Tangle - The Kansas abortion vote.

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

On Tuesday, Kansas voters rejected a referendum on an amendment to remove the right to abortion from the State Constitution. Plus, a question about expanding the House of Representatives, and happy three year anniversary to the Tangle Newsletter!You can read today's podcast here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police

procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul,

this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul. I am still in COVID quarantine, feeling better by the day, but you know, testing positive and locked up here in my office. So, you know, going kind of insane a little bit, but trying to tough it out. I appreciate you tuning in. Today we have a very interesting and I think important story. We are going to be covering the vote in Kansas that happened on Tuesday to remove the constitutional right to abortion from the state's constitution, obviously coming at a very interesting time after the fall of Roe v. Wade.

Before we jump into that, though, a quick note about tomorrow. Tomorrow is Tangle's three-year anniversary. It will mark exactly three years since I sent my very first public newsletter, obviously a big milestone. There is also a really big personal life change happening this weekend, and there is a really big potential change happening to Tangle, to the newsletter, not to the podcast. But it's an opportunity for subscribers who are financially supporting the newsletter to take part in a survey to help us determine how to move forward. So if you are not yet a subscriber, you can go to readtangle.com slash membership, and that will get you tomorrow's Friday edition. It'll get you access to our survey

that will help us make a big decision we're making, and you'll get an update on all things going on with Tangle. I know a lot of people who listen to the podcast frequently ask us to make the Friday editions into podcast versions. It's tough to do for a number of reasons. First of all, just if we post them as podcasts and then we paywall them as a newsletter, people don't have to pay for the paywall. They just listen to the podcast. So it kind of hurts our only way of making money. The second thing is that paywalling podcast, the tech bind, that's a little bit difficult. I know some really, really big podcasts that do it. It's a hard thing for us to manage right now.

So I don't want to paywall any podcasts. I would rather people just subscribe to the newsletter. But it's possible that tomorrow, if I have some time and I'm feeling a little better from this sickness, we'll convert tomorrow's newsletter into a podcast maybe over the weekend because it is an important addition and I do want people to hear it. But if you really want to be sure you're going to get it, please just subscribe to the newsletter. All right, that is it for that update, which brings us to today's quick hits.

First up, the U.S. Senate voted to approve an expansion of NATO to include Finland and Sweden. The vote was 95-1, with only Senator Josh Hawley, the Republican from Missouri, voting against the measure, and Rand Paul voting present. Number two, Russian prosecutors asked a court to sentence WNBA star Brittany Griner to nine and a half years in prison. Number three, five Chinese missiles landed in Japan's exclusive economic zone known as the EEZ, an area that extends 200 nautical miles off Japan's coast. Number four, Representative Jackie Walorski, the Republican from Indiana, died in a car accident yesterday along with two of her aides and one other unknown person.

Number five, 11 golfers from the newly launched LIV Tour filed antitrust lawsuits against the PGA Tour. The golfers, including Phil Mickelson, were banned from PGA Tour events after joining next after voters in what you might call ruby slipper red kansas overwhelmingly sided with abortion rights advocates striking down a proposed constitutional amendment that would have paved the way for the state legislature to increase abortion restrictions in the state, perhaps banning abortion completely. The backlash to the Supreme Court's decision to throw out Roe versus Wade has taken on new shapes. One day after Kansas voters rejected a measure to remove abortion rights from the state's constitution, President Biden announced a new executive order to assist abortion seekers. This was literally the first test of abortion actually being on the

ballot. And I think the biggest story is the turnout and the turnout of voters that don't usually show up in an early August primary. On Tuesday, Kansas voters rejected a referendum on an amendment to remove the right to abortion from the state constitution. The 59 to 41 margin to preserve abortion rights in one of the most conservative states in the U.S. was a surprise to many political strategists who were unsure of where Kansas voters would fall. It was the first time since Roe v. Wade was struck down that voters got a chance to voice their opinion on abortion rights at the state level. The amendment, called Value Them Both,

was an attempt to overturn the 2019 Kansas Supreme Court's decision in Hodes and Nosser v. Schmidt, which declared that the state constitution guarantees a fundamental right to abortion. Currently, abortion is legal in Kansas for up to 22 weeks of pregnancy. The referendum would not have made abortion illegal, but it would have removed any barriers on how far the state legislator could go in limiting when and where abortions were allowed. The measure had been in place on the ballot before Roe v. Wade was struck down, but took on an increased importance and attention after the Dobbs ruling earlier this summer. The referendum attracted strong national interest outside of

