So for those not following VA politics, I’ll do up a bit of a TL;DR:
Pre-Nov-2023:
- Governor: Republican
- Legislature: 1 house was Dem, 1 house was Republican
- Abortion was used to try to drum up support to make both legislative houses Republican in the Nov 2023 elections (among other things)
Nov 2023 elections happen.
- Plan backfires. Dems get both legislative houses, but Gov seat is still Republican.
New Legislative session starts for 2024.
- Republican filed a bill to remove funding for abortions
- Dems were like “lol no”, wanted to bring a floor vote on the bill to get votes recorded on where everyone stands on it
- Republicans tried to revoke and water down bill, Dems were like “lol no”
- Dems forced the bill to floor vote
- Almost every single Republican decided to vote “no” on bill, so it failed by 97 votes (out of 100).
“I will not allow these babies and these mothers to be politicized” said Griffin, while actively politicizing those babies and those mothers.