DCCC- abortion rights no litmus test for Democrats

[Beet]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/democratic-party-leaders-will-continue-to-welcome-anti-choice-candidates_us_597f5a3fe4b02a4ebb7722ae

[heatcharger]

I want people who will vote for a Democrat to be Speaker and Majority Leader. If it means running candidates who aren't in favor of repealing the Hyde Amendment to win certain districts, I get it. It's not like Schumer or Pelosi/next Dem leader will ever put up anything insane like defunding Planned Parenthood or anything.

This is part of the compromise that needs to be made -- Democrats are forced to be a big tent party unlike Republicans because of geography.

[Holmes]

Pretty sure they and the DGA support and finance pro-life Democratic incumbents anyway, and there's always that fine line between "I'm pro-life but don't think the government should tell women what to do with their bodies" that many pro-life Democrats take anyway. So I think this is the riht thing.

[PragmaticPopulist]

Glad to see the DCCC isn't bowing to the purists who don't remember how Democrats won congress in 2006. Besides, most voters don't have as extreme views on abortion that their elected officials do. It's usually somewhere in between.

[InheritTheWind]

This decision will get a lot of heat from the true-believer types, but in terms of trying to win back the House it's the best decision they can make. The Democratic party as a whole will never (at least, in its current form) suddenly decide to become a pro-life party to begin with.

[KingSweden]

Excellent. Abortion is a complicated issue that deserves nuance (and like somebody else said, pols tend to be more extreme on it than voters)

[mcmikk]

All the responses already here nail it, but my Twitter feed is full of people incredibly angry about this. I swear these whiny progressive purists are going to be the end of liberalism and the Democratic Party. We can move further left over time, but for now we have to make some right-ish concessions. Progress doesn't happen in one fell swoop. That's why it's called progress.

[Coraxion]

I want people who will vote for a Democrat to be Speaker and Majority Leader. If it means running candidates who aren't in favor of repealing the Hyde Amendment to win certain districts, I get it. It's not like Schumer or Pelosi/next Dem leader will ever put up anything insane like defunding Planned Parenthood or anything.

This is part of the compromise that needs to be made -- Democrats are forced to be a big tent party unlike Republicans because of geography.

The Bernie bots are gonna call you a partisan hack.

[Catholics vs. Convicts]

Awesome.

[DrScholl]

It never has been a litmus test for the DCCC, which is why Democrats managed to hold ancestrally Democratic seats in the past.

[This is Eharding, guys]

All the other posters already said it better than I did: the Democratic Party has never won the House without pro-life members, and it would be foolish to expect it to win a majority without them.

[Kingpoleon]

Excellent. Abortion is a complicated issue that deserves nuance (and like somebody else said, pols tend to be more extreme on it than voters)

[Mike Thick]

Fantastic. This is the wedge issue in many rural districts, and taking this approach will open a lot of doors there.

[GoTfan]

Good. The litmus test should be Medicare for a all.

[VPH]

Let's see if they hold strong on this despite the Hogueite outrage.

[publicunofficial]

It's cool they're deciding this AFTER the whole Heath Mello fiasco.

[#gravelgang #lessiglad]

Good. The litmus test should be Medicare for a all. rigorous campaign finance reform, including full public financing of elections.

[Kamala]

Mmm. I can understand why some people are pro-life, but it does feel a little like the Democrats are taking women's votes for granted.

[Chief Justice Keef]

All the responses already here nail it, but my Twitter feed is full of people incredibly angry about this. I swear these whiny progressive purists are going to be the end of liberalism and the Democratic Party. We can move further left over time, but for now we have to make some right-ish concessions. Progress doesn't happen in one fell swoop. That's why it's called progress.

Oh, come on. You're only angry at these "purists" because they hold actual convictions and values about issues and aren't willing to sacrifice important pro-women policies. And the Bernie Bros are the sexists?

We don't need to try and compromise with the right. We've been doing that for 8 years and all it's given us is Trump and a Republican government.

[Adam Griffin]

Contrary to some of the posts in this thread, the "purist" outrage over this announcement doesn't fall neatly into the oh-so-common "Clinton/Sanders" boxes. You have plenty of Sanders supporters who have no problem with doing this because of a primarily economic focus; Clinton supporters who are adamant about no deviation from the pro-choice position; and vice-versa.

This is ultimately why the DCCC probably feels it is a net gain: the combined outrage isn't clustered heavily in either one of the two camps. In addition, one-third of Democrats identify as "pro-life" and one-third of Republicans identify as "pro-choice", so this has never been an issue that is as neatly cleaved among the voters as the special interest groups on both side would have you think.

[TJ in Oregon]

I would think this would be relatively uncontroversial, no? Even someone as decidedly pro-life as myself wouldn't actually want the NRCC defunding Pat Meehan or Ryan Costello. It would be incredibly counterproductive.

[henster]

Why is this suddenly an issue now? The DCCC has backed pro life Ds for countless cycles now.

[Tancred]

This is great news. Many of the people I see freaking out over this are Clinton supporters who were calling Sanders supporters "purity ponies" and castigating them for being extremists. I think that is hilarious.