Catholic Nebraska lawmaker leaves Democratic Party over its pro-abortion views

Tyler Arnold   By Tyler Arnold for CNA

April 4, 2024 Catholic News Agency News Briefs 3 Print

 

Nebraska state Sen. Mike McDonnell, who had been a registered Democrat for 40 years before this week, said that his party change was caused by the Democratic Party’s refusal to respect his pro-life views, which he said is grounded in his Catholic faith. / Credit: Photo courtesy of the Nebraska Legislature

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 4, 2024 / 16:40 pm (CNA).

A pro-life Catholic lawmaker in the Nebraska Legislature is switching his party registration from Democrat to Republican because of the Democratic Party’s staunch support of abortion.

Sen. Mike McDonnell, who had been a registered Democrat for 40 years before this week, said in a news conference that his party change was caused by the Democratic Party’s refusal to respect his pro-life views, which he said is grounded in his Catholic faith. He was first elected in 2016.

“Today, I am announcing I am now going to be a registered Republican in the state of Nebraska,” McDonnell said.

While serving in the Legislature, McDonnell was the lone Democrat to support a bill that would have banned nearly all abortions in the state — that bill did not pass. He was also the only Democrat to vote for a bill that prohibited doctors from providing transgender drugs and surgeries to minors, which ultimately passed and was signed into law.

Because of these votes, the Democratic Party of Douglas County withdrew its support for McDonnell and stripped him of his voting rights on internal matters within the county party. He later faced a censure from the Democratic Party of Nebraska.

“I asked the Democratic Party of Douglas County to respect that I’m pro-life — that I’m a member of the Roman Catholic Church and my beliefs are based on that,” McDonnell said in the news conference. “Douglas County Democrats, instead of respecting it, they decided to punish it.”

McDonnell said he ran for office as a “pro-life, pro-union, pro-Second Amendment” Democrat who “wanted to see how we could grow our state and reduce our property taxes at the same time.”

Switching parties, McDonnell added, “is not an easy decision,” recalling that his grandfather told him when he was 10 years old that their family was three things: “We’re Irish, we’re Catholic, and we’re Democrats.”

“It’s never easy for someone to make this kind of decision, but what makes it easier is the people standing behind me,” McDonnell said while surrounded by Republican lawmakers during the announcement. “Over the last year, regardless of my decision switching parties, they have been so supportive.”

Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb responded to the announcement with a statement that said the Democratic Party will continue to support “reproductive freedom and the human rights of the LGBTQ community.”

“Our decision to censure Sen. McDonnell was never about him being a pro-life Catholic,” Kleeb said. “Our decision was based on our party reaffirming our core values to protect women’s ability to make health decisions and to keep politicians out of our personal health decisions. We respect the ongoing work of Sen. McDonnell on behalf of unions and his commitment to protect a fair electoral vote system we have in our state.”

McDonnell’s announcement will significantly shake up Nebraska politics by giving Republicans a two-thirds majority in the state’s unicameral legislature. To overcome a filibuster, most bills need support from two-thirds of the body.

In a statement following McDonnell’s announcement, the Nebraska Republican Party touted its now “filibuster-proof Republican majority.”

“The [Nebraska Republican Party] welcomes Sen. McDonnell as our newest champion of conservative values,” the statement read. “Sen. McDonnell was censured by the Nebraska Democratic Party in a monthslong push to hold him accountable for his votes to protect the unborn and place commonsense guidelines on gender-affirming care.”

Some Nebraska Republicans are pushing legislation to change the process by which the state doles out Electoral College delegates in presidential elections, which could affect the 2024 presidential election. An effort to force a floor vote on the legislation failed by a large margin on Wednesday, but supporters of the change are continuing to pressure Republicans to get on board.

In Nebraska, the candidate who wins the plurality of votes in the state receives two of the five delegates — the remaining three are awarded based on plurality votes within each of the three congressional districts. In 2020, former President Donald Trump won four delegates from the state and President Joe Biden won one delegate.

The lawmakers are hoping to switch to a winner-take-all allocation of delegates, which would likely guarantee that Trump receives all five delegates in the 2024 election if the effort is successful. However, McDonnell has indicated he is against the proposal.

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Southern Baptists convene to discuss handling of sex abuse allegations

June 10, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

Birmingham, Ala., Jun 10, 2019 / 09:01 pm (CNA).- While the Catholic bishops of the United States convene in Baltimore this week, with the addressing of clergy sex abuse scandals high on their list of priorities, another religious group will convene to discuss the same issue, from their side of the pew – the Southern Baptist Convention.

