LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source)- In the middle of speculation that Michigan’s Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer could be running for president in 2024, New York Magazine wrote a 9,120-word feature article about her with the headline “Abortion wins elections in Michigan: The fight to make reproductive rights the centerpiece of the Democratic Party’s 2024 agenda.”
The Michigan Democratic Party was so impressed with the article that they parsed it down and sent out a press release on the pertinent talking points to all of their supporters.
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The author of the article sees Whitmer as a leader in the abortion movement with a road map showing how to move forward in the rest of the country. The magazine says, ”At the state level, the face of a new approach to abortion politics is indisputably Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer. She is selling abortion as both a practical, voter-friendly issue and an inalienable human right at the center of a galaxy of related concerns.”
They discus Whitmer’s speech in January of 2023 by saying, “At the Michigan State of the State, she did not treat abortion as Democrats often do, as if it’s slightly icky and private, damp and sad.”
They go on to say, “She did not cordon it off in its own dolorous corner separate from all the rousing stuff about creating a mighty Michigan economy. Rather, she led with it, weaving it into a business-forward spiel called ‘Make It in Michigan,’ suggesting that prioritizing abortion rights and LGBTQ+ protections would help bring businesses and expertise back to her former manufacturing state.”
As part of Whitmer’s “selling” of abortion, she tried to paint it as both an economic and family issue. She said that states with anti-abortion and anti-trans laws “are losing talent and investment because bigotry is bad for business.” She continued to cast these issues as universal “family” values and made the issue about civil rights. She said, “Every parent, Republican, Democrat, or independent, wants our kids to stay in Michigan. Let’s give them reasons to stay; let’s … protect fundamental freedoms.”
Whitmer discussed Democrat victories in Michigan with the magazine. She said, “If you look at what happened across the country, there was no more profound outcome than in the state of Michigan. We won all the constitutional offices; we flipped both chambers of our legislature for the first time in 40 years. It’s only happened four times in 130 years in the state.”
The Michigan Democrats also won the war over Proposition 3 which was a voter initiative that passed overwhelmingly by 13 points and enshrined abortion and what the Democrats called “reproductive freedom” laws into Michigan’s Constitution. Proposition 3 got more than 750K signatures to get the initiative on the ballot after the fall of Roe v Wade.
Additionally, Whitmer came out of the gate swinging against her GOP opponent Tudor Dixon by immediately running abortion ads against her, painting Dixon as extreme, the day after she got the Republican gubernatorial nomination.
New York Magazine says about the governor, “Whitmer’s commitment to reproductive freedom was integrated into everything we have come to recognize as political meat and potatoes (the creation of a pre-K program and affordable college options, for example), and she spoke with the winking assuredness of a politician on the winning side.”
The article also points out Whitmer’s dedication and loyalty to the abortion movement in her state. They said, “By 2022, with the conservative-led Supreme Court strongly signaling that Roe was a goner, the 1931 law was on everyone’s radar, and Whitmer made the unusual choice to file a lawsuit asking her state’s Supreme Court to find it unconstitutional. The lawsuit was far from a sure bet. When I asked her at the time whether she was anxious about taking a risk on an issue Democrats had historically treated gingerly, she told me, ‘The scariest thing is not taking action.’”
Whitmer’s actions also included tweeting almost every day that she was “fighting like Hell” for abortion rights.
The magazine goes on to say, “Preemptive legal maneuvering by Whitmer and Michigan’s Attorney General Dana Nessel meant that after Dobbs, the 1931 law, which would have made advertising abortion services a misdemeanor and providing one a felony, did not take hold. This had tangible consequences for the human beings who live in Michigan: There was not a single 24-hour period between Dobbs and the November election during which you could not get abortion care in the state.”
Whitmer said that she’s also working with an eye towards what happens when a new legislature and governor shows up in Michigan someday. She told New York Magazine, “We can’t make the mistake that predecessors did…that just because we’ve made an advancement that it’s the new floor. Majorities change. Leaders move on…”
She added, “We amended the Constitution of Michigan; we are safe for now…But if there’s a national ban, we’re back in the soup. We’ve got to make sure people understand that this fight is not over. It is happening state by state right now, but it’s going to continue to be a national fight. People in solidly blue states who think, Abortion is safe in my town or in my state? It’s not.”
With the help of Whitmer and her strategy for victory, the Democrats now control every area of Michigan government – the governor’s office, the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, Attorney General and the Secretary of State office. With that power, they aren’t just protecting abortion. They have pushed through gun control legislation, gotten rid of right-to-work laws, and don’t seem to be stopping with their progressive agenda.
New York Magazine says, “Spending time with Michigan’s newly elected governing majority is a little like landing on a planet where no white men are in charge. When Whitmer stood at the dais, she was flanked by Joe Tate, the first Black Speaker of the Michigan House; Winnie Brinks, the first female majority leader; and Garlin Gilchrist, entering his second term alongside Whitmer as the state’s first Black Lieutenant Governor. Michigan’s attorney general is Dana Nessel, the first openly gay person elected to statewide office there, and the secretary of state is Jocelyn Benson.”
The magazine heralds Whitmer’s special sauce of controlling by state with an “empowered Democratic-controlled government, a mechanism for changing the state constitution via direct referendum, and a leadership class committed to adopting abortion rights as a central plank of its agenda.” However, they realize that it can’t be replicated everywhere, especially in “red states” and in Washington D.C. where they point out “the next generation is most assuredly not yet in charge.”
They say that one lesson from Michigan is to “make the connections between abortion and health care, child care, economic opportunity, affordable education, and democracy itself.” They also point to victory by “casting abortion as a draw for employers, businesses, and students deciding where to attend schools. For others, abortion may land smack in the middle of a series of health-care priorities that should support Americans from birth to death. For still others, it is one of the many civil rights that generations of Americans fought for, part of the inclusive vision of the American promise that Republicans are eager to tear up.”
President Biden, they lament, has not been much of a leader for the abortion movement. They point to Biden, a Catholic, as someone who spent the early decades of his career against abortion rights and a politician who helped to pass the Hyde Amendment. Although they say the president has evolved on the issue, they believe he was caught “flat-footed” by the Dobbs decision. After that, the president “empowered people in his administration to make fighting back a full-time job” while he, New York Magazine says, doesn’t really want to talk much about abortion.
The magazine instead points to VP Kamala Harris as the administration’s “loudest voice on abortion.” Harris could be a possible presidential contender – against Whitmer – if Biden decides not to run for president again in 2024. If one of these two women enters the race, will they try to “sell” abortion to win elections for themselves and others in the House and Senate? Will they be successful controlling the House again and pushing through a federal bill to give women the right to abortion all across the nation?
While New York Magazine says that Democrats “may not have a plan” to make abortion access “truly central to a Democratic rhetorical and policy framework,” they point to Whitmer’s success as the road map to victory.
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