The tea party said they weren't really interested in social issues, right? They care about budgets. But what happens once they're in power is that these republicans start to realize that it's really, actually hard to cut state budgets. The things you mend them cutting are the things people care about, education and, you know, health care. There's a tina blowback, right? So the tea party is finding that putting tea party values into practice in these legislatures they've just want control of, is really hardabsolutely an it's very easy to campaign and the stuff, it's very hard to govern on it.
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the court’s conservative majority argued it was simply handing the question of abortion to the states and their voters to decide for themselves.
But in reality, the court was ensuring that many states, from Arizona to Ohio, would immediately ban the procedure without much debate, because their legislatures are now dominated by hard-line Republicans. Today, we tell the story of how those Republican legislators achieved that dominance.
Guest: Kate Zernike, a political reporter for The New York Times.
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