before birth.
Biden, like Pelosi, wants to push these even further as president, vowing to use taxpayer dollars to fund abortion in other countries by overturning the Mexico City policy. Biden, an ostensible Catholic, wants to enshrine the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade in federal law, and he’ll certainly appoint judges and justices to uphold the clear judicial overreach even if that fails.
This doesn’t even take into account that Kamala Harris wants the Justice Department to be able to invalidate the abortion laws of various states, forcibly expanding abortion access through the might of Uncle Sam. It would be no surprise to see a unified Democratic Congress abolish the Senate filibuster and force through a law to allow that.
The House under Pelosi has already been signaling just how far to the left it would govern since the 2018 midterms. The possibility of a unified Democratic government would embolden the Left to push even further and intimidate more moderate Democrats into going along to get along. This should be in the mind of all voters this fall as they decide what they want Congress to look like in 2021.
