WASHINGTON — Top Democratic campaign officials on Thursday staked their claim to control of Congress and the White House by pointing to the upcoming second anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s striking down of the constitutional right to abortion.
In addition, more than a dozen Democrats in Congress have introduced bills to prevent a future Republican administration from using an 1873 law called the Comstock Act to ban the mailing of abortion drugs.
In a call with reporters, the three campaign managers said voters must flip the House majority from red to blue, secure Democrats’ control of the Senate despite slim odds and ensure President Joe Biden stays in the Oval Office to prevent Republicans from potentially pushing through nationwide restrictions on reproductive rights.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Vice Chairwoman Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota, and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairwoman Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington have repeatedly said that Democrats would restore nationwide protections for abortion access if they gained unified government control.
However, they did not provide a clear plan for what Democrats would do on reproductive rights, including access to contraception and assisted reproduction, if divided control of government remains in place.
Rather, they pointed to what Donald Trump, the likely Republican presidential nominee, might do if voters elect him president in November’s election.
“We need to be clear that Trump and the MAGA Republicans want to ban abortion and that they plan to do so by decree without a bill ever passing Congress. Because they believe politicians should have the power to make these decisions for women whose lives and stories they will never know,” Smith said in the call.
Fears about the Comstock Act
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has published a comprehensive document called “Project 2025” outlining what they believe Trump should do in a second term.
The Trump team has neither endorsed the document nor stated its intention to implement it in whole or in part, even though a former Trump administration official led its drafting.
The proposal would exploit the Comstock Act – a law passed over 150 years ago to prevent the shipping of obscene materials, contraceptives and anything that could induce an abortion – to ban the shipping of medication abortion drugs throughout the United States.
Smith introduced a three-page bill on Thursday that would eliminate that possibility. However, the bill may not pass the Senate and is very unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled House before November.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, medication abortions, which include mifepristone and misoprostol, account for about 63% of all abortions nationwide. The two drugs are also used to treat miscarriages. Misoprostol has other medical uses as well.
The Comstock Act of 1873 originally prohibited the mailing of materials that were considered offensive or obscene at the time, but it is so broad that it has also been used to ban photographs of boxing matches, works of art, and information about contraception.
The Law explicitly prohibits the shipping of “any article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for the purpose of inducing an abortion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose.” Smith’s bill aims to abolish these provisions.
When Smith was asked about the Comstock Act in the phone call on Thursday, she said the “zombie law” could be used to ban medication abortions without a vote in Congress.
“Their plan is crystal clear,” Smith said of the Republicans. “And this is another example of the clear choice that American voters have.”
DelBene, who heads the House Democrats’ campaign arm, said in the call that Republicans are already trying to change when and how Americans have access to various reproductive rights by attaching amendments to government funding bills that must be passed.
“This election is fundamentally about our rights, our freedoms, our democracy and our future,” DelBene said. “Republicans in the House have made it clear that they will do anything to take those rights away from us.”
A divided Congress predicted
In the eyes of some analysts, however, the most likely outcome of the November elections is not unified Democratic control.
Three experts from Moody’s Analytics published a analysis This week it becomes clear that the most likely outcome is that Biden will remain president despite a divided Congress.
The probability of this scenario was 40%, while the probability of a Republican victory was 35%. The probability of a Trump victory in the presidential election and a divided Congress was 15%. The probability of a Democratic victory was 10%, according to the report.
The most likely scenario for Biden to remain president despite a divided Congress would be for Republicans to win the Senate and Democrats to retake the House of Representatives.
“After the resignation of Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the deep-red state will almost certainly elect a Republican senator, making the Senate evenly divided,” the report said. “Although recent polls show Senate races in Arizona, Maryland, Montana, Nevada and Ohio to be close, Republicans need to win only one of those seats to regain the majority.”
“Each race has its own story, but what helps the Republican cause is fear of inflation and growing concerns about the immigration crisis at the southern border,” the report continues.
The analysis goes on to say that “federal courts’ redistricting decisions have also favored Democrats, increasing their chances” of regaining control of the House of Representatives.
“In addition, given that incumbents are re-elected more than 90 percent of the time, the relatively high number of resignations of members of Congress compared to previous terms creates the possibility of further changes in the body,” the analysis says.
The report details the four outcomes of the November elections as well as the various economic scenarios that would emerge over the next four years under a Biden or Trump presidency.
The report was authored by Chief Economist Mark M. Zandi, Director/Senior Economist Brendan La Cerda and Economist Justin Begley.
