June 15, 2013 10:50 AM UTC

At Least He's Not Your Muzzled Congressman

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• by: Colorado Pols

Politico follows up with Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, whose Todd Akin-like comments about the likelihood of pregnancy resulting from the crime of rape resurrected the "War on Women" meme this past week during debate over the GOP's latest abortion restriction bill in the House.

Rep. Trent Franks’s (R-Ariz.) bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks nationwide now includes an exception for rape and incest after his remarks about rape and pregnancy created an uproar.

And it’s not Franks’s bill anymore — or more precisely, he won’t be managing his own bill when it goes to the House floor Tuesday. He’s being replaced with a high-profile House GOP woman. [Pols emphasis]

A spokesman for Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) confirmed Friday to POLITICO that she’ll be managing the debate, and that the bill is being changed to include the new exception…

On the one hand, yanking control of this bill from Rep. Franks and giving it to Rep. Marsha Blackburn makes, well, obvious political sense. On the other hand, Rep. Franks' comments underscore the kinds of Republican presumptions about the issue of abortion that have made it such a liability in the last few election cycles–with a permanent, or at least enduring, loss of support from women and wedge-issue agnostic independent voters. Here in Colorado, the 2010 U.S. Senate race was largely decided based on the GOP Senate candidate's repellent views and prior statements about rape and reproductive choice. And then came Paul Ryan.

In the end, this may be a problem that Republicans can't solve. They are stuck in the thrall of a shrinking but powerful segment of voters for whom the issue of abortion is an irrational litmus test. That's why the House is debating this totally symbolic abortion bill, DOA upon passage, to begin with. They don't really have a choice.

We await the next Todd Akin…