The two chambers of Arizona’s State Legislature diverged sharply on Wednesday over whether to repeal the state’s 1864 law banning abortion, capping a chaotic day as legislators and activists sparred over the fate of the Civil War-era ban.
Only hours after Republicans in the State House scuttled another effort to repeal the ban, which was upheld by a State Supreme Court ruling last week, a handful of Republicans in the State Senate sided with Democrats and allowed them to introduce a bill to repeal it.
It will be at least a week before the Senate can vote on the bill, but the matter could be a moot point unless Democrats in the House find a way to get a bill passed there.
The House Republican leadership shows no signs of relenting, despite pressure from prominent Republicans, including former President Donald J. Trump, to toss the ban that many voters viewed as extreme and archaic.
“The last thing we should be doing today is rushing a bill through the legislative process to repeal a law that has been enacted and reaffirmed by the Legislature several times,” House Speaker Ben Toma, a Republican, said as he blocked an effort to vote on the repeal.
In an interview after the Senate advanced the repeal bill, Mr. Toma refused to bow to any outside pressure to change his mind, even from the highest ranks of his own party. He did not see a clear future for that bill, should it arrive in the House, and suggested he would work to prevent it from coming forward for a vote.
“At the end of the day, I don’t see how that is different from the current situation,” he said. “I will be consistent. No bill moves in this chamber without the speaker assigning it.”
Republicans narrowly control both houses of the Arizona Legislature, but foresaw a grave political threat in backing a measure widely seen as out of touch with voters. The court ruling last week that upheld the ban infuriated supporters of abortion rights, exhilarated abortion opponents and set off a political firestorm in Arizona.
Repealing the law, which allows only an exception to save the life of the mother, and says doctors prosecuted under the law could face fines and prison terms of two to five years, would revert Arizona to a 15-week abortion ban. The 1864 law had sat dormant for decades, but the overturning of Roe v. Wade two years ago set the stage for the State Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate it last week.
Republicans initially resisted Democrats’ attempts to repeal the law last week. But Mr. Trump and Kari Lake, the Senate candidate and close Trump ally, said the court had overreached and urged the Legislature to act quickly. Ms. Lake, facing a highly competitive race in November, dialed lawmakers herself and asked how she could help with the repeal effort.
On Wednesday, it appeared as though their cajoling might have paid off, to a degree. Democrats signaled that they were optimistic of having enough Republican support to secure a majority in the House and send the repeal bill to the Senate.
But when one Democrat rose to bring forward her bill to repeal the ban, Republicans successfully prevented a vote on procedural grounds.
“The fact that we will not even entertain a motion to allow those who have been raped or pregnant by incest to be able to have an abortion is extremely, extremely disappointing,” State Representative Alma Hernandez, a Democrat, said.
Moments later, the chairman gaveled the House into recess.
“Today was a nice surprise that the House did not have the votes,” said Cathi Herrod, the president of the Center for Arizona Policy, a conservative group that opposes abortion.
On Wednesday afternoon, on the other side of the Capitol in the Senate, three Republicans broke with the rest of their party to stop the chamber from adjourning. Two of them — T.J. Shope and Shawnna Bolick — voted to allow the repeal to be introduced.
In the House, the dynamic reflected the broader one at the heart of the abortion debate. Anti-abortion…
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