Morning Digest: How the GOP thwarted a GOP plan to thwart abortion rights

The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.

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Leading Off

● MO Ballot: Missouri Republicans are bitter as can be after infighting led to the collapse of a GOP plan on Friday that would have made it harder to pass an abortion rights amendment at the ballot box later this year.

"This Republican Party has no backbone to fight for what is right for life," thundered Republican state Sen. Rick Brattin on the floor of the state Senate last week. "That's what this fight has been about all along—protecting life and liberty. And I know that people are listening to this online and are fed up with the Republican Party, because they have no backbone. And they will have the blood of the innocent on their heads. Shame on this party."

But it wasn't just the GOP's escalating civil war that doomed their proposal. Democrats' tiny nine-member caucus stood strong and waged a record-breaking 50-hour filibuster that forced Republicans to back down.

How did Democrats remain united? Why are Republicans so divided? And what does it all mean for the fate of abortion rights in the Show Me State? Check out David Nir's complete recap of the high-drama saga that consumed the final week of this year's legislative session and has Democrats feeling pumped for November.

Senate

● MI-Sen: The Michigan Democratic Party and the DSCC asked the Board of State Canvassers on Friday to investigate "potential fraud in the nominating petitions" of all three of the major GOP Senate candidates—former Reps. Mike Rogers and Justin Amash and wealthy businessman Sandy Pensler. They also asked for the same scrutiny of former Rep. Peter Meijer, who ended his longshot campaign shortly after he submitted his signatures to get on the August primary ballot.

Republicans responded by dismissing the allegations, noting that the deadline to challenge the validity of signatures passed on April 30. The Associated Press, though, says that the canvassing board still has the power to open a probe for complaints submitted after that date.

Forged signatures have ended the campaigns of several Michigan politicians in recent years, a fact Democrats took note of in their letter. They argue that their allegations "suggest[s] a possible repeat of the conduct of petition circulators during the 2022 election" that resulted in the disqualification of five GOP candidates for governor, including nominal frontrunner James Craig.

The problem of faulty signatures isn't confined to Republicans, though. Former Democratic state Sen. Adam Hollier is currently in serious danger of being thrown off the ballot in the safely blue 13th Congressional District.

House

● FL-15: Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott both endorsed freshman Rep. Laurel Lee on Thursday, a move that came almost two months after Donald Trump unsuccessfully called for a strong Republican to challenge her in the Aug. 20 primary.

Both senators are Trump lackeys (Rubio is also a potential vice presidential nominee), but their decision to back Lee indicates that they don't believe their master will seek to retaliate. Trump himself hasn't said anything publicly about Lee in the three weeks since candidate filing closed, when the congresswoman learned that she'd only face two little-known intra-party foes.

● LA-??: Republican Rep. Garret Graves will run for reelection … somewhere

In a Friday statement complaining about a recent Supreme Court ruling that reinstated a map deliberately designed to target Graves, the congressman said he is "running for reelection in a district anchored in the Capital Region" and is "looking through these districts to determine where we can best represent the interests and priorities of the people of Louisiana."

He won't have to look too far. The area around the state capital of Baton Rouge is variously defined as covering nine or 11 parishes, which in turn make up parts of four different congressional districts, whichever definition you use.

Two of those are hopelessly blue, from Graves' perspective: the New Orleans-based 2nd and the Baton Rouge-to-Shreveport 6th—the district that Republicans, led by Gov. Jeff Landry, created out of the wreckage of Graves' old seat. Both are also majority-Black districts.

That leaves two others. The safely red 1st District reaches only the outer periphery of the Capital Region, but more importantly, it's represented by Rep. Steve Scalise, who is the second-most powerful Republican in the House.

The final option is the conservative 5th District, but Graves had previously downplayed the possibility he might take on fellow GOP Rep. Julia Letlow—who, in any case, was endorsed by Donald Trump earlier this year when Graves was first casting about for a district to run in.

The 5th would still represent Graves' most obvious choice, though. While Letlow represents 57% of the redrawn district and Graves just 43%, according to a Daily Kos Elections analysis, a November faceoff could be more evenly divided. Approximately 117,000 people who voted for Trump in 2020 live in Letlow's portion of the district while 111,000 Trump voters live in Graves'.

It could also be unpredictable, since all candidates from all parties run together on a single ballot, with the top two vote-getters advancing to a December runoff only if no one secures a majority. The presence of additional candidates, including Democrats, would make such a race difficult to handicap. Graves, though, has a while to decide: As he noted in his statement, Louisiana has a "last-in-the-nation" filing deadline of July 19.

● TX-23: The Republican Jewish Coalition said on Friday that it would spend $400,000 on an ad buy to help Rep. Tony Gonzales fend off gun maker Brandon Herrera in the May 28 Republican primary runoff, a move that came shortly after AIPAC began its own $1 million campaign to stop the challenger. RJC's commercial attacks Herrera, who moved to Texas in 2020, as "a fool from North Carolina" who "mock[s] veterans."

● UT-02: American Action Network, a conservative dark money group, is airing ads praising GOP Rep. Celeste Maloy as part of what's become a nationwide campaign to help vulnerable allies of GOP leaders survive primary challenges.

This commercial, like the messaging AAN is using to help Rep. Tony Gonzales in Texas and Rep. Tom Cole in Oklahoma, praises Maloy on border security. There's no word, though, as to how much the organization is spending to help Maloy fend off Green Beret veteran Colby Jenkins, who has far-right Sen. Mike Lee's endorsement, in the June 25 GOP primary for Utah's 2nd District.

Ballot Measures

● OR Ballot: Oregon's Supreme Court has ruled that ballot language for a ballot measure that would institute ranked-choice voting must be rewritten before it can go before voters this fall. However, the changes required are modest.

The court sided with a plaintiff who challenged the phrase "majority of votes," since a candidate could win with a majority of votes still active in the final round of ranked-choice tabulations but not a majority of votes cast in the first round due to "ballot exhaustion." That term describes what happens when voters don't express a preference for a remaining candidate in any additional rounds of voting.

The court ordered Democratic Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum's office to revise the language to clarify that "majority" refers to active votes.

Democratic lawmakers passed their proposal last year to adopt ranked-choice voting for primary and general elections for president, Senate, House, and statewide executive offices. It would exclude elections for the state legislature, though, but local governments would be allowed to choose whether to adopt the new system.

● SD Ballot: South Dakota election officials announced Thursday that supporters of an abortion rights ballot initiative have submitted sufficient signatures for their proposed constitutional amendment to go before voters in November.

However, an anti-abortion group called South Dakota Petition Integrity has been urging voters to withdraw their signatures, taking advantage of a law Republicans passed earlier this year that gives voters 30 days to rescind their support for such initiatives.

The group's tactics have already gotten it into trouble, though. Republican Secretary of State Monae Johnson's office recently sent out a press release alleging that individuals making calls on behalf of the organization have misled voters into thinking they're election officials, warning voters to watch out for "scammers."

Reproductive rights activists submitted nearly 55,000 signatures, of which 35,017 must be valid to put the amendment before voters this fall. Based on random sampling, officials estimated that roughly 46,000 are valid, meaning opponents would need to convince around 11,000 signers to withdraw their names.

Ad Roundup

• NV-Sen: Sam Brown (R)
• CO-05: Jeff Crank (R)
• ND-AL: Rick Becker (R)
• NV-03: Dan Schwartz (R)
• VA-10: VoteVets - pro-Dan Helmer (D)