We done good. The Dems took the House, big time — we won with a larger margin than the GOP ever did in their “revolution” heyday from 1994 to 2001. Republicans picked up exactly zero seats — nothing in the House, nothing in the Senate, and no Gubernatorial seats. We won some important senate seats, with Claire McCaskill narrowly taking Missouri. We ousted some of the worst conservative senators, including Rick Santorum. Prospects look decent on Montana, and I would really love to see Conrad Burns go away. Even Virginia is looking like it may go with the good guys. Lieberman’s win in Connecticut wasn’t surprising, but was disappointing nonetheless — but we have to give it to Ned Lamont for putting up a damn good fight, and for shaking things up a bit. Nancy Pelosi will be the first female — and feminist — Speaker of the House. Phil Kline — the Kansas attorney general who demanded records of women who had second-trimester abortions and then leaked those records to Bill O’Reilly — lost his re-election bid. The same-sex marriage ban failed in Arizona. The parental notification measures in Oregon and California were both defeated. Perhaps best of all, voters in South Dakota rejected their state’s abortion ban. And if that wasn’t enough, Rumsfeld is resigning. Plus, Britney finally divorced K-Fed.
Best. Day. Ever.
Around the world, this election is being seen of a rejection of George Bush, of unnecessary war, of corruption, and of infringement on our civil and human rights. There’s no question that American voters were sending a very clear and direct message: It’s time for change.
All in all, an excellent day’s work.
But you aren’t under the impression that we’re done, are you?
Yes, we should bask our delicious Congressional and other wins. But 24 hours of that should be more than enough. We’ve got some big stuff coming up. First and foremost, we have Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood — the “partial-birth” abortion case. Oral arguments start today. There’s no question that this will be a tightly-decided case. We know that Alito, Thomas, Scalia and Roberts are pretty sure-fire votes to uphold the law. We also know that Ginsburg, Stevens, Souter and Breyer will probably maintain the position they held in a nearly identical case from six years ago. In that case, Kennedy dissented. The question is whether he’ll maintain that position — voting in favor of uphold the ban — or whether he’ll switch positions in order to respect precedent and to send the message to Congress that they can’t usurp judicial power and make laws which clearly conflict with decided Constitutional issues. Kennedy seems to be liberalizing as he ages, so I’m hoping that he’ll come down on the side of women’s health.
And then there’s South Dakota. Yes, we won on the abortion issue, but you can bet that the anti-choice groups aren’t going to stop here. I suspect Amanda will post on this sometime soon, but there’s been a whole lot of illegal shit going down in that state and across the country. Anti-choice groups have misappropriated funds, failed to reveal who is paying for their campaigns, and outrightedly lied to voters about the details of the abortion ban. Around the country, “crisis pregnancy centers” use federal funds to present themselves as abortion clinics, and then use coercive tactics to further their anti-choice cause. Even more dangerously, these clinics present themselves as providing actual healthcare (including sonograms), when in reality they aren’t staffed by medical professionals and the “care” that they offer is hardly sufficient. Politicians like Phil Kline use their positions of power to gain access to private medical records, and then feign ignorance when those records somehow get leaked to Bill O’Reilly.
There isn’t time to rest. Not in South Dakota, and not anywhere else in this country. The problem now is figuring out where to start, which of these claims (and any others you all can think of — I know there are many, many more) are actionable, and how we can take action. Ideas?