Florida passes near-total ban on abortion
By 
Wow, all of those inevitable Clinton-DeSantis voters are going to be extra excited now!
Florida’s Republican-dominated Legislature on Thursday passed a ban on most abortions after six weeks, sending the bill to Gov. Ron DeSantis. He has said he would sign the measure into law.
Final passage came after a marathon floor hearing in the state House, which passed the proposal largely along party lines in a 70-40 vote after the state Senate passed the bill on April 3.
Democrats in the chamber forcefully opposed the legislation but were vastly outnumbered by Republican supermajorities in both chambers. GOP House Speaker Paul Renner had to close the public viewing galleries after protesters threw what appeared to be paper on the House floor.
It capped off what has been a hugely contentious process to pass the legislation, SB 300, which DeSantis has signaled support for, but it puts him in a tricky political position. He is considering a 2024 bid for president, but most public polling shows a six-week abortion ban is unpopular among both political parties.
But don’t worry, anti-abortion propaganda outlets are getting some money, so the financial burdens of coerced childbirth and parenthood shouldn’t be a problem:
The new exemptions were sought by Republican state Senate President Kathleen Passidomo and agreed to by other Republicans. The bill also includes $25 million to expand Florida Pregnancy Care Network Inc., a statewide network of nonprofits that offer pregnancy support services.
A couple pamphlets and maybe some diapers and good luck!
Perhaps the dynamics of Florida politics will mean they won’t pay a price for this — certainly I will never think that Democrats are winning a statewide election there for the foreseeable future. OTOH, Obama carried Michigan by 10 points in 2012 and won Ohio twice — things can change more quickly than you’d think, and people really hate bans on abortion outside of the deepest red states. The problem is that even if you can elect a Democratic governor, the Florida legislature is so heavily gerrymandered that these statutes will be essentially impossible to repeal once they’re passed.