Scott Walker's timely abortion victory On the eve of his presidential announcement, the Wisconsin governor gets a political gift.

Wisconsin Republicans gift-wrapped an Iowa talking point for Gov. Scott Walker this week, sending abortion restrictions to his desk just days ahead of his presidential announcement.

The legislation, which would ban nearly all abortions after 20 weeks, cleared the state Assembly Thursday on a party-line vote, four days before the governor intends to launch his presidential bid. Walker has indicated that he’ll sign the measure.


Walker’s win on the issue comes as he’s introducing himself to Iowa Republicans, who tend to favor social conservative candidates in their first-in-the-nation caucuses. It also comes amid questions Walker has faced on the right about his commitment to conservative causes, like opposing same-sex marriage and limiting abortions.

Prominent anti-abortion advocates and social conservatives signaled that Walker’s signature on the measure, which could come as early as Friday, would be a welcome gesture to kick off his campaign.

“Those things will basically give him that Good Housekeeping Seal, so to speak,” said Bob Vander Plaats, president of the Family Leader, an influential conservative group in Iowa.

“I think it’s great timing to benefit him,” added Marilyn Musgrave, a former congresswoman and a leader of the conservative Susan B. Anthony List.

Twenty-week abortion bans have been enacted in 11 states, according to the Guttmacher Institute, though in at least two — Arizona and Idaho — they’ve been struck down by courts. Proponents contend the bans are meant to prevent abortions after the point at which an unborn baby can feel pain.

Abortion rights advocates – backed up by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists – contend that the science on pain doesn’t justify the 20-week cutoff. The bill awaiting Walker’s signature makes no exception for babies conceived by rape or incest, but it does allow doctors to act — while attempting to save the life of the baby — if any immediate health risks to the mother arise.

Republican leaders in Madison insisted the bill’s timetable had nothing to do with Walker’s ambitions. Yet, after Walker first publicly supported a 20-week ban in March, the legislature raced the bill to the governor’s desk using a series of procedural shortcuts, from an expedited hearing process to an “extraordinary” July session of the Assembly to ensure the bill got to Walker ahead of his July 13 announcement.

State Sen. Mary Lazich, a Republican who said she used to carpool with Walker in the 1990s when Walker was in the Assembly, told POLITICO she led the drive for the measure – knowing that Walker would support it but without explicitly coordinating with his office, though she said it did occasionally come up in conversation.

“We’re on the same wavelength, the same plane,” she said.

State Rep. Jesse Kremer, who sponsored an identical bill in the Assembly, acknowledged that legislative leaders may have sped up the timetable, though he said he wasn’t privy to any machinations on Walker’s behalf. He added, however, that Walker’s sudden interest in the legislation seemed like a shift.

“A year ago, he actually wasn’t really interested in something like this and he changed his mind,” Kremer said. “We probably wouldn’t have brought it up if we knew he wouldn’t [sign it].”

Walker has repeatedly pointed to his efforts to crack down on abortion — from defunding Planned Parenthood to requiring women to receive ultrasounds before undergoing the procedure to toughening requirements for doctors who perform abortions — as he inches closer to a presidential bid. But conservatives were angered last year when, in the midst of a tight re-election fight, Walker aired an ad calling a woman’s decision on abortion “agonizing. And he borrowed language from abortion rights advocates in his message: “The bill leaves the final decision to a woman and her doctor.”

“I didn’t like the ad. You’re using the other side’s garbage and it’s not helpful,” said Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, a conservative policy group.

Yet Nance said Walker’s position on abortion was never in doubt. Though she and other conservatives still have issues with some of Walker’s advisers who don’t hail from the most conservative corners of the party, she says the governor has taken more steps to curb abortion than just about anyone else in the GOP field. The 20-week ban, Nance said, would just be additional confirmation.

“We’re thrilled and happy that he’s going to do this,” she said. “This is policy whose time has come.”