Lala Wu, co-founder and executive director of Sister District, joins Cheddar Politics to discuss the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Roe v. Wade, and how Democrats can fight for abortion rights at the state level.

Cheddar Politics

Supreme Court Sends Abortion Fight Back to States

welcome back to cheddar politics. The Supreme Court sent shockwaves across the country with its decision last week to overturn roe v wade and send the issue of abortion entirely back to states now, rather than playing on federal courts as it has for about the last 50 years, fights over abortion rights will play out in state capitals where republicans enjoy a significant advantage. Joining us now is La La Loo, co founder and executive director of Sister District, La La. It's so great to have you, we're going to dig in on that state's part of this a little bit in just a second. But we have to start with row itself. The overturning of roe versus wade has a massive impact right off the bat. I want to get your take as someone who works in this advocacy space to get more people to run for office. What difference you think this makes nationwide electorally and at the state level. So first, the impact on women's lives has been massive and devastating already. And there are people being turned away from receiving the care that they want and need in many states that have already overturned abortion bandit because of trigger laws or pre roe bands that have been on the books and many more are to come. And so this is there's a devastating human toll already when it comes to the elections. I think that it depends what democrats make of this moment. Are we our democrats going to keep the energy and the anger going and bring that electorally through the midterms or will this fizzle out. And I think that it really is up to the democrats and how they're able to capture this moment. I think we need to talk about that a little bit because it feels sometimes certainly at the state level, right, The democrats are just really focused on national politics, winning the presidency, winning control of the Senate and Congress, and they don't really play offense particularly well at the state level. A great example of this is michigan right, or Wisconsin, where they have democratic governors right? Statewide offices are held mostly by democrats, but they have republican legislatures and that's why those pre roe abortion bans are still on the books. Even if those republican governors say they won't uphold them. Our democratic governors, even if those democratic attorneys general say they want to hold them, it just takes an election in november to change that entire landscape. Why do you think democrats sort of are so caught off guard by the need to be engaged at the state level? Unfortunately, there has been a real lack of attention to states and there has been an overinvestment really, in building federal power and of course, we need to build power at all levels of government, but republicans have been building power at all levels, Including at this critical state level for over 50 years. For example, in the 1970s, we saw the rise of Alec where this organization Causes the initiates and propagates conservative legislation from state to state and in 2010, the Republicans implemented their red map strategy to Gerrymander themselves into power for the next decade. And we're still feeling the effects of that. Unfortunately democrats are tardy to the party, but we can and we must catch up. And so it's critical that folks understand that, you know, in many states we don't really have a very good democracy, we have minority rule. As you just mentioned in michigan. You know, the governor, the attorney general and the Secretary of state are all strong democratic women elected at the statewide level yet because of gerrymandering. Republicans are in control in the legislature despite having not won a majority of votes and they're the ones that get to decide the fate of michiganders. And in michigan now, a 1931 law is in effect that bans abortion Well, and I think that we need to talk a little bit about about what Democrats are going to do about gerrymandering because the fact is the most, I would argue the most important election in the past, you know, 30 years was not 2008, it was actually 2010 because there was such a concerted effort to redraw those maps and those maps are still very much similar today because there has been an ability to remain in power for so much longer than is maybe um population newly appropriate? What do democrats do with that if they're if they're gerrymandered out of power, how do they energize voters if it doesn't look like they're going to win or people feel like their votes don't count. We have to work towards a future where we have fair districts and we are seeing that that is the case in certain places. So just to use Michigan as an example. Again in 2018, the voters of that state passed independent redistricting commission constitutional amendment. And so that means that whereas before the state legislature was able to choose, you know, the republicans were able to choose their voters as opposed to the other way around in the process of redistricting and their gerrymandering. Now, in this year, we actually have reasonably fair maps and they're quite competitive and we expect that we will be able to compete for the majority in michigan because of this. And so, you know, every state is different in terms of how redistricting works, but we need more and more states that are like michigan that have fair processes so that we can get fair maps and fair representation. And in the meantime, what we need to do is do everything that we can to build majorities in state state houses everywhere. There are some great opportunities this year in Arizona Georgia, michigan north Carolina Nevada pennsylvania Wisconsin, for example, where we can flip houses or hold fragile majorities and then also make some longer term plays thinking about where we'll be able to flip those houses and those states and it's not this year necessarily. But you know, next cycle. The cycle after that. Okay, La La, I've got about 30 seconds left. And I need an answer real quick from you on this. It's gonna take time to build this kind of power dynamic to put democrats in office what needs to be done right now, because the fact is that women still need to obtain abortion care right now. So if you're looking at, you know, the two or three things that need to happen today, what does that look like for you? The states that have pro choice majorities which happen to be led by democrats need to be doing more of what they're doing, which is protecting abortion in their states, making them safe havens for other people to travel there. And also we need to fight those places in those states that are trying to make uh illegal to cross state lines to have an abortion. So, you know, unfortunately, a federal solution isn't forthcoming at the moment, but we do need to fight state by state and do everything we can to protect access for people who need the services. La la thank you so much. This is such an I think important part of the conversation, La La, who is co founder and executive Director of Sister District