Kansas not only because political strategists were curious to see what voters would do, but also because Kansas sits between several states that have strict abortion bans in place, making it a haven for some women who need to travel across state lines to seek out abortions. One clinic in Wichita has reported a 60% increase in out-of-state patients since last year. Over $12 million was spent on advertising in the race split about evenly between the two sides. Turnout for the measure, which coincided with Tuesday's midterms, was huge. The Republican Secretary of State predicted about 36% of voters would participate, but real turnout appears closer to 50%.

Some 908,000 voters cast ballots in the referendum, compared to just 473,000 who voted in the 2018 midterm primaries. While the state is reliably conservative, former President Trump won by 15% there in 2020, it has had its blips of blue. In 2018, for instance, Kansas voters elected Democrat Laura Kelly as governor over her staunch conservative opponent, Chris Kobach. According to the New York Times, an analyst of the Kansas results suggests four out of five states would vote similarly on an abortion referendum, and about 65% of voters nationwide would reject removing abortion rights from their state constitutions. Naturally, this election has caused a lot of commentary on this very divisive issue.

In our past coverage of abortion, we have discussed the legal rulings around Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the moral arguments about abortion and the history of abortion and more. Today, we are going to focus on this vote in Kansas and what it may mean for the nation as a whole. First up, we'll start with what the left is saying. The left celebrates the victory, arguing that the pro-choice side overcame a lot of obstacles. Some call out deceptive texts from anti-abortion groups and Republicans trying to slide the referendum through during primaries. Others say this vote never should have been necessary and warn that pro-life groups won't give up. In the New York Times, Sarah Smarsh wrote about why the defense of abortion rights in Kansas

is so powerful. In a state where registered Republicans far outnumber Democrats, the results reveal that conservative politicians bent on controlling women and pregnant people with draconian abortion bans are out of step with their electorates, a majority of whom are capable of nuance often concealed by our own two-party system, Smarsh wrote. This is not news to many red state moderates and progressives who live with excruciating awareness of the gulf between their decent communities and the far-right extremists gerrymandering, voter suppressingressing, and dark-moneying their way into state and local office. Too often, election results say more about the conditions of the franchise, who manages to access it, and what information or misinformation they receive along the way

than they do about the character of a place. The anti-abortion side used confusing language in the amendment, which suggested a yes vote would ban taxpayer funding of abortions, a ban that already exists, which suggested a yes vote would ban taxpayer funding of abortions, a ban that already exists, or allow for laws protecting victims of rape and incest who already have legal access to abortion, she added. They insisted that they had no designs on passing a total ban on abortion, but the Kansas Reflector obtained audio from a meeting in which a state senator and amendment advocate promised to attempt to pass just such a ban. On top of that, the day before the election, Kansas voters received deceptive texts to vote yes to preserve choice, confusing untold number

of voters. With this atmosphere in mind, alongside polls that were way off target, cynical pundits, and hopeful abortion rights supporters alike were stunned by the extent of the amendment's failure, a nearly 18 percentage point margin with 95% of votes tallied, in an initiative some predicted would require days or even weeks of counting and recounting in order to call. The Kansas City Star editorial board called it a stunning display of common sense. First and foremost, it was a victory for women, the board said. Kansas said in a loud and unmistakable voice that women can and should be trusted with the most intimate questions of their own health and safety. It was also a victory for voters, who defied predictions of a

low turnout in cast ballots in churches, gyms, city halls, and community centers. Many voted early. Voters were able to dissect puzzling ballot language purposefully designed to confuse and intimidate. They rejected false nonsense from anti-abortion groups, including several ludicrous attempts to link the vote to so-called critical race theory or defunding the police. A last-minute text message, apparently authorized by a group run by former U.S. Representative Tim Hulskamp, was quickly disregarded as a bald-faced lie. Tuesday was also a victory for Kansans who oppose heavy-handed government intervention in private decisions, it added. In 2019, the Kansas Supreme Court said a woman's right to choose abortion is inalienable. It cannot be taken away. It was the right decision. In 2022, Kansas voters overwhelmingly endorsed that view.

