The Senate’s dimmest bulb, Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson, is on defense in his reelection campaign. He’s facing both Democratic challenger Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who’s ahead in the polls, and his own big mouth that keeps saying things that get him trouble. Like when he said Social Security and Medicare should be put on the chopping block every year.
That could put him in some jeopardy with a chunk of his base. The same goes for what he said about marriage equality, following the explicit threat Justice Clarence Thomas made to it in his concurrence to the Supreme Court decision in June overthrowing federal abortion rights. Johnson released a statement saying he’s absolutely fine with same-sex marriage. “Prior to the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, I supported civil unions,” Johnson said in the statement. “After Obergefell, I considered the issue settled.”
The problem for Johnson is that Republican orthodoxy does not agree. Now he’s trying to walk that back, since Senate Democrats are contemplating pushing the issue with a floor vote before the midterms. When he said, “Even though I feel the Respect for Marriage Act is unnecessary, should it come before the Senate, I see no reason to oppose it,” he apparently meant that maybe he would vote present. Now he’s insisting that it be amended before he’ll support it.
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“During the time he’s been back in Wisconsin over recess, he has spoken with a number of constituents who have concerns about the bill and the risk it may pose to religious liberty,” Alexa Henning, Johnson’s spokesperson, told Politico. “He is working with other senators on an amendment to try and remedy those concerns. The [same-sex marriage bill] is just another example of Democrats creating a state of fear over a settled issue in order to further divide Americans for their political benefit.”
Uh, huh.
Johnson, like all the other Republicans, is running away from the social issues that define the modern GOP. He’s tried to thread a needle on abortion, saying that he doesn’t have a say anymore because it’s up to the states, but maybe someday he’ll take a position. “[M]aybe sometime in the future, there might be a role for Congress again to try to bring maybe a little more order to the process,” he said when reporters tried to pin him down on his stance on legal abortion.
Marriage equality is no safer with this Supreme Court than abortion rights or civil rights or even constitutional rights have been. Voters know that. They just watched nearly a century’s worth of progress erased by the radical court that Donald Trump and fellow Republicans have created and embraced. Johnson’s full-throated support of Trump and his party can’t be ignored.
Which is why it makes it smart for Democrats to make him take the vote. At this point, watching Republicans filibuster abortion rights, marriage rights, contraception access—all the touchstones of modern life—is clarifying for the electorate. Have the vote, and don’t water it down.
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