In their annual convention, which begins this week in Birmingham, Ala., leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention will discuss policies, such as the expelling of churches that fail to report abuse, for handling sex abuse allegations against leaders in the ecclesial community, the AP reported.

In February, in the wake of nearly a year of high-profile Catholic clergy abuse scandals, two Texas newspapers published a three-part investigation into the SBC, uncovering at least 700 cases of child sexual abuse at the hands of church leaders and volunteers.

The joint investigation by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News revealed that since 1998, around 380 SBC leaders and volunteers have been accused of sexual misconduct – some resulting in lawsuits and convictions, others in personal confessions and resignations.

“For years, there were people who assumed abuse was simply a Roman Catholic problem,” Russell Moore, who heads the SBC’s public policy arm, told the AP. “I see that mentality dissipating. There seems to be a growing sense of vulnerability and a willingness to address this crisis.”

According to the AP, clerical abuse within the SBC was already a priority at the annual convention in 2018, but the recent investigative report has made the topic all the more urgent.

While the sex abuse scandals in the SBC resemble those within the Catholic Church in many ways, there is one notable difference – a lack of centralized authority, which makes the handling of abuse across the 47,000-some churches that belong to the community all the more difficult, as multiple SBC members have noted.

“It’s a perfect profession for a con artist, because all he has to do is talk a good talk and convince people that he’s been called by God, and bingo, he gets to be a Southern Baptist minister,” Christa Brown, an activist who wrote about her own experience being molested by an SBC pastor, told the Houston Chronicle in February.

In an essay about the abuse scandal published on his website, Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, called for a third-party investigation of all cases of abuse within the SBC. He also lamented that “the SBC ecclesial structure directly contrasts with the edifice of the Roman Catholic Church,” making reforms difficult to enforce. SBC churches are united only by “friendly cooperation with and contributing to the causes of the Southern Baptist Convention,” he noted.

In response to the abuse crisis, J. D. Greear, President of the SBC, commissioned a Sexual Abuse Advisory Group, which last weekend released a report after examining how the SBC can “at every level can take discernable action to respond swiftly and compassionately to incidents of abuse, as well as to foster safe environments within churches and institutions.”

The 52-page document includes testimonies from survivors of abuse by SBC leaders, as well as recommended protocols for the handling of abuse allegations within congregations, which includes establishing “care teams” that will accompany sex abuse victims through steps such as reporting abuse and seeking psychological help.

“We must filter every decision with this question: How does this decision protect and care for the alleged victim?” the report states.

“Only when sin is exposed to the light of truth, true repentance, healing, and change can begin,” Greear told the AP.

According to the AP, the SBC anticipates several protestors at their annual convention, in part due to the sex abuse crisis, and in part because of an ongoing debate about the all-male leadership of the ecclesial community.

[…]

3 Comments

  1. The party of JFK has mutated into the party of infanticide and child genital mutilation. Probably one of the most disastrous transformations in the history of mankind.

    Reply

  2. His pro-life views are grounded in his Catholic faith.
    In my day, three major errors got you a failing grade.
    But kudos to Mr. McDonnell for his stand and a spit in the eye to the Democrats for their sophistry.

    Reply

  3. If people would study history, they would learn to their horror that it was the Democratic Party that pushed for legal slavery of Africans in the U.S., and the Democratic Party that looked the other way when the Ku Klux Klan terrorized the freed slaves. And it was the REPUBLICAN Party that protected freed slaves and worked to see several African American former slaves elected to positions in the House of Representatives.

    There are so many stereotypes that the Democrats are the Party of the “Little Man”–well, apparently they have decided that it’s OK to kill the “littlest men and women”–the unborn, and to punish any of their members who oppose this–look up Dan Lipinski in Illinois–very sad story of a pro-life Democrat Representative.

    It’s just not possible or realistic to be a pro-life Democrat in the U.S., and NO–the Republican Party is NOT the Party of the Rich Fat Cats who oppress the poor! Other way around–it’s the DEMOCRATS who are the rich fat cats (Hollywood!!) who hold the poor down by spreading the propaganda about the need to for welfare and abortion so that women will not have to be “held back” or “poor” because of unplanned pregnancy. Yes, there are still Republicans who go along with passing out “the Pill” to the poor women, and who are pro-choice and pro-IVF–but the PARTY PLATFORM Of the Republican Party is PRO-LIFE, while the Party Platform of the Democratic Party is PRO-CHOICE!!! Wise up, Catholics! Even Robert Kennedy has renounced his family’s Democratic Party!

    Reply

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