SIOUX CENTER, Iowa (AP) — Denouncing Republican “losing culture,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sought to weaken former President Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican Party Saturday as tornado warnings interrupted a clash of leading presidential candidates on the Iowa battlefield.

DeSantis, who is expected to announce his 2024 presidential campaign any day, briefly flipped hamburgers and pork chops at a fundraising afternoon picnic at the Sioux Center that drew hundreds of conservatives to the state’s northwest corner. From the podium, the 44-year-old governor emphasized his commitment to embrace the conservative cultural struggle and peppered his remarks with indirect jabs at Trump.

“Management is not fun. Management is not about building a brand, not talking on social media, and not demonstrating virtue,” said DeSantis, dressed in a blue button-down shirt with no tie or jacket. “Ultimately it is about winning and achieving results.”

Trump, who has been running since November, hoped to show his political strength by holding a large outdoor rally in the capital Des Moines later that day. He canceled the performance hours before the scheduled start time due to a tornado warning.

About 200 fans have already gathered on the site.

“I feel like it’s still Trump time,” said Robert Bushard, 76, who said he drove about four hours from St. Paul, Minnesota, to see the former president. Of DeSantis, he said, “He would be a good president after Trump.”

Republican voters across the country are evaluating DeSantis and Trump, two Republican leaders who are among half a dozen GOP candidates already in the race or due to announce soon. Trump is well ahead of his rivals in the first nationwide polls, while DeSantis is widely viewed as the strongest potential challenger.

Trump hoped to return to campaign comfort after a tumultuous week.

On Tuesday, a New York civil jury found him responsible for the sexual assault and defamation of advice columnist E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million. A day later, during a controversial CNN town hall, he repeatedly insulted Carroll, confirmed lies about his defeat in the 2020 election, and minimized violence at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

DeSantis has polished his reputation as a conservative governor who is willing to actively promote conservative politics and even fight politically with Disney, as he spoke at the Sioux Center. But so far, he hasn’t shown the same enthusiasm for taking on Trump, who for months has been almost entirely focused on bringing down DeSantis.

On Saturday, DeSantis avoided Trump’s legal complexities or his lies about the 2020 election, instead highlighting the GOP’s recent run of electoral losses. The Republican Party has struggled in every national election since Trump’s victory in 2016.

“We must abandon the culture of losing that has affected our party in recent years. The time for excuses is over,” DeSantis said. “If we digress, if we focus the election on the past or on other side issues, then I think the Democrats will beat us again.”

It’s unclear whether DeSantis’ political successes in Florida can be replicated on the national stage.

Even before he officially enters the race, he is already facing questions about his ability to woo donors and woo voters.

The Iowa visit, his second visit in two months, was expected to help allay concerns about his sometimes awkward personal appeal as he met with Republican officials, donors and volunteers, all under national media scrutiny. But DeSantis spent little time — at least compared to most other Republican White House hopefuls — taking selfies or shaking hands at the Sioux Center, where more than 600 people gathered to see him at an event billed as a family picnic for member US House of Representatives Randy. magic road

DeSantis left most of the politicking to his allied political action supercommittee, which set the table for potential supporters of his yet-to-be-announced presidential campaign to register.

The road outside the museum was lined with posters from the DeSantis 2024 campaign.

The Trump team expected more than 5,000 people to rally at an outdoor amphitheater in downtown Des Moines to gather information about potential supporters and encourage their commitment to Trump.

Trump’s Iowa 2024 campaign, in contrast to his disparate efforts that came second in Iowa in 2016, is a more disciplined, data-driven operation. Saturday’s event aimed to encourage participants to sign up for the campaign on the website so that the campaign can keep in touch with them, inform them about how and where to hold meetings, and recruit campaign volunteers.

In a social media post, Trump promised to reschedule the event. Shortly thereafter, the campaign released a list of endorsements from over 150 Iowa elected officials and activists in all 99 counties in the state.

And as they vie for support, the resulting rivalry with DeSantis becomes more personal.

DeSantis largely ignored Trump’s most egregious outbursts, which included allegations of inappropriate behavior with young girls as a teacher decades ago, questioning his sexuality, and calling him “Ron DeSanktimonius.”

The Trump campaign began airing ads mocking DeSantis for tying himself to the former president in 2018 when he ran for governor, even using some of Trump’s catchphrases as an allusion to his supporters in Florida.

Trump’s Super PAC, MAGA Inc., also aired spots highlighting DeSantis’ voices for cutting Social Security and Medicare and raising the retirement age. The group even targeted DeSantis’ snacking habits by running ads urging him to stay away from those perks. This was a reference to The Daily Beast’s report that a few years ago, the Governor ate chocolate pudding on a plane with his fingers instead of a spoon.

DeSantis said he didn’t remember doing it.

At the same time, DeSantis-backed supercomputing organization Never Back Down hired Iowa staff and began trying to organize support for the governor before the 2024 announcement. On Thursday, the group announced that State Senate President Amy Sinclair and House Majority Leader Matt Windshield would support DeSantis’ candidacy. On Friday, about three dozen more state legislators were represented to support him.

Government Kim Reynolds and Iowa Senator Joni Ernst attended DeSantis’ speech at the Sioux Center.

After his speech, he spent about 15 minutes shaking hands and chatting with voters, maneuvering through a large audience, followed by reporters, TV cameras and security. He then ran outside to pose with Reynolds and Finstra while grilling hamburgers and pork chops.

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published on Talk.

Anti-abortion groups are looking for new ways to fight their fight against the right to abortion, looking at the potential consequences of a 150-year-old law, the Comstock Act, which could effectively lead to a nationwide ban on abortion.

