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Kamala Harris Pushes to Proactively Block State Abortion Limits

Kamala Harris Proposes Pre-Clearance of State Limits on Abortion

(Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris wants states with a history of restricting abortion to seek Justice Department clearance before passing new laws curtailing access.

The California senator’s proposal, which she announced Tuesday, would go further than plans presented by some of her rivals for the party’s nomination, as the passage of abortion bans in several states puts the issue at center stage in the campaign.

As part of her plan, Harris is joining several other Democratic candidates, including Senators Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, in calling for abortion rights to be set in federal law.

She wants to add to that a requirement for states and localities with a history of passing abortion restrictions that run afoul of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision to gain federal certification before any new measure can take effect, according to a summary released by her campaign.

“Until we determine that they are constitutional, they will not take effect,” Harris said Tuesday night at a town hall in South Carolina hosted by MSNBC.

But any attempt to put abortion rights into federal law will be difficult if Republicans, who overwhelmingly oppose legal abortion, control one or both chambers of Congress after the next election or maintain filibuster power to block bills in the Senate.

“Twenty-twenty is about the White House. It’s also about the United States Senate,” Harris said.

Her campaign cited laws in South Carolina, Iowa and Georgia as examples that have been struck down in court and would be subject to the pre-clearance requirement. It would use the standards for impermissible restrictions under a proposed Women’s Health Protection Act that Harris and several other Democratic presidential candidates are co-sponsoring.

Harris modeled the proposal on the Voting Rights Act, which included a measure to require states with a history of racial discrimination to pre-clear changes to voting laws. The Supreme Court in 2013 invalidated the formula used by the 1965 law to decide which states are covered, saying that it’s outdated, but it said the concept of pre-clearance may be reimposed if Congress updates the standards.

The issue of abortion rights has received renewed national attention after Alabama passed a law earlier this month that criminalizes nearly all abortions, without exceptions for rape or incest. The goal is to nudge the Supreme Court to revisit and overturn Roe, which was decided in 1973 but which faces an uncertain future after swing Justice Anthony Kennedy, who had voted to uphold the core of Roe, was replaced by conservative Brett Kavanaugh.

Warren of Massachusetts, who is one of Harris’s main competitors in the race, released a plan on May 17 to enshrine the protections of Roe v. Wade as federal law. It would bar states from imposing restrictions on patients or providers that interfere with abortion services.

“Congress should pass new federal laws that protect access to reproductive care from right-wing ideologues in the states,” Warren wrote. “Federal laws that will stand no matter what the Supreme Court does.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the current front-runner in the race, has criticized Republican-backed state laws severely restricting abortion but hasn’t offered a specific plan on defending abortion rights. Another 2020 competitor, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, said his Medicare for All plan would guarantee access to abortion in a national insurance program.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sahil Kapur in Washington at skapur39@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, John Harney

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