In a normal environment, opponents of abortion rights would take no for an answer. Don't count on it. We fully expect state lawmakers to push anti-choice bills next year, particularly if a Republican is elected governor. While deeply satisfying, Tuesday's victory should not be a reason for gloating or pointing fingers. Abortion remains divisive and morally difficult. That's the main reason government should stay out of the decision-making process for women. In CNN, Jill Filipovich said the vote should never have happened in the first place. It's tempting to look at the outcome of this election and draw sweeping conclusions about America's appetite for or rejection of abortion restrictions, Filipovich wrote.

The truth is, Americans overwhelmingly did not want to see Roe v. Wade overturned and are generally pro-choice. But when you drill down, people have all kinds of opinions on how, whether, and when abortion should be regulated, whether it should be legal in cases of rape or incest, whether it should be legal if a woman is too poor to support a child, whether it should be legal after the first trimester. These are all the wrong questions, she said. Fundamental rights, and it doesn't get more fundamental than sovereignty over one's own body, should not be up for a vote, even if the righteous side is likely to win. This is a foundational principle in the United States, that while voters should be able to pick their president and their representatives in Congress

and at the state level, and have the power to vote on various state-level laws, our Constitution protects the rights of minority and other historically mistreated groups as well. No one should see their basic rights subject to the tyranny of the majority. All right, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right said the vote is a tough defeat, but cautions not to read too much into it. Many say this is exactly how the system should work, which is why the Supreme Court ruled as it did. Others argue the vote was influenced by outside money and the left's deception. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police

procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist

or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. In National Review, Ramesh Panaru cautioned about looking too much into the results. Kansas, where I grew up, is by no means a pro-life state,

but it would probably never have adopted a sweeping abortion protective constitutional amendment by popular vote, Panaru wrote. Once the state's high court effectively amended the state constitution by itself, though, dislodging its mini-Roe by referendum became, as the results suggest, impossible. That it didn't work really shouldn't be surprising. If we held national referendo, one unabolishing Roe in favor of some policy regime TBD, would almost certainly have lost in most states. Pro-lifers, by and large, understood that the polls in favor of Roe didn't mean Americans were deeply committed to an abortion regime as expansive as the one Roe actually entailed. The result is bad news, but supporters of the abortion license are giddily

over-reading it, he added. The instant line is that the results show that a backlash to Dobbs will be powerful this November, and it's true that the referendum appears to have driven turnout in the state. This suggests to me a few potential advantages for pro- abortion Democrats this fall. They can do very well in places where a pro-life referendum is on the ballot, especially one that can be presented as effectively banning abortion without exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape, and maybe also in some places where legislators are on the verge of enacting such bans or can be presented as being on the verge of it. Will they be as successful in turning out their vote in the many places where those conditions are not

present? Tuesday night's result in Kansas will yield Democratic confidence about the answer to that question. It could turn out to be overconfidence. The New York Post editorial board said the vote is proof of exactly what the Supreme Court said. Abortion should be an issue handled by the states. This was what the justices expected in tossing Roe, not banning abortion, but letting Americans decide for themselves what restrictions on it they want in their states, the board wrote. Many pro-choice activists have pretended Dobbs bans abortion, yet the justices merely found that nothing in the U.S. Constitution forces states to permit the procedure. Indeed, it was Roe, citing an elusive constitutional right to abortion backed by a later rule in Casey, that sought to impose unilateral rules on every state, the very opposite of democratic. Yes, some states will now maintain tough restrictions

on abortion, but others, like Deep Blue New York, are extremely liberal on the issue. And now even Kansas, again a right-leaning state, has reaffirmed a right to the procedure. That's democracy at work, and it completely vindicates Dobbs, the board said. So much for activists hand-wringing over the supposed loss of not just abortion rights, but democracy itself. So much for the militant pro-ing over the supposed loss of not just abortion rights, but democracy itself. So much for the militant pro-choice crowd's ugly threats of violence. The California man who sought to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh and two other conservative justices, Team Biden's encouragement of illegal protests outside justices' homes,

