The Umpire Strikes Back

Will the GOP’s disappointing midterm election results vindicate the advice of Washington’s least-heeded political strategist? The guru to whom we’re referring is the Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts. As the Nine weighed overturning Roe v. Wade, the Chief sought to craft a compromise among the justices. His proposal would have preserved the Roe precedent while allowing states to ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.We’ve already cried foul, as it were, after Chief Justice Roberts seemed to let political considerations influence the court’s abortion jurisprudence. At his confirmation hearing in 2005, he had told Senators that “judges are not politicians” and pledged, “it’s my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.” Yet in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the chief justice appeared eager to avoid reversing Roe.In seeking to minimize the outcry from overturning Roe, Chief Justice Roberts’ motivation was unclear. He could have been trying to maintain his position as America’s most highly rated government official, as Gallup found in December. He could have wanted to avoid shaking the court’s “legitimacy,” a risk of which Justice Stephen Breyer warned were Roe overturned. Yet he could as well have seen his effort as helping the Republicans.Why else would the Chief Justice try to shift the focus away from Dobbs and back to Roe? His questioning showed an interest in “the fetal-viability line established in Roe,” the New York Times’ Adam Liptak reported. That suggested the Chief Justice “was trying to justify upholding a 15-week line while stopping short of overruling Roe entirely.” In his concurring opinion, the chief justice called that “markedly less unsettling” than terminating Roe. In the weeks following the Dobbs ruling, Chief Justice Roberts’ fear of a “serious jolt” from ending Roe seemed warranted. The ruling “energized Democrats,” National Review’s Rich Lowry said. The RNC chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, warned that the GOP “must sharpen its message on abortion” to avert electoral disaster. Mr. Lowry suggested the GOP back a Roberts-like “compromise proposal of some sort, say a gestational limit of 15 weeks.” In August, polls showed Democrats leading on generic ballots for Congressional races. Yet as the midterms neared, the salience of abortion seemed to fade. The Times reported last week that “the debate over abortion rights” failed to emerge “as a political silver bullet for Democrats.” Liberals had “largely abandoned hopes” that “a surge of voter outrage” over Dobbs would overpower voter dread over crime, say or inflation, running faster than in 40 years.Abortion “does not appear to be outweighing economic concerns for pivotal swing voters,” the Times reported. In mid-October, Vox observed “the 2022 midterm vibes have shifted again,” with abortion “fading somewhat as an issue.” As it turned out, though, the Democrats had it right the first time. The Times now contends that “abortion rights broke through, lifting Democrats to victory in Virginia, Minnesota, Michigan and New Mexico.”Abortion, the Times says, used to mean “rallying the Republican base” with “far more intensity than abortion rights supporters.” The Dobbs ruling “appears to have flipped the script,” as “Democrats seized on the issue,” tying abortion to “family economics” and fanning “voters’ fears about the rise of far-right Republicans.” Politico says a “surge in turnout among people motivated by the erosion of abortion rights” aided Democrats.The exception to Republicans’ performance Tuesday was in Florida, where Governor DeSantis cruised to re-election — and in a swing state, to boot. Mr. DeSantis had earlier this year signed into law a new policy, modeled on Mississippi’s, that permitted abortions up to 15 weeks of pregnancy. One doesn’t have to endorse that compromise to savor the fact that it could not have gone unnoticed in the chambers of the Chief Justice.

The Umpire Strikes Back

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