Top Republican legislators have moved to a vote in the Kansas House on a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the state constitution without knowing whether they had the votes to get it through the GOP-controlled Legislature and onto the ballot
By
JOHN HANNA AP Political Writer
February 7, 2020, 6:53 PM
4 min read
TOPEKA, Kan. -- Top Republican legislators moved Friday to a vote in the Kansas House on a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the state constitution without knowing whether they had the votes to get it through the GOP-controlled Legislature and onto the ballot.
GOP leaders were looking to win over a few reluctant lawmakers, either moderate Republicans or Democrats in relatively conservative districts. They were keeping House members locked in their seats without closing the roll to give themselves time to make telephone calls at their desks, using a process that could take much of the day as long as other members were absent.
The proposed amendment would overturn a Kansas Supreme Court decision last year declaring access to abortion a “fundamental” right under the state's Bill of Rights. The measure would declare that the constitution doesn't secure a right to abortion and allow lawmakers to enact restrictions as they have in the past.
The Senate approved the measure last week, and the House gave it first-round approval Thursday, but supporters needed a two-thirds majority in the House, or 84 of 125 votes, for it to pass and go on the August primary ballot. They were four votes short in Thursday's vote.
GOP leaders said they were determined to have the final vote Friday — even if they had to keep the House in session into the night.
“We're going to get the votes, get this thing done today,” House Speaker Pro Tem Blaine Finch, a Republican from northeast Kansas, told GOP colleagues during a pre-vote meeting.
Supporters of the measure argue that they're simply trying to return Kansas to the status quo before the state Supreme Court's decision. They said the decision could spur challenges to a raft of regulations that lawmakers enacted over the past decade under Republican governors before Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, an abortion rights supporter, took office last year.
But abortion rights advocates have argued that the amendment is a step toward allowing GOP lawmakers to push for an outright ban if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns its historic 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion across the nation.
Republicans have exactly 84 votes in the House, but four GOP members broke with the party to vote against the proposed amendment Thursday. GOP leaders also believe as many as half a dozen Democrats in relatively conservative districts might vote for a proposed amendment, but House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer, of Wichita, said he believes all 41 Democrats will vote no.
The proposed amendment would allow legislators to regulate abortions even in cases of rape and incest or when a woman's life is in danger, “to the extent permitted” by federal court decisions. Critics have called that language extreme.
“We have to understand it in a context, which is they want a green light to be able to limit, if not eliminate, access to a currently safe and legal medical procedure,” said Andrea Miller, president of the New York-based National Institute for Reproductive Health. “It is one more example of a panoply of states that have really been in kind of a rush to the bottom.”
On the statewide ballot, a simple majority of voters would change the state constitution. Anti-abortion groups argue that the question is less likely to get “lost” in the August primary than on the November ballot, with the presidential election. The smaller primary election also skews more conservative, giving them a better chance of prevailing.
And some moderate Republicans have had misgivings about an August vote, fearing a surge in conservative turnout on the GOP side would cost them legislative races. Ryckman acknowledged that the timing of the statewide vote is an issue for some lawmakers, as well as the language.
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