and the left's vile and racist attacks on Justice Clarence Thomas. These are the people who truly want to snuff out democracy and impose their views on all of us. Pro-lifers may be disappointed by the Kansas vote, but every American should be proud that it showed democracy is alive and well in the United States. In The Federalist, Margo Cleveland said it was deception and out-of-state money that drove the pro-abortion victory. While abortion activists and their apologists in the leftist media will claim that the 59% of voters saying no to the ballot measure to a mere 39% of yes votes proves the public disagrees with the reversal of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. But the millions spent by out-of-state leftist groups coupled with the massive misrepresentation of the amendment

make such conclusions suspect, she said. In the last half year, more than 70% of the $6.54 million raised by the lead group campaigning against the amendment came from outsiders, compared to less than 1% of the $4.69 million donated by out-of-staters to the Value Them Both campaign. With a nearly $2 million cash advantage, outsiders succeeded in flooding Kansas with deceptive claims about the Value Them Both amendment, an amendment which, quite simply, would have returned the right to regulate abortions to state legislature. In pushing Kansas to vote no to the amendment, the abortion activists inaccurately claimed the legislature currently has the power to oppose limits on abortion. To date, there are dozens of restrictions. What the legislature can't do is ban the procedure,

as the Kansas Constitution currently guarantees access. In reality, the Hodes decision created a fundamental right to abortion under the Kansas Constitution that surpassed the right previously guaranteed under Roe and Casey, and those dozens of restrictions on the books cannot withstand the strict scrutiny the Kansas Supreme Court established for judging regulations affecting abortions, including many passed with bipartisan support. Alright, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So, if you had asked me a week ago what I thought was going to happen, I would have predicted this outcome, but by a much tighter margin and with a very low degree of confidence. The race in nearly every way was not particularly clean. Margo Cleveland is right that the pro-choice side

misrepresented the stakes with some of their rhetoric and got a load of help from out-of-state money, but it's surprising that the amendment failed given some of what happened on the anti-abortion side. The reality of the situation in Kansas is a weird in-between state. While there are limits on abortion, there is also a 2019 state Supreme Court ruling that could feasibly strike down some of those limits. If this referendum had passed, it would have made that ruling obsolete, and it would have opened the door for strict abortion bans across the state, which legislators privately seem very keen on executing. And to muddy the waters to get there, the pro-life side definitely played dirty. One conservative group sent out text messages on the day of the vote that read, quote, women in Kansas are losing their choice on reproductive rights.

Voting yes on the amendment will give women a choice. Vote yes to protect women's health. This is pro-choice language hidden inside a message from a pro-life group intending to get pro-choice people to vote the wrong way. The language of the amendment, which was drafted by the anti-abortion side, was also intentionally misleading. For example, the ballot said a yes vote would, quote, affirm there is no constitutional right to abortion, end quote, when a yes vote would really change the Kansas Constitution to no constitutional right to abortion, end quote, when a yes vote

would really change the Kansas Constitution to remove the right to an abortion. It also explains what exceptions an abortion ban could have, like pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, in a way that makes it seem like voting yes would preserve those exceptions, when in reality voting yes would have allowed the state legislator to eliminate all exceptions if they chose. Despite some of this deception, including having the referendum during primaries and the general confusion and expected politicking, I do think there is something to learn here. For starters, I think it's clear the pro-life groups and many of the legislators they support are a lot more extreme on abortion

restrictions than most voters. Even some of the most conservative counties in Kansas, where Trump won 71% of the vote, saw 56% of voters reject the amendment. Perhaps those voters don't think about their vote as supporting a constitutional right to abortion, but I think it's reasonable to understand their vote as limiting the government's control over citizens' personal decisions. Ironically, of course, that's a very traditionally conservative position to take, as I've said. I believe Kansas voters rejected this amendment in part because activists won over many conservatives by framing it clearly and accurately as an individual rights and liberty vote, one cast to keep the government out of such decisions. Can this formula be replicated elsewhere? It's really hard to say. For all the talk of conservative bona fides in Kansas, it is a unique state that currently has a female Democratic governor and a lot of political quirks other states don't. I always suspected that the reality of Roe falling would result in only a handful of states with very

strict abortion limits, a large plurality of states with looser restrictions, and another handful of states with very few restrictions. This vote helps affirm that suspicion. As for how it impacts the midterms, I think the single most important impact is on turnout. The advantage is almost always with the party out of power, because it's easier to rile up your base to vote in a non-presidential election when the person you hate is in the White House. But a wedge issue like this one could certainly change that historical paradigm. All right, next up is your questions answered. This one is from Nathan in California. Nathan said, the founder's original vision was to have one representative for every 50,000 citizens.

