I continue to believe — in fact it’s all but a certainty — that continued Democratic control of Congress and any near-term restoration of abortion rights across the country rests almost entirely on Democrats making a firm commitment to pass such a law in January 2023. It’s creeping forward. A handful of Senate Democrats who hadn’t committed before have now done so. President Biden has said he supports doing so — not relevant in any direct sense but a very important signal. But it needs to move quickly.

Earlier today we heard from TPM Reader JR in Illinois who was sad and dejected after hearing mealymouthed answers from the offices of Senators Durbin and Duckworth about whether they were prepared both to pass a Roe bill and change the filibuster rules to give it an up or down vote. Now we just heard from TPM Reader FH who got a fundraising email from “Dick Durbin” (I use the scare quotes whenever referring to a pol’s online fundraising alter ego) in which he asks FH if he can “count on your support before our midnight deadline” for his fight for reproductive rights.

Then he announces the hearing (emphasis added): “Simply put, I’m doing everything I can to fight back. I’m leading the Senate Judiciary Committee in a hearing about this SCOTUS decision next month and I’m still fighting tooth and nail to protect reproductive rights at the federal level.”

TPM Reader NL chimes in from Virginia …

I just called the DC offices of my Senators — Warner and Kaine. I asked the staffers whether the Senators supported suspending the filibuster to codify abortion rights.

Warner’s office said that the Senator supports legislation to codify abortion rights but that he does not have a position on the suspending the filibuster for it. Kaine’s office was similar, except that Kaine’s position is that he supports a rule change to reinstate the talking filibuster.

From TPM Reader JR …

Hi, Illinois reader here.

I just called the DC offices of Senators Durbin and Duckworth. Both liberal stalwarts, obviously, but neither staffer showed particular awareness of the question of whether the filibuster will need to be suspended to enact abortion protections.

Neither seemed clear on any kind of promise that the Senate would do something concrete if people vote in the Fall.

Over the last couple weeks I’d shared reports from TPM Readers struggling to get a response from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire on whether she supports making Roe law and changing the filibuster rules to allow that bill to get a straight up or down vote. This morning I chatted with Shaheen’s Communications Director Sarah Weinstein who confirmed to me that Shaheen not only supports making Roe federal law (which she and 48 other Democrats attempted to do a few weeks ago) but also “supports amending the filibuster rules so a bill to codify Roe could pass by simple majority.”

Earlier this month, Ginni Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, made a big show of her willingness and desire to march right up to Capitol Hill and clear her good name before the Jan. 6th investigation committee. Yesterday, her lawyer said the committee just turns out to be too biased. So she won’t be testifying after all.

Two White House security officials who allegedly scuffled with the President in the presidential limousine are now denying through intermediaries what Cassidy Hutchinson said under oath in yesterday’s hearing. But Ginni Thomas’s switcheroo is a good reminder that talk — or rather claims through intermediaries — is cheap. People who claim they are just champing at the bit to testify usually end up refusing to testify.

A number of you have written in to say about the hearings, “No, that wasn’t the big deal. This other thing was the big deal!” In almost every case I find myself agreeing with you. What it comes down to is there was just a huge amount of critical new detail in Hutchinson’s testimony. And it was a challenge to evaluate the significance of it all in real time or organize it on a rank of significance. So TPM Reader KB notes that all the stuff about a war room at the Willard with Rudy and the top crazies starts appearing in a very, very different light if the plan was that Trump was going to go to the Capitol to in some sense lead the confrontation. It definitely seems like that wasn’t just a possibility or something that was discussed but rather definitely Trump’s plan and, one would imagine, what Rudy and his crew thought was going to happen.

We have another post-Dobbs poll. This one is from NPR/Marist. About abortion and Roe and Dobbs, it’s broadly in line with the other polls we’ve been discussing. If anything, it’s slightly on the low end of support for Roe. But again, broadly in line with the other polls. But look at this.

I wanted to walk you through some examples of how Republican candidates, and particularly Republican Senate candidates, are positioning themselves on the Dobbs decision and the demise of Roe. They are not surprising. But they’re powerful illustrations of why Republicans generally don’t want to talk about any of this and see it for the political vulnerability that it is.