Associated Press
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida this week joined the ranks of Republican incumbents scrambling to strike a balance on reproductive rights, saying he opposes a November ballot initiative to strike down his state’s six-week abortion ban but thinks Congress should leave those decisions to the states.
Scott, who is seeking re-election this fall, was one of multiple Senators who followed former President Donald Trump’s lead in softening GOP messaging on abortion. It comes in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning the constitutional right to an abortion and leaving the matter for states to decide. Democrats, buoyed by a series of wins in state ballot initiatives and other contests since then, have made it clear that they hope to put the issue front and center this November.
After the Florida Supreme Court approved the abortion amendment for November’s ballot, Scott said in a statement that he believes in “reasonable limits placed on abortion” and is focused on ensuring that in vitro fertilization treatments are protected and adoptions are more affordable.
“We all know that life is the greatest gift we have ever received, we want to welcome every unborn baby into life, and we prefer adoption over abortion,” Scott said.
Scott is softening his messaging amid roiling politics on abortion across the country. The Arizona Supreme Court decided Tuesday that state officials can enforce an 1864 law criminalizing all abortions except when a woman’s life is at stake.
Florida Democrats, meanwhile, are pushing not only to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s Constitution but to invoke the issue in their efforts to unseat Scott and other Republicans. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, one of the leading Democrats seeking her party’s nomination against Scott, said the fight was over the “basic dignity for a woman to be able to make that choice of her own body, of when and how to start a family.”
Mucarsel-Powell said in an interview after Florida’s court ruling last week that voting to support the state’s abortion rights amendment in November isn’t the end game. She said voters need to vote Scott out of office so he “doesn’t have a say on what happens to women.”
Once seen as the quintessential swing state, Florida has become more conservative in recent years. Trump won there in 2016 and 2020, but Democrats, which trail in registration numbers by some 800,000 voters, are hoping a focus on abortion rights will swing the state back in their favor.
Scott has been flagged by national Democrats as a prime target this year in their efforts to preserve a narrow majority in the Senate, though Democrats are defending more seats than Republicans. The stakes are especially high for Scott, who said last month that he is “seriously considering” running for Senate leadership. In 2022, he ran against U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell to be the Senate’s top Republican but lost with a 37-10 vote.
McConnell recently announced his intention to step down from Senate leadership later this year.
The April 1 court opinions from Florida’s Supreme Court included affirmation of a 15-week abortion ban and a trigger mechanism that would put the state’s six-week abortion ban in place by next month. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said Florida women have higher stakes on the ballot than they have in years.
“The fight against these new restrictions on access to abortion will shine a brighter spotlight on Rick Scott’s long, dangerous record of supporting draconian abortion bans,” said Maeve Coyle, the DSCC’s spokesperson. “In November, Florida voters will stand up for women’s freedom to make their most personal medical decisions by rejecting this abortion ban and firing Rick Scott from the Senate.”
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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
15 comments
Hung Wiil
April 11, 2024 at 6:36 pm
Rick Scott is an embarrassment, overall, to the GOP. He did a horrible job as campaign chair in 2022, and his manifesto was the most stupid treatise in modern political history. He will limp across the finish line, and he is certainly better than Debbie Rodham Powell. But Rick Scott is not the future of the Republican Party.
Michael K
April 11, 2024 at 7:39 pm
There is no Republican party, let alone a future. There is no platform, no principles, no ideas. Sadly, just a bunch of showboats, grifters, and Putin apologists. It’s a wholly-owned subsidiary of Trump Inc. Sad.
Hung Wiil
April 11, 2024 at 11:13 pm
That seems unlikely, Michael. Most of the nation’s Governors are Republican, a majority of the state legislators of the country are Republican, and the latest Pew Research has Democrat and Republican identifiers equal, erasing a six-point advantage pre-Biden. Your comments are emotion-based, not based upon anything substantive.
Anyone who advocates continuing to finance and subsidize this conflict is clueless, and not in America’s best interest. The kindergarten-level argument that this makes you pro-Putin is just boring. Biden is nowhere near finding a solution to this, and writing more checks perpetuates a disastrous foreign policy.
PeterH
April 12, 2024 at 1:47 am
The Republican Party is the American voters third choice after Democrats and Independents. We, the electorate, will never allow ourselves or Eastern Europe to be Putin’s puppet! Hung is living in a world of magical thinking!
Jack Meoff
April 12, 2024 at 8:00 am
Show us on the doll where the scary Russian bear touched you.
What’s a few hundred thousand, or maybe millions of lives, after-all? And billions or trillions more dollars? It’d all be worthwhile if you don’t have to check under your bed every night for the bad Russian man.
PeterH
April 11, 2024 at 6:44 pm
Rick Scott’s hypocrisy never ends. He has been the champion of denying woman’s healthcare choices for literally decades. If he was ever recommissioned to the Senate and he had to vote for a nationwide abortion ban ….. he would do so and so would EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN FLORIDA LEGISLATOR SITTING IN WASHINGTON!
Republicans are America’s worst enemy!
Vote all Republicans out of office!
S. Wabbit
April 15, 2024 at 4:26 pm
Wepublicans kwazy.
Jojo
April 11, 2024 at 9:33 pm
Rick Scott is exactly like Trump… he sticks his finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing.
No convictions, no morals, no ethics
Dont Say FLA
April 12, 2024 at 11:01 am
Dear males, if you didn’t stick your winky into a vah jay jay and blow your load in there, whatever going on in there is absolutely NUNYA business.
If you can’t deal with that, stick to the butt s3x with the other guys at church who hate their wives and lives same as you.
Hung Wiil
April 14, 2024 at 10:39 pm
Peter H.
In Florida, there are 5,243,299 Republicans, 4,351,265 Democrats and 3,533,149 with no party affiliation, according to recent numbers from the state Division of Elections.
rick whitaker
April 15, 2024 at 4:54 am
HUNG, if that’s true about the party affiliation percentages, then i feel great about sweeping the house, senate, and president. the way i see it is , some gop will vote dem, all dems will vote dem, and most of the unaffiliated voters will vote dem. that should be more than enough. since i don’t recall you being a dem, i would have to doubt your numbers. newsmax, oan, and fox are not allowed on my tv’s because they lie constantly.
Hung Wiil
April 15, 2024 at 1:10 pm
You haven’t swept shat.
rick whitaker
April 15, 2024 at 3:24 pm
hung, feeling great about something that might happen is not an outcome call. i remember in trumps victory, i was feeling good going to bed and woke up shocked that a new york con man won the election with the help of russia and facebook. i deleted my facebook that day in 2016. i love no facebook.
Biscuit
April 15, 2024 at 4:17 pm
I really feel like we can trust Rick Scott, take him at his word on this issue…
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha thump (laughs head off).
Arf.
Cheesy Floridian
April 19, 2024 at 10:00 am
Sure, lets keep Rick Scott in power. I don’t believe he has soften any position. Vote yes for freedom and keeping access to abortion in Florida legal. Vote Rick scott out.
Comments are closed.