Pro-Life Bills Fall Short of Supermajority Needed to Break Filibuster in Nebraska and South Carolina

Caroline Downey has a good report on pro-life bills that failed to advance in Nebraska and South Carolina this week. In each state, the legislation had majority support but failed to get the super-majority necessary to overcome a procedural hurdle: 

Nebraska’s bill, which would have banned abortions once fetal cardiac activity is detected around six weeks of pregnancy, died in a 32–15 filibuster-ending cloture vote, the Omaha World-Herald reported.

Veteran GOP state Senator Merv Riepe denied the 33rd vote needed for the bill to pass, abstaining over fears that it would be interpreted as a total ban on the procedure.

“At the end of the day, I need to look back and be able to say to myself, ‘Did you do the best?’” he told the Flatwater Free Press. “No group came to me, asking me to do this. This is of my own beliefs, my own commitments.”

Riepe also told the publication that he rejects the idea of “legislating morality.”

In response to the 80-year-old lawmaker’s withdrawal from the vote, Republican Governor Jim Pillen, who ran on the pro-life platform, urged Riepe to honor what he said was his history of defending the unborn.

“I am profoundly disappointed in the cloture vote today,” Pillen said in a statement. “It is unacceptable for senators to be present not voting on such a momentous vote. I call on Senator Merv Riepe to make a motion to reconsider and stand by the commitments to life he has made in the past.”

In South Carolina, the story is about a standoff between the state house and senate. In February, by a 28–12 vote, the South Carolina senate passed a heartbeat bill banning abortion later than six weeks of pregnancy (with exceptions), but the South Carolina house insisted on protecting life from conception (with exceptions). When the South Carolina senate took up the house bill on Thursday, it had the support of a simple majority — 22 to 21 — but needed 26 votes to advance. Neither bill will be sent to the governor as a result of the impasse.