A bid to repeal Arizona’s near-total abortion ban that was written when Abraham Lincoln was president will move forward in the state Senate, while Republicans in the House of Representatives for the second week in a row blocked efforts to repeal the law.
On Wednesday, two Senate Republicans supported a Democrat-led move to introduce a bill to strike down the state’s near-total ban on abortions from 1864. The law is set to go back into effect in June, after the Arizona Supreme Court ruled last week that it supersedes a 15-week gestational law passed in 2022.
Shortly after that ruling was released, Democrats in both chambers of the state legislature made several attempts to repeal the law, with no success despite limited support from across the aisle.
But that luck changed this week, when Sen. Shawnna Bolick, R-Phoenix, and Sen. T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge, voted in favor of green-lighting the late introduction of a measure to eliminate the 1864 law. Efforts from the rest of the GOP majority to delay a vote on whether to give that permission were shot down with the help of Shope and Bolick.
By a vote of 16-14, the new bill was allowed to be introduced. But it may yet be weeks until it’s ready to receive a final vote. While the motion requires the bill be brought to the floor for a vote, where it’s likely to pass, it will take three working days to do so. And since the Senate is only meeting once per week for the foreseeable future — its next workday is April 24 — any possible vote isn’t likely until May.
Hours before the effort in the Senate was successful, Democrats in the House were once again foiled in an attempt to force a final vote on whether to do away with the 1864 near-total ban.
Unlike in the Senate, a bill does exist in the lower chamber, and lawmakers need only temporarily amend the chamber’s rules to allow for it to be voted on. But a motion to do just that from Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, D-Tucson, was cut short by Rep. Jacqueline Parker, R-Mesa, a staunch abortion opponent who used a procedural move to derail the effort.
Parker argued that such a motion required the support of House Speaker Ben Toma, R-Glendale. Toma, who is campaigning to represent a ruby red West Valley district in Congress, has repeatedly stated his opposition to repealing the 1864 law, and on Wednesday he reiterated that stance.
The 1864 law has been reaffirmed several times since it was first adopted when Arizona was still a territory, Toma said, and it is too early to decide whether the legislature should eliminate it, especially given that it is still being considered by the courts.
The state Supreme Court ruled that abortion rights proponents have two weeks to decide whether to challenge the law based on early arguments around its constitutionality.
Toma added that abortion is a morally fraught issue for many.
“Abortion is a very complicated topic. It is ethically, morally complex,” he said. “I would ask everyone in this chamber to respect the fact that some of us believe that abortion is, in fact, the murder of children.”
All 29 Democrats and one Republican, Rep. Matt Gress of Phoenix, voted to allow the rule change and proceed with considering the repeal bill. But the other 30 Republicans voted against the move, and the 30-30 split doomed the attempt.
Shortly after their initial attempt was shut down, Democrats made another move to force a vote on the repeal, but that was quickly quashed under the same grounds. Again, the attempt failed on a 30-30 vote.
Minority Leader Lupe Contreras, D-Avondale, told reporters afterwards that the party remains committed to pushing for a vote on the bill.
“This is not going away,” he said. “The people want it. We will keep doing the people’s work and this is part of it.”
Shortly after the Senate’s action on the move to repeal the 1864 law, lawmakers in the lower chamber showcased the fractures between Republicans who support striking down the law and those who want the abortion ban to remain in place.
Gress, who is seeking reelection in a swing district and has sought to position himself as moderate on abortion since the state Supreme Court’s ruling was released, said he looks forward to the day when the House can vote on the Senate’s repeal bill.
“I am encouraged that very soon — potentially next week — we will have a vote to repeal,” he said. “Make no mistake about it, this law will be repealed. There are enough votes in this chamber to repeal the territorial law. It will happen, it’s just a matter of time.”
But Rep. Alexander Kolodin, R-Scottsdale, responded by celebrating the House’s earlier votes blocking the repeal bill and saying he’s never been more proud of action the chamber had taken.
“We did our duty. We held the line for what we, as Republicans, know is right,” he said.
A last-minute motion from Rep. Charles Lucking, D-Phoenix, to eliminate a House rule mandating Toma’s approval of any effort to force a final vote on a bill was shut down by Republicans, including Gress, who voted instead to adjourn. Approving that rule change could have paved the way for a final vote of the House’s repeal bill.
After Lucking criticized Republicans for choosing not to take action, Toma rebutted that rushing a vote on repealing the law would be the wrong thing to do, given the morally fraught issue it involves.
“Rushing to judgment on something as heavy, as complicated, as emotionally and ethically complex as this debate serves no purpose whatsoever,” he said, before voting to adjourn.
Toma noted that, even if the repeal bill had been passed today, it wouldn’t go into effect until 90 days after the end of the legislative session. And that could be months after the law actually becomes enforceable in June.
“Doing this today is no different than doing this a month from today,” Toma said. “No different whatsoever because this will only take effect 90 days after sine die.”
Adding an emergency clause to a successful repeal would allow it to go into effect immediately, upon the governor’s signature, but to do that requires a supermajority vote in the legislature. That’s an unlikely prospect, given that Democrats in the House would need to peel away 11 Republicans to do so.
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