By David K. Shipler
Now
that Californians have crushed Republicans’ effort to recall Democratic
Governor Gavin Newsom (with 63.9 percent of the votes at last count), maybe the
left ought to try what the right has done in Texas: Let anyone sue anyone who
helps anyone do something you don’t like. In the case of Texas, it’s getting an
abortion.
Imagine if liberal California—or New
York, or the District of Columbia, for example—did the same on issues dear to
the hearts of “progressives.” The Texas law recently enacted by radical
Republicans allows anyone in the entire country to bring a civil suit against
anyone in the state who helps a woman exercise her constitutional right to
abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected. Any bounty hunter who wins in
court gets $10,000 plus legal fees from the suit’s target, whether doctor, nurse,
receptionist, or possibly the Uber driver who takes the woman to the clinic.
The tactic is designed to remove
the state as the enforcer and thereby befuddle the courts, which otherwise might
enjoin government from putting the law into effect. That gave five anti-abortion
Supreme Court justices just enough leeway to refuse to block the Texas law,
even temporarily. So, let’s consider what the left might do in return.
First, California could pass a law allowing anyone who refused to be vaccinated against Covid to be sued by anyone anywhere in the country. Going unvaccinated is an obvious public health threat, and while legitimate medical and perhaps religious exceptions could be made, those refusing the shots incubate evolving variants and endanger children and the immunocompromised. Therefore, under the Texas formula, everyone has what judges call “standing” to sue.
