Endangered species: pro-life Democrats in Congress [Updated 2/12/2018]

First Things, in my view, has been running on fumes for the last nine years, continuing to get by on the goodwill and reputation among religious conservatives that was built up by the periodical's founder, the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, who passed away in 2009. 


I suppose First Things' contents never have been very appealing to liberal Catholics; but during its heyday under Neuhaus's watch, the publication had a seriousness of purpose, a coherence of content around its mission (fostering ecumenical ties between Catholics and Evangelicals, and bringing those points of commonality to the public square), a certain conservative evangelizing fervor, and standards of excellence.  It identified a niche in the public intellectual landscape, filled it, and for a time it mattered.  I don't think it matters much anymore; in fact, speaking as a Catholic with some conservative tendencies, I find that it's hard to take it very seriously these days.  I now give it a miss for long periods of time.

Most recently it pinged my radar when it published a seminary professor's review of a book about the Edgardo Mortara affair.  Mortara was a Jewish child in Bologna in the 19th century who was snatched away from his family and raised by the papal household because the child had been secretly baptized by a Catholic servant.  The reviewer accords the papal police and Pius IX a good deal more sympathy than most accounts do.  To be candid, the review kindles concern both for what First Things is publishing and what seminaries are teaching these days.  The review triggered cries of outrage, which prompted the periodical's editor, RR Reno, to defend, not very persuasively in my opinion, his decision to print the review.

There is a certain grief one feels when one sees a once-well-tended structure that has been allowed to deteriorate.  So I was heartened to read a blog post by law professor John Murdock on the First Things website that makes a point that needs to be made: the alarming reduction, nearly to extinction, of elected Democratic officials who are pro-life.

Murdock tells us that, based on recent voting patterns, there are only three pro-life Democrats left in the US House of Representatives.  One, Henry Cuellar, represents a Texas district along the Mexican border.  The district of another, Collin Peterson, is essentially the western half of the state of Minnesota and would seem to be Fargo country.   The third, Dan Lipinski, is the subject of Murdock's post.

Lipinski's district is one of the jigsaw puzzle pieces that comprise congressional districting in the greater Chicago area.  Its northeastern corner is anchored in the Bridgeport neighborhood on Chicago's South Side.  Bridgeport is the historically Irish Catholic stomping grounds of the Mayors Daley and innumerable other Chicago and Cook County elected officials and government employees for the last century.  From Bridgeport, the district runs due southwest, encompassing Chicago Southwest Side neighborhoods such as Beverly and Mt. Greenwood, and West and Southwest suburbs such as Berwyn, Brookfield, Oak Lawn and Palos Hills.  It stretches all the way to Lemont and Lockport, brushing the edge of Joliet.

These neighborhood and suburban communities fall into different demographic categories, but on the whole, this is a working class, and notably Catholic, district.  According to the district's Wikipedia page, in 24 of the last 25 elections it has elected a Democrat.  In a way, the district is a throwback to  a couple of generations ago, when Catholic working people were the backbone of the Democratic Party.  And Lipinski's politics reflect that heritage: he's a relatively conservative Democrat and a social conservative.

That puts Lipinski out of step with today's Democratic Party.  And party activists have taken note: he's being primaried by Marie Newman.  A successful business person and community activist who apparently has not previously held political office, Newman seems representative of the wave of Democratic first-time candidates, many of them women, who have been spurred to civic engagement by Donald Trump's election.  Murdock reports that Newman has the support of Emily's List, NARAL Pro-Choice America and Kirsten Gillibrand. 

Newman, as a pro-choice Democratic candidate, is typical now, but it wasn't always so.  Murdock notes that, when the Hyde Amendment was first passed by the House in 1976, the final version was approved with the votes of 151 House Democrats.   At that time, during the run-up to Jimmy Carter's election and in the wake of the Watergate scandal, Democrats held 291 seats in the House, a 2/3 majority. 

The party alignments around abortion were different then.   Many Democrats were pro-life, in no small part because of the importance and influence of Catholics in the party.  Republicans were more pro-choice than they are now, in part because there was actually a moderately liberal wing in the GOP in those days, and in part because some Republicans viewed abortion as a matter of personal choice and privacy.  Republican Gerald Ford, who was president when the Hyde Amendment first passed the House, was pro-choice.  Murdock reports that Democrat Jimmy Carter, who was elected later that year and took office the following January, supported the Hyde Amendment.

The party realignment around abortion, at least on the Democratic side, seems to be nearly complete now.  Lipinski is only 51 years old, but politically, as a pro-life Democrat, he's a dinosaur.   And that's bad news.  My point of view on this is not secret: I am pro-life.  I think pro-life policies are best for children, best for women, and best for communities and the country.  The pro-life movement is better off when it can count on significant support from members of both parties.

And I would also argue that the parties, including the Democratic Party, are better off when they pitch tents that are big and wide enough to accommodate pro-life voters.  For the last few years, Republican electoral dominance has been at a historic high tide.  Not only do Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress, but they also hold record or near-record numbers of governors' mansions and state legislatures.  This dominance is difficult to square with public-opinion polling, which has shown for the last decade or more that the public holds the GOP in relatively low esteem.  It seems to me that the loyalty of pro-life voters is a main ingredient of the Republicans' electoral secret sauce.  It's almost certainly a key reason that Hillary Clinton lost to a candidate who has turned out to be one of the least popular presidents in history.

But the trend in the Democratic Party is running contrary to my advice at the moment.  The energy is on the left, and the left is univocally pro-choice.  Unfortunately for Dan Lipinski, that pro-choice energy may push him into the tar pit.

UPDATE 2/12/2018: Another conservative journal, National Review, has picked up on the Lipinski race.  This one compares it to the Illinois governor's race, about which I may blog in another day or two.  The author of the NR piece, Mary Hallan FioRito, is described as "an attorney and is the Cardinal Francis George Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center."