We now have one person representing almost a million people in the House of Representatives. Is there any movement to expand the size of the U.S. House and to add more representatives? More representatives mean people's voices can be better heard and could cut down on gerrymandering issues too. It seems strange the size of the House has been frozen for 100 years. Other countries have much larger representative bodies. Why not expand the House and make more seats at the table? So Nathan, there is a big time movement for this in 2018 the new york times did an entire series advocating this change they wanted to add 158 seats our common purpose from the american academy of arts and sciences has done a ton of work advocating house expansion too i actually linked

to their website in today's newsletter which is is pretty interesting. According to their numbers, the average House district today has about 770,000 people, compared to 35,000 in 1790. The number of representatives grew from 65 in 1790 to 435 in 1913, but that number was capped in 1929. Frankly, I think there are a lot of very good arguments for expanding the House. Perhaps the best one is that studies have shown Americans from smaller districts feel better represented by their members. Most Americans, though, feel totally disconnected from the people who are supposed to be representing them at the federal level. This size issue also protects incumbents. Because running in larger districts, which now most districts are, is so expensive, challengers need way more money

to reach all 770,000 or more constituents. That makes name recognition and media funding paramount to winning, which helps people who currently hold office even if they are bad at their jobs. There are some cheeky but cogent counterpoints, though. For instance, the argument that more politicians is the last thing America needs. But there are other good arguments not to expand too. For instance, the more members, the more diluted any single representative's power is, meaning the less influence that district would have nationally. The House is also already very big and very dysfunctional, and it's hard to imagine adding more representatives would help resolve that. There are a lot of good arguments on both sides but this is absolutely a debate that's happening now. Alright, that is it for our reader question,

which brings us to our story that matters. The Transportation Department has proposed stricter rules on when major airlines will have to refund passengers for delays and cancellations. Currently, air travelers are entitled to refunds if their flights are canceled or significantly delayed, but the agency has not defined what constituted a significant change. Passengers are now eligible for cash refunds when their flight is delayed by three hours domestic or six hours international, and it doesn't matter if it was a non-refundable ticket. The new rules also require airlines to provide non-expiring vouchers for passengers who can't travel if they get sick or if borders are closed due to the pandemic. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has publicly criticized airlines for their delays and cancellations

during the pandemic. The rules will be open for public comment for 90 days before going into effect. CNBC has the story. There's a link to it in today's newsletter. CNBC has the story. There's a link to it in today's newsletter. First up, the percentage of likely voters who said they were going to vote for the Kansas pro-life amendment in late July was 47%, according to a coefficient poll. The percentage of likely voters who said they were going to vote against the amendment was 43%. The percentage of voters who ultimately voted for the amendment was 41.2 43%. The percentage of voters who ultimately voted for the amendment was 41.2%, and the percentage of voters who ultimately voted against it was 58.8%. The number of U.S. House members who have now died this year is three. And last but not least is

fifth. That's the rank and length of the Rio Grande, the U.S. river which went dry in Albuquerque, New Mexico this week. All right, that is it for our numbers section. Next up, and last but not least, is our have a nice day section. Mark Cuban's new prescription drug company is off the ground and apparently already achieving its goal of selling ultra-cheap medications. Cost Plus, Cuban's company, launched in January. Now it's selling hundreds of generic, commonly used medications with massive cost cuts. The generic version of Actos, a diabetes medication that sells for $74 at many pharmacies, is on sale for $6.60. Apriso, for patients with gastrointestinal disease, is sold for $122. A preso for patients with gastrointestinal disease is sold for $122.

The generic version that costs plus $36. CNET has the story on how Cuban is pulling it off, and there's a link to it in today's newsletter. All right, that is it for today's podcast. Like I said at the top of the episode, if you want to hear from us tomorrow, you need to subscribe. Retangle.com slash membership. Become a member. We have a big update tomorrow and a big survey going out to readers. I think it'll be worth the $4 a month you have to pay to do it when you sign up for the year. Support our work, please. Either way, I'll see you maybe this weekend and if not on Monday, same time. Have a good one. Peace. The podcast was produced by Diet 75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. We'll see you next time. who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web,

his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average

of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca.