McCain’s Pro-Life Credentials Questioned
In his own words, these are issues he just doesn’t care about.
McCain seems distinctly uninterested when asked questions concerning abortion and gay rights. While campaigning in South Carolina, he told reporters riding with him on his bus that he was comfortable pledging to appoint judges who would strictly interpret the Constitution in part because it would reassure conservatives who might otherwise distrust him.
“It’s not social issues I care about,” he explained.
McCain says he has always fought for pro-life causes, but he only stays on this topic briefly. His record is a mixed bag. Why is he getting a pass on it?
Senator McCain has engaged in a years-long campaign against Wisconsin Right to Life, an organization dedicated to advancing the pro-life agenda. Conservatives, one might have thought, would be stunned by a grand-slam only the modern Left could love: McCain has (a) urged the courts to judicially legislate a (b) suppression of free-speech rights (c) against an anti-abortion group which was (d) trying to urge the confirmation of conservative Bush judicial nominees.
And the cherry on top? McCain’s exertions were singularly designed to protect one of the Senate’s most liberal incumbents: Russ Feingold (D., Wis.), McCain’s soul-mate in the evisceration of First Amendment rights (also known as the McCain/Feingold “campaign finance reform†law). A pro-abortion stalwart who scores a whopping 93 percent on NARAL’s pro-choice report card, Feingold has also opposed the Patriot Act and every sensible national security measure taken after 9/11 … in addition to seeking President Bush’s censure over the effort to penetrate al-Qaeda communications during wartime.
Dan Riehl reports that the left are teeing up on McCain pandering charge over abortion.
McCain’s record is mixed, particularly for having filed a brief with the ACLU against a Pro-Life group’s right to free expression. McCain really does seem to have a problem with a firm, broad interpretation of the First Amendment. That undermines his claim to support judges who would.
This is probably the brief that Dan is speaking of: McCain v. Wisconsin Right to Life.
WRTL involves an as-applied challenge to the McCain-Feingold “electioneering communication” prohibition, which bars corporations and labor unions from broadcasting ads mentioning the name of a federal candidate within 30 days of a primary and 60 days of a general election. In 2004, WRTL wanted to do grass roots lobbying ads about upcoming votes in Congress and claimed that the electioneering communication prohibition could not be constitutionally applied to its grass roots lobbying ads. On December 21, 2006, the district court agreed.
When the McCain-Feingold bill was proposed, its sponsors always promised that “genuine issue ads” (including grassroots lobbying) would not be banned. For example, on March 23, 2001, Sen. Jeffords (who introduced the Snowe-Jeffords amendment that became the electioneering communication prohibition) declared on the Senate floor that the prohibition will not affect the ability of any organization to urge grassroots contacts with lawmakers on upcoming votes. The Snowe-Jeffords provisions do not stop the ability of any organization to urge their lawmakers on upcoming issues or votes. That is one of the biggest distortions of the Snowe-Jeffords provisions. Any organization can, and should be able to, use their grassroots communications to urge citizens to contact their lawmakers. Under the Snowe-Jeffords provision, any organization still can undertake this most important task.
Yet Sen. McCain now denounces the district court’s ruling that WRTL’s grass roots lobbying ads are not banned by McCain-Feingold.
Sen. McCain intervened in WRTL to stop WRTL from broadcasting ads asking people in Wisconsin to contact Senators Feingold and Kohl and urge them to vote against the burgeoning filibusters of President Bush’s judicial nominees. Sen. McCain also opposed WRTL’s effort to get court approval to broadcast a 2006 ad urging Senators Feingold and Kohl to oppose efforts to halt finalization of the Child Custody Protection Act (“CCPA”), which had passed by overwhelming margins in both houses of Congress but was prevented by parliamentary maneuvering from finally becoming law. The CCPA would have prohibited taking a minor across state lines for an abortion without parental consent or knowledge. Senator Kohl had voted for passage of the CCPA, but during the prohibition period, when WRTL was unable to effectively grassroots lobby, he switched sides.
Sen. McCain, and other members of Congress, also intervened in a companion case, Christian Civic League of Maine v. FEC, which is also now on appeal to the Supreme Court after being dismissed as moot. The CCLM case was conferenced by the Supreme Court on February 16, but the Court has issued no order concerning the disposition of the case. It is assumed that the Court is holding the case for disposition after the decision in the WRTL case. In the CCLM case, Sen. McCain intervened to try to stop CCLM from broadcasting ads in support of the federal Marriage Protection Amendment, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman.
In both WRTL and CCLM, the efforts of the FEC and Sen. McCain were effective in gagging these citizen groups from broadcasting their ads when they could have made a difference on the issue involved. Notably, the district court has now held that WRTL’s anti-filibuster ads were constitutionally protected, which does not change the fact that WRTL forever lost the opportunity to broadcast them when they might have made a difference.
All of this information, no doubt puts in question McCain’s devotion to the pro-life movement. It answers without a doubt McCain’s devotion against free speech. When it comes to free speech for the pro-life movement, he takes the same position as the ACLU…restrict it. Throw in him wanting to shut down Gitmo and stopping intense interrogation of terrorists and McCain might as well be called the ACLU republican candidate.
Sadly, the general public either don’t care about these issues, or are not educating themselves to it.
Related: Bill Quick explains why he won’t vote for McCain.
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Posted by Jay on February 3, 2008 1:56 pm
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, ACLU, Abortion, Activist Judges, Homosexual Agenda, News, Socialism, War On Terror
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4 Responses to “McCain’s Pro-Life Credentials Questioned”
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Syndicate Me
Oh, stop it, for cryin’ out loud. The guy has always been pro-life. Why not just call him a coward and be done with this over-the-top garbage?
Who else are you going to vote for, Mr. Pro-Choice Mitt?
Wow, I didn’t know that going out of his way to shut down the right of free speech of a Pro-Life group was considered being pro-life, K T Cat.
And pointing out the facts of his history is now considered “over-the-top garbage”. Wow. But I guess that is what McCain’s supporters have in common: they are against political free speech. No surprise.
Will McCain Make a POW out of the USA?
Will McCain surrender the borders to Mexico through his Amnesty
Program? Will McCain surrender your wallet to special interest
groups and entitlements for illegal aliens? Will McCain surrender
your First Amendment Right? Will McCain surrender Pro-Life views
and RoevsWade to liberals and partial birth abortions?
Will you surrender your vote to McCain this coming Tuesday?
Didn’t John McCaine confirm Ruth Bador Gindsberg despite her confirming she believed in a right to commit murder? The pro-choice to commit murder Democrats would most likely never allow a pro-life judicial apointee by with a yes vote if they admited their stance so brazenly. That is why Alito and others have to conceal their standing and how the Republicans have slipped pro-choice to murder apointees on to the Supreme Court. McCaine like many Republican Senators proved to be traitors to the pro-life movement with that vote and the vote for Stephen Breyer.