There was a time not long ago that winning approval for any significant abortion rights legislation in the nation’s most Roman Catholic state was an exercise in futility.
Smith Hill was in thrall to male Democratic leaders –most of them Catholic—who squelched debate and consideration of any abortion rights measures.
As recently as last year, House Speaker Nick Mattiello, a Cranston Democrat from a district that went for Donald Trump in 2016, kept the cork in the abortion bottle, refusing to allow a vote on legislation codifying the Roe vs. Wade standard into state law.
So the recent House vote to enshrine Roe vs. Wade into state law was a historic break from the usual Smith Hill insider-clotted political culture. In the end, the vote wasn’t even close – the House went 44 to 30.
The Republican Party once supported abortion rights. They were the party of Protestants and the occasional Jew who backed women’s rights. (Think John Chafee, Lila Sapinsley, Claudine Schneider, Susan Farmer) That’s changed, too. Only one of nine House Republican lawmakers supported the bill. A solid majority of Democrats carried the legislation to victory.
This big shift on the most divisive social issue of the last half-century in American politics has simmered for years. Among the forces leading to change was the emergence of more woman winning legislative seats; the declining influence of the Catholic Church; the acceptance of abortions rights among voters; and the Democratic Party’s evolution on the issue.
It was also due to a shift in the attitude of Mattiello, a centrist leader who handled the issue deftly. Roll the reel back to last summer, when he scuttled a similar bill advanced by veteran liberal Rep. Edith Ajello of Providence.
At the end of last year’s session, Mattiello drew the ire of women Democratic lawmakers by killing the abortion measure, as well of a series of other women’s rights priorities, including equal pay legislation. As election season kicked off, the speaker frosted more Democratic women by endorsing a Trump-supporting former Republican over freshman Rep. Moira Walsh, a Providence Democrat and Mattiello critic.
Mattiello was mum on abortion during his close reelection victory in his conservative Cranston neighborhood, where he worships at Immaculate Conception Church. On election night, he watched as a group of progressive woman Democrats won elections around the state.
After the election, Mattiello faced a rebellion from many of the progressives. But he held on to his powerful post because of the relationships he cultivated over the years. The first hint of his change of attitude came in a post-election interview on The Public’s Radio.
The speaker cited a poll commissioned by the Public’s Radio, the Providence Journal and ABC6 Television. That survey showed that 71 percent of Rhode Islanders supported Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. Mattiello, in the interview, acknowledged that Rhode Island was a “pro-choice state.”
The newly empowered progressive caucus in the made the abortion legislation a top priority. Mattiello realized the corner he was in. He decided to allow a floor vote on the issue. He personally voted against codifying abortion rights, but he knew that permitting the vote would lead to an abortion rights victory. As is the case with all successful Statehouse leaders, Matiello can count.
There was precedent for how Mattiello handled this prickly issue. Back in 2013, Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed, a Catholic Democrat who was against gay marriage, did something similar. She voted against the legislation but allowed a vote that legalized same sex marriage.
This isn’t the end of the abortion rights joust on Smith Hill. The measure still must clear the Senate, where President Dominick Ruggerio, who is against abortion rights, isn’t tipping his hand. But Sen. Josh Miller a Cranston Democrat, says he believes the Senate will go along with the House.
Until the Senate votes, the Statehouse will be thronged by the daily demonstrations of anti-abortion protesters holding their cardboard placards.
Scott MacKay’s commentary can be heard every Monday at 6:45 and 8:45 and at 5:44 in the afternoon.
