Democrats woo abortion opponents for Senate

WASHINGTON - The indefatigable senior senator from New York, Charles Schumer, has spent a career crusading for abortion rights.

Now as the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Schumer’s job is to chip away at the Republican majority of 55. Schumer has scored a big success by persuading Pennsylvania state Treasurer Bob Casey, a foe of abortion rights, to be the Democratic candidate against two-term Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, a leader of the anti-abortion movement.

Casey has wide name recognition among Pennsylvania voters, elected three times statewide as auditor general and treasurer, as well as being the son of former Gov. Bob Casey.

Casey’s entry into the race came even as Schumer this week was waging a Senate floor fight for his measure to punish violent anti-abortion protestors.

Schumer and other Democratic leaders aren’t changing the party’s orthodoxy on Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide, but are accommodating candidates such as Casey who could begin the long march back to 51.

Democrats now hold only 44 seats in the Senate, the fewest since 1931, so they’re seeking the strongest candidates they can, even if such candidates are doctrinally abhorrent to abortion rights groups.

Backed by Schumer and Pennsylvania’s pro-Roe governor, Ed Rendell, who helped squeeze pro-Roe candidate Barbara Hafer out of the race, Casey now seems assured of the party’s nomination.

One possible pro-Roe entrant into the race: Chris Heinz, son of Republican Sen. John Heinz, who was killed in plane-helicopter collision in 1991. Chris Heinz campaigned widely last year for his stepfather, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

In addition to Casey, Schumer is also trying to recruit anti-Roe Rep. Jim Langevin to run against pro-Roe Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island.

A pro-Roe Democrat, Rhode Island Secretary of State Matt Brown, has already declared his candidacy. Brown, who won with 68 percent of the vote in 2002, has gone as far afield as Los Angeles to raise money for his campaign, setting the stage for a defining ideological primary battle among Democrats in September of 2006.

Pro-choicers disturbed
Supporters of Roe are disturbed by Schumer’s recruitment of Casey and Langevin.

“It is a problem when leading Democrats publicly recruit candidates who do not share the core values of the party," Democratic consultant Kate Michelman, the former head of the abortion rights group NARAL, said Thursday. "I don’t think you ever win in the long term by sacrificing core principles. The right wing has never done that.”

Michelman asked, “Can you imagine recruiting people to run for the Senate with a record of opposition to affirmative action or to Brown v. Board of Education (the 1954 school desegregation decision)?”

Michelman is supporting Matt Brown’s candidacy in Rhode Island.

If elected, Langevin and Casey would join a tiny anti-abortion rights coterie among Senate Democrats.

As an indicator of who is and who isn’t for abortion rights, consider a March 12, 2003 vote on a measure offered by Sen. Tom Harkin, D- Iowa, which said that the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade “secures an important constitutional right” and should not be overturned.

The only current Democratic members of the Senate to vote against Harkin’s measure were Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, while 45 Democrats, including Schumer, voted for it.

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