The Supreme Court could shake up the 2022 elections with two key decisions

By Sahil Kapur - NBC News

WASHINGTON - The most conservative Supreme Court in nearly a century could issue two major politically impactful abortion and gun rights decisions just months before next year's midterm elections.

Democrats are prepared to suffer losses at the court, with a six-to-three conservative majority, but they are working to try to turn those sentences into victories at the polls.

Democrats cling to polls, which reveal that Americans support the Roe v. Wade ruling, which has decriminalized abortion since 1973, and stricter gun laws, especially in the suburbs.

[The Supreme Court agrees to analyze a case on abortion that will allow it to decide whether to impose new limits on this right of women]

Sean Patrick Maloney, representative for New York and campaign chairman charged with defending the majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives, declared that Republicans "can live to regret it" if the majority of the Supreme Court they built reverses the sentence of the case. Roe against Wade.

“Anyone who understands the importance of reproductive freedom would be outraged if 50 years of established laws were annulled

.

It would be terrible for the country.

And I think there would be a price to pay, ”Maloney said.

"People who contribute to that must be held accountable," he added.

Historic trends favor Republicans in the battle for the House of Representatives and the Senate next year.

The last two presidents suffered major defeats in the first midterm elections.

Democrats, who depend on a younger, non-white voter base, tend to have steeper drops in turnout when they control the White House.

Protesters for abortion rights demonstrate in front of the Supreme Court in Washington DC on March 4, 2020.AP Photo / Jacquelyn Martin

"Turnout, turnout, turnout!" Said Tyler Law, who was a campaign aide for the House Democrats in 2018.

"If you look back at the midterm elections in which the Democrats raised their voices, it was due in large part to the huge drops in Democratic turnout," he said.

"Two massive Supreme Court decisions will raise the stakes of the election and fight any voter apathy that may harm our side."

For decades, abortion has been a political boon for Republicans, enthusing their grassroots while lulling supporters of legal abortion into relative complacency due to a perception of improbability of losing the right.

[Negotiations to push for police reform remain stalled a year after George Floyd's death]

Guns were once a winning issue for the Republican Party, but the increasing frequency of mass shootings over the past decade has moved voters in favor of stricter laws, polls show.

Mike Davis, a conservative strategist who has worked on Supreme Court nominations at the highest levels of the Republican Party, said he would welcome a battle for the courts in the midterm elections.

"As Hillary Clinton in 2016 and four former Senate Democrats in 2018 learned the hard way, focusing on the Supreme Court is a winning issue for Republicans," Davis said, adding that it "unites and motivates conservatives" and "wins. to the independents. "

"A problem for the Republicans"

In 2018, a heated fight over Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh ignited conservatives who believed he had been abused by allegations of sexual misconduct from decades ago.

Last year, a week before the election, Republicans confirmed that Amy Coney Barrett would replace the late liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg, allowing for conservative legal victories that once seemed unlikely.

[The White House cuts the infrastructure plan to 1.7 billion to convince the Republican Party]

"The American people are pro-abortion and understand how important reproductive freedom is," said Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Massachusetts, the second-highest-ranking woman in the House leadership.

"The American people want to reduce gun violence and make a difference. So we'll see what happens to the Supreme Court. But I think if they rule against the will of the American people on those two fundamental issues, it will be a problem for Republicans. in the fall of 2022, "he added.

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One case is about the constitutionality of a Mississippi law that would prohibit most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, going to the heart of the Roe v. Wade case and its subsequent precedents.

In the case of weapons, the court will decide whether the Second Amendment grants the right to carry a gun outside the home.

The judges will hear both matters this fall, with decisions expected by the end of June 2022.

President Joe Biden faces a restless progressive flank that is pushing to add four seats to the Supreme Court in response to Republican scorched earth tactics to cement a conservative majority.

In response, it has created a commission with a broad ideological range of voices to study the structure of the court and recommend changes.

A Republican Senate campaign aide predicted that the gun and abortion rulings would raise voices on the left calling for adding justices to the Supreme Court, allowing Republican candidates to run against "judicial packaging," which is a measure. unpopular.

[Texas passes law that bans abortions as early as six weeks, even in cases of rape or incest]

Other conservative politicians downplay the political impact of the cases, suggesting that the results are uncertain and that judges may take gradual action with consequences that voters are unlikely to feel immediately.

"It's hard to look ahead and predict how the Supreme Court might rule on any of the issues, let alone what the political reaction would be

,

"

said Dan Eberhart, an oil and gas executive and major Republican donor.

"I find it hard to believe that the court would go so far as to overturn the sentence in the Roe v. Wade case, and even if they did, that would not mean that abortions would become illegal overnight," he added.

"Both sides will surely use these issues to mobilize their base and increase participation. Expect many loud, nasty, half-truth campaign announcements and calls for fundraising," he concluded.