Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., speaks during a news conference at the Fuente de Vida Mental Health Clinic Friday, July 1, 2022. Masto talked about the recent Supreme Court decision repealing Roe v. Wade and denounced Republican challenger Adam Laxalt for his stance on reproductive rights. BRIAN RAMOS
Saturday, July 2, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto attacked her Republican opponent Friday, saying that if Republican Adam Laxalt is elected, women’s rights will be further restricted and Laxalt will support a national abortion ban.
“We have an election here,” said Cortez Masto, a Democrat who is seeking reelection and a second term in the Senate. “And who wins this seat is going to determine whether or not there’s gonna be support for that federal abortion ban.
“And I’m here to tell you, my opponent is pro-life, which, listen, if it stopped there, that would be fine. But he wants to roll back what we have done in this state,” Cortez Masto added. “That is what is at stake. He is out of step with the majority of Nevadans in this state. And if we do not protect it, if we do not protect the seat, we are going to lose those rights that we have fought for.”
Her comments came during an appearance Friday at the Fuente de Vida Mental Health Services clinic in Las Vegas, a week after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion. In a case out of Mississippi, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, justices ruled 6-3 that there was no constitutional right to an abortion and said that the right to regulate abortion “must be returned to the people and their elected representatives.”
In response to Cortez Masto’s claims, Laxalt’s campaign said in a statement, “The people of Nevada have already voted to make abortion rights legal in our state, and the court’s decision on Roe doesn’t change settled law and it won’t distract voters from unaffordable prices, rising crime or the border crisis.”
His campaign did not answer questions on whether Laxalt would support a federal ban on abortion or if he would stick to his assertion that regulating abortion was an issue best left to the states.
“This is about electing people who are pro-choice, who respect the autonomy of women, who respect equal rights of women,” Cortez Masto said, “who understand that we are 50% of the population, and we should be treated equally when it comes to making our own decisions for our health.”
Cortez Masto said she had Republican colleagues who were drafting legislation to create a federal abortion ban or restrictions. While Nevadans voted in 1990 to guarantee the right to abortion, if Congress passes a federal abortion ban, that will preempt Nevada’s law, Cortez Masto said.
Cortez Masto’s using Roe v. Wade as an issue in her bid for reelection is part of a national trend for Democrats to attack Republicans. The Democratic National Committee, for instance, launched an ad last week in Nevada saying Republicans are planning to further restrict abortion access.
“Now that Republicans have succeeded in their decades-long war to overturn Roe v. Wade, they’re telling voters what they have planned next: banning abortion across the country,” Brooke Goren, the DNC’s states communications director, said in a statement. “While Democrats work to ensure health care decisions stay between a woman and her doctor, Republican lawmakers in Nevada and across the country are signaling that bans with no exceptions for rape or incest are next on their extreme agenda.”
An OH Predictive Insights survey from October 2021 found that the majority (69%) of Nevadans lean pro-choice, while 31% lean toward opposing the right to choose abortion.
Cortez Masto, Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., and 32 other Democratic senators sent a letter Monday urging President Joe Biden to act to protect abortion access after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe.
“Now is the time for bold action to protect the right to an abortion,” the letter says. “You have the power to fight back and lead a national response to this devastating decision, so we call on you to take every step available to your administration, across federal agencies, to help women access abortions and other reproductive health care, and to protect those who will face the harshest burdens from this devastating and extreme decision.”
On Thursday, Biden encouraged Congress to act, saying Roe v. Wade must be codified into law.
“If the filibuster gets in the way, then we need to make an exception to get it done,” Biden said.
Last fall, House Democrats passed the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have made abortion protections federal law, but in May the legislation stalled in the Senate after it failed reach that chamber’s 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster.
It’s unlikely Democrats will be able to change the filibuster rules and pass the legislation by simple majority. But allowing women to make their own reproductive health decisions is one of the main talking points they are using in the campaign run-up to the midterm elections. If more Democrats get elected in November, they argue, they can reassert women’s rights to end a pregnancy.
The standstill at the Senate is preventing the codification of Roe v. Wade, but Cortez Masto is working on other adjacent legislation to help women.
She introduced the DATA Privacy Act in 2019, which she said in part protects women’s information from being tracked. Companies can track women’s data and can determine if they’re seeking health care or going to Planned Parenthood, Cortez Masto said.
“(The DATA Privacy Act) protects them,” Cortez Masto said, “and we need to protect that information from being used by those who want to criminalize individuals or doctors that provide essential services.”
The legislation allows consumers to request, dispute the accuracy, and transfer or delete their data from companies, and it requires companies collecting data on more than 3,000 people per year to protect consumer data based on risk of privacy.
Cortez Masto has also called on the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security to play a role in helping women. She suggested the Department of Homeland Security hire an ombudsman that provides information for women on all the abortion trigger laws happening across the country, where the abortion restrictions and abortion criminalizations are taking place, she said.
Abortion activists have criticized Democrats for not codifying Roe v. Wade years ago when they held larger majorities in Congress.
In 1993, Democrats introduced the Freedom of Choice Act, which would have prohibited any federal, state or local governmental entity from restricting the right of a woman to choose to end a pregnancy, but it never got off the ground.
Barack Obama, in 2007, told Planned Parenthood that the first thing he’d do as president would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, according to The New York Times, but in 2009 he said the bill was not his “highest legislative priority.”When he was elected, Democrats lacked the requisite 60-vote supermajority to required to break a filibuster, because then-Sen. Al Franken’s victory in Minnesota was being contested in court. Franken would not be seated until July, and the next month, Democrats dropped back below 60 votes when Sen. Kennedy of Massachusetts died. In addition, some senators who caucused with the Democrats, such asJoe Lieberman of Connecticut, were opposed to abortion rights.
Cortez Masto said Friday she could not speak for previous administrations and their inaction to codify Roe, but she said the goal now was to protect those rights. Nevada is an example of what can be done, she said.
“I’m an attorney. I respect precedent,” Cortez Masto said. “I do not believe it is OK for any court to ignore the last 50 years of women’s history and women’s rights and case law and jurisprudence that actually have carefully protected a woman’s right to choose.”
“So now we need to figure out what we need, to work together in the short term and long term,” she said, “how to ensure that we’re protecting women across the country."
