VP Kamala Harris Takes Abortion Act on the Road

On Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris arrived in Las Vegas on Air Force Two. She was taken to the MGM Grand where the United Steelworkers Convention was being held, making remarks about the inflation spending bill for about 20 minutes. Later, she had a closed-door meeting with Nevada’s most powerful union, the Culinary Worker’s Union aka UNITE HERE! before cackling her way through sampling union-made dessert pastries, in the Right-to-Work state.

But, this wasn’t your run-of-the-mill union-shop pit-stop. Harris is traveling the country in what Politico has dubbed, the “How Dare They” abortion tour. Harris has been working the abortion angle as a wedge issue ahead of midterms after Roe was overturned by SCOTUS. According to the White House, Harris has met with legislators from 17 states on the pro-choice issue and held a round-table discussion on Monday with “leaders” from universities around the country:

“The Vice President and the leaders discussed the confusion surrounding the patchwork of laws across the country”

Even though state-level laws are the exact opposite of the VP’s job description, Harris thought she should continue her abortion-roundtableing in Nevada, which is pretty daft. Abortion has been a settled issue for the last 32 years in Nevada since voters added it to the state constitution in 1990.  Two bi-annual legislative sessions ago, the Trust Nevada Women Act was passed in 2019, striking language which was touted as “antiquated” from the state’s statutes.

Among the common-sense protections that were nullified was a requirement for age verification. Of course, age verification is only an important protection for a select population: children. While the state’s most populated city of Las Vegas serves as a sex-trafficking hub, now child victims presented for abortions can be forced to lie about their age to protect their abusers, or simply never be asked by medical professionals at all.

While I’ve personally taken issue with that dangerous re-write of the law since before its passage, the local media has been mum. But, while Harris was celebrating, three years late to the party, they said the quiet part out loud: 

“… which removed a requirement that women be told about the ’emotional implications’ of getting an abortion and removed a requirement that doctors find out the marital status and age of patients before performing abortions.”

We should definitely find out the ages of children seeking abortions in a sex trafficking city. Duh. 

Top Dems Absent From VP Visit

Harris was joined by Attorney General Aaron Ford, Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, and Congressman Steven Horsford, which functioned to highlight the absence of other top Democrat leadership in the state. Noticeably missing from the Harris huzzah were Governor Steve Sisolak, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, and both Congresswomen, Dina Titus and Suzie Lee.

Vice President Kamala Harris visited Las Vegas, and guess who was in hiding? Joe Biden’s rubber stamp in the Senate, Catherine @CortezMasto.

Masto can pretend all she wants, but Nevadans aren’t fools. We know what she is. pic.twitter.com/HUTjWONAeo

— Adam Paul Laxalt (@AdamLaxalt) August 11, 2022

Missing the Mark With Nevada’s Hispanic Voters

Nevada is a state that is considered purple with elections being decided by non-partisan and third-party voters. Last year non-major party voter registrations surpassed both the Democrat and Republican numbers on the voter rolls. While the absence of many notable Democrat figures to the VP visit was addressed as scheduling conflicts, it may suggest that embattled incumbents don’t think a dead issue is what economically afflicted Nevadans will be voting for in November.

Yet, Democrats don’t just have a working-class problem in Nevada: They have an issue with swaying Hispanic voters, too.

 “Nevada went from three-tenths of percentage more Democratic than the nation as a whole in 2016 to 2 points more Republican in 2020.” Nevada Democrats’ margin among Hispanics dropped by 8 points between those two elections, and the decline “was driven almost entirely by working-class Hispanics.”

In other words: Democrats’ Hispanic voter problem is their working-class voter problem.

New Polls suggest that the economy is the most important issue to Hispanic voters, with abortion as the least important issue.

The economy was identified by 37% of survey respondents as the top issue, followed by housing (15%), social justice issues (6%), along with local issues, poverty and environment (4% each). Crime, gun violence, immigration and politics each got 3%, and abortion and education each got 2%.

The nail-biter US Senate race between incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and GOP challenger Adam Laxalt is expected to come down to the Hispanic vote.  Maybe the Silver State’s top Democrats were too busy to eat prevailing-wage pastries and discuss settled state law with VP Harris, or maybe they stayed away because Nevada’s Hispanics are not interested in post-Roe abortion antics.