Desperation and panic have shown up in the Democrat Party today. Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman, told The Hill that the party will not withhold funds from Democrat pro-life candidates:
“There is not a litmus test for Democratic candidates,” said Luján, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman. “As we look at candidates across the country, you need to make sure you have candidates that fit the district, that can win in these districts across America.”
Luján’s map in his office “highlights districts held by dozens of Republican [sic] that he hopes to oust in the 2018 midterm elections.” The Democrats need 24 seats to hit 218:
“To pick up 24 [seats] and get to 218, that is the job. We’ll need a broad coalition to get that done,” Luján said. “We are going to need all of that, we have to be a big family in order to win the House back.”
Democrats last won control in 2006 when they supported pro-life candidates:
Democrats are unlikely to win the 24 seats they need to recapture control without contesting more conservative districts. The last time Democrats won control, in the 2006 midterm elections, the party recruited — and supported financially — a significant number of Democrats who did not entirely support abortion rights, including Reps. Brad Ellsworth (Ind.), Baron Hill (Ind.), Heath Shuler (N.C.) and Jason Altmire (Pa.).“Both [then-DCCC Chairman] Rahm Emanuel and [then-Democratic National Committee Chairman] Howard Dean with his 50 state strategy understood that in order to win districts that had eluded Democrats in previous cycles, they were going to have to field candidates who didn’t look like national Democrats,” Altmire told The Hill. “People understood the class of ’06 was driven largely by the centrist candidates.”
Pro-abortion groups have slammed Luján’s decision:
In taking the position, Luján and Democrats risk alienating liberals, as well as groups dedicated to promoting access to abortion and reproductive health services that represent the core of the party’s base.“Throwing weight behind anti-choice candidates is bad politics that will lead to worse policy,” said Mitchell Stille, who oversees campaigns for NARAL Pro-Choice America. “The idea that jettisoning this issue wins elections for Democrats is folly contradicted by all available data.”
Back in April, Democrat National Committee Chairman Tom Perez told The Huffington Post that Democrats can only have one position:
“Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health.”“That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state,” he said. “At a time when women’s rights are under assault from the White House, the Republican Congress, and in states across the country, we must speak up for this principle as loudly as ever and with one voice.”
But support for a Democrat litmus test does not exist among the most powerful Democrats in Congress. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) side with Luján on litmus tests.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) even spoke out against it:
“I am strongly pro-choice. I am strongly pro-choice, and I will fight,” Warren told HuffPost, continuing, “But that’s not how everyone in the party feels.””I recognize that not all of my colleagues agree with me. I’ll do everything I can to persuade them, but they are my colleagues, and that’s just how it is with the Democrats,” the senator concluded.
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