Mitch McConnell’s handpicked candidate Sam Brown is on video backing a far-right Texas abortion ban and calling the issue “non-negotiable,” according to a breaking new report from the Nevada Independent today.
In newly uncovered footage from his first failed run for office in Texas, Brown spoke at a Tea Party event and openly embraced “one of the strictest anti-abortion measures in the country” without exceptions for rape or incest, saying “On issues of life, that is a non-negotiable for me. We’ve got to do everything we can to empower our state, make sure that it stays on the books.”
The piece also highlights Brown’s “passion project”: serving as chairman of the Nevada chapter of Faith & Freedom Coalition, a radical anti-choice organization that has long pushed for a nationwide abortion ban and opposes LGBTQ+ rights including marriage equality.
Brown’s ultra-conservative MAGA views are a massive liability in Nevada, where the overwhelming majority of voters support a woman’s right to choose and have repeatedly voted against anti-choice candidates who want to take away that right.
Nevada State Democratic Party Spokesperson Johanna Warshaw
“Nevadans can now see Mitch McConnell’s handpicked candidate Sam Brown say in his own words what we’ve known all along: he wants to rip away a woman’s right to choose even in cases of rape or incest. Unfortunately for Brown, the overwhelming majority of Nevadans support reproductive freedom – and have repeatedly voted against anti-choice extremists who want to take away that right.”
The Nevada Independent: GOP Senate candidate Sam Brown once supported 20-week abortion ban, is now less specific
By Sean Golonka
Key points:
- Republican U.S. Senate candidate and retired U.S. Army Capt. Sam Brown describes himself as “pro life” and has said he wants to see fewer abortions, but he has so far largely avoided giving specific answers to questions about his position on abortion on the Nevada campaign trail. But nearly a decade ago, Brown said he supported another state’s 20-week ban on abortion.
- “On issues of life, that is a nonnegotiable for me, we’ve got to do everything we can to empower our state, make sure that it stays on the books,” Brown said during a legislative candidate forum in 2014 when asked how much Texas should spend, if necessary, to defend the state’s 2013 abortion law, which banned abortion after 20 weeks post-fertilization.
- Asked for comment about his past support for the 20-week abortion ban, Brown avoided the question…
- On the campaign trail this year, Brown has eluded questions about his position on placing more stringent restrictions on abortion.
- In an interview with The Nevada Independent in July, Brown declined to say whether he would support a national abortion ban, calling it a hypothetical situation and that he does not “see Nevada’s laws changing.”
- During the 2014 forum, Brown said he “would have supported the legislation that passed this last special session,” referring to the 2013 law that banned abortions in Texas past 20 weeks of pregnancy.
- The Texas law at the time included exceptions after 20 weeks for cases posing a risk to the life of the patient or if the fetus has a severe medical problem, but not for cases of rape or incest. The state has since adopted a law banning abortions if a