Responding to criticism that he can’t be trusted to protect abortion rights, Democratic candidate for governor Tom Perriello on Thursday said Lt. Gov. Ralph S. Northam backed “the most anti-choice president” in American history by voting twice for Republican George W. Bush.
“I’m very proud of having supported always the foundations of Roe v. Wade, the constitutional right to choose,” Perriello said in an interview after a campaign appearance in Chesterfield County.
“It’s true I’m the only Democrat in the race that’s done that. When Ralph Northam was supporting, twice, the most anti-choice president in the history of the United States, I was working to try to push back against the political power of the religious right with every fiber of my being.”
With few major policy differences between them — apart from Perriello’s opposition to two pipeline projects Northam doesn’t oppose but hasn’t quite endorsed — the tightly contested June 13 Democratic primary is being fought largely over who has the best record of standing up for progressive principles, reproductive choice chief among them, and whose blemishes are worse.
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From the beginning of his campaign, Perriello, a former congressman and progressive activist, has faced pressure to explain his 2009 vote for the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which would have prohibited federal funding for abortion coverage in the government-subsidized insurance plans being considered under the Affordable Care Act. On a press call Thursday morning, Northam campaign surrogates used Perriello’s Stupak-Pitts vote to question his sincerity on abortion rights, while pitching the lieutenant governor — a former state senator and one of only a handful of physicians in state politics — as the candidate most committed to the pro-choice cause.
On Friday, Northam’s campaign said he has always been pro-choice and called the Perriello campaign’s focus on his votes for Bush a “flailing attempt to change the conversation from Tom’s questionable record on reproductive rights.”
“The fact is, this election isn’t about who the lieutenant governor voted for 17 years ago,” said Northam spokeswoman Ofirah Yheskel. “It’s about what the candidates did while representing the people of Virginia.”
Before his election to Congress in 2008, Perriello was involved with a progressive Catholic group, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, that sought, among other things, to de-emphasize opposition to abortion as a defining issue for Catholic voters.
Northam has said his support for Bush, a pro-life Republican who selected Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito for the U.S. Supreme Court, was “wrong,” while stressing that the votes occurred when he was a largely apolitical doctor who hadn’t run for office. Many social conservatives hope the court will overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that upheld abortion as a constitutional right.
The possibility of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade has gained new life after President Donald Trump’s victory and the confirmation of Trump-nominated Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, returning the court to what is expected to be a 5-4 conservative majority. Gorsuch said in his confirmation hearing that he considers Roe v. Wade a legal precedent that has been “reaffirmed” in multiple other cases.
Perriello has repeatedly apologized for his Stupak-Pitts vote.
When the Stupak-Pitts issue was raised in front of an audience of nearly 200 at Thursday’s Liberal Women of Chesterfield County event at Manchester Middle School, Perriello said the vote was an attempt to keep a promise to constituents in his conservative, mostly rural 5th District that he would ensure the health care overhaul was consistent with the Hyde Amendment, which prevents taxpayer funding for abortions.
“It was a bad pledge and a bad vote,” Perriello said, going on to promise he sees abortion as a “fundamental right” that should be accessible to all women regardless of class or race.
On the press call with Northam backers, Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, a prominent abortion-rights group, praised Northam as a leader of the 2012 General Assembly fight against a bill to require women to undergo a fetal ultrasound before an abortion. Keene said she was “appalled” by Perriello’s attempts to downplay the significance of Northam’s role, noting that she was there and “Tom wasn’t.”
“In fact, I’ve never seen Tom Perriello in Richmond, and I wouldn’t have recognized him if he walked in the room until about three months ago,” Keene said.
Keene dismissed Northam’s votes for Bush in 2000 and 2004 as “smoke and mirrors” pushed by the Perriello campaign. She also took a swipe at U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent and former presidential contender who has endorsed Perriello, over Sanders’ recent suggestion that the Democratic Party be more open to candidates who are not 100 percent pro-choice as it looks to rebuild losing the White House to Trump.
“To negate that, to minimize that as a role in achieving full equality and economic justice means they are asking women to step aside,” Keene said.
To bolster his pro-choice bonafides, Perriello, who voted against efforts to defund Planned Parenthood during his one term in Congress, has promised to push for a state constitutional amendment to “safeguard reproductive choice.” That would be a tall order given that if he is elected governor, he likely will face a House of Delegates with a Republican majority similar to the one that this year voted to designate the Roe v. Wade anniversary a “Day of Tears.”
Sonjia Smith, a Charlottesville philanthropist who jump-started Perriello’s campaign with a $500,000 contribution on day one, recently defended Perriello’s position on reproductive rights in an op-ed for The Roanoke Times, while acknowledging she “wasn’t happy” with his Stupak-Pitts vote.
“I am proud of his growth and his willingness to listen, and I know how committed he is to defending and expanding reproductive autonomy and access as governor,” Smith wrote.
Both Democrats have promised to carry on Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s legacy of vetoing bills passed by the GOP-controlled legislature aimed at curtailing abortion.
Republican gubernatorial front-runner Ed Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and political consultant, has said he would restore stricter regulations on abortion clinics that McAuliffe repealed. Gillespie also says he would sign a bill banning abortion after 20 weeks except when the mother’s life is at risk and in cases of rape or incest.
“I would like to see abortion be banned because I think it is the taking of an innocent human life. It is not the law of the land today,” Gillespie said at a candidate forum early this month.
At the same event, one of Gillespie’s GOP rivals, Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, said he would ban late-term abortions with no exceptions because “it’s not the baby’s fault.” State Sen. Frank W. Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, the other candidate seeking the GOP nomination, has also vowed to be a pro-life governor.
Both parties will choose their nominees in June 13 primaries.