Congress passed the Comstock Act in 1873. make it a crime send a letter or send any “obscene, lascivious, obscene, filthy, or vile article” and anything “advertised or described in such a manner … for the purpose of producing an abortion.”

There are currently court cases questioning the activities of the Food and Drug Administration. regulation of mifepristone, one of two drugs used in the standard medical abortion regimen. If the courts think the FDA has the right to approve mifepristone for abortion, the Comstock Act could still prevent distribution of the pill.

How scientists rights and reproductive justicewe analyze potential strategies for using this Victorian-era law to limit the ability to have an abortion in the United States.

On the one hand, the Comstock Act could prohibit sending mifepristone to a person’s home, whether or not that person lives in a state where abortion is legal.

The broader interpretation promoted by anti-abortion groups in recent months, will mean that the Comstock Act applies to the distribution of all medicines and medical instruments used for abortion, not just mifepristone.

The Supreme Court returned abortion right question states in June 2022. But it is important to understand that the Comstock Act is a federal law that applies to the states, regardless of their attitude towards abortion.

So during an abortion remains legal in some stateswe think it possible that the court could interpret the Comstock Act to prevent the distribution of any instrument used for abortion anywhere in the US.

History of Comstock’s law

Devout Christian and self-proclaimed”moral evangelist” Anthony Comstock came up with what would become the Comstock Law after he became uneasy about the amount of pornography and alcohol consumed by his fellow Union Army soldiers.

He lobbied Congress for legislation restricting what he considered obscene behavior by displaying “his impressive collection of pornographic images, sex toys and contraceptive materialsat the Capitol Building to “help Congress pass an anti-obscenity law.”

Congress then passed the Comstock Act in 1873.

Although prosecutions under the Comstock Act began in the early 1900s, law enforcement began to wane by the 1930s.

However, the Supreme Court heard random legal case over the last 100 years. In 1983, for example, the Supreme Court held that the application of the Comstock Act to prohibit sending advertisements for contraceptives violated the First Amendment.

Since then, no court has ruled forcefully to enforce the Comstock Act.

Really, important court decisions have limited law applicability.

And in 2022, the Department of Justice issued an opinion that the Comstock Act does not prohibit mailing mifepristone if the sender does not know that the recipient intends to use these pills “illegally” for abortion – for example, the recipient may use them to treat a miscarriage.

Application of Comstock’s Law today

As anti-abortion groups try to revive the Comstock Act, the question is what exactly the law covers. Several court cases address this issue in different contexts.

Texas Federal Court Judge Matthew Kachsmarik, who issued the preliminary ruling on April 7, 2023, effectively revokes FDA approval of mifepristone – said the Comstock Act prevented abortion pills from being mailed.

When this decision was appealed, the appellate court appeared to agree with Kaczmarik. It was noted that the law does not necessarily require users “mail or ordinary interstate transportation to actually get an abortion”, contrary to the opinion of the Department of Justice from 2022. However, he stressed that “no final interpretation of the Comstock Act is required” as he did not make a final decision.

This decision was then appealed to the Supreme Court, which temporarily upheld the availability of mifepristone and sent the case back to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals for a full hearing April 21.

The Court of Appeal will hear oral arguments on May 17 and must give a more final interpretation.

Extension to other lawsuits

The Comstock Act is also at the center of other kinds of court and legal campaigns about whether people can have abortions.

Jonathan Mitchell, conservative lawyer another former Solicitor General of Texasis trying to use the Comstock Act to completely ban abortion. Specifically, hey then invented Texas bounty hunter abortion law in 2021, which bans most abortions and “instructs citizens to sue persons involved in the process“.

As of 2019, two counties and over 60 cities in Texas, Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Illinois. adopted resolutions that prohibit abortion. It is part of a political campaign called “Refuge Cities for the Unborn” organized by Mitchell and Conservative Pastor Mark Lee Dixon.

Some of these places now ban shipment and Obtaining abortion drugs or medical supplies used for abortion.

These rulings have resulted in two lawsuits questioning their legal status.

In January 2023, New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torres sued several cities in Sanctuary City, alleging that the ordinances broke state law that says people have the right to access health care and that doctors’ care of patients is a private matter.

But then the city of Eunice in New Mexico, another sanctuary city, also applied. lawsuit in April 2022ask the state court to determine that Comstock Act enforceable.

Finally, Comstock’s Law applies even after an abortion.

Filed in lawsuit in Texas in March 2023, Texas resident Marcus Silva sued three women for wrongful death, alleging they helped “kill Ms. Silva’s unborn child with illegally obtained abortion pills.” The complaint notes that Silva will also sue the pill maker for wrongful death under the Comstock Act.

Newsletter, distribution or ban?

It is likely that a high-ranking federal FDA case on mifepristone in Texas could return to the Supreme Court after the 5th district makes its decision. If so, the Supreme Court could determine that the Comstock Act only applies to mailing items if the sender knows the items are for “illegal” abortion use. In this case, in states where abortion is legal, little or nothing will change.

Or a court may decide that the Comstock Act prohibits the mailing of mifepristone regardless of the user’s intent, making it difficult to access medical abortion. The court could also cast a wider net by completely banning delivery of abortion drugs across the US.

And if Comstock’s Law applies to mifepristone, it can also apply to any other item or device used to terminate a pregnancy. Such a ruling would effectively impose a nationwide ban on abortion, even in states where abortion is legal. Achieving this result on the basis of the Victorian statute of 1873 would be entirely consistent with Dobbs v. USA. The Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade under an 1868 law.

This article has been reprinted from Talk under a Creative Commons license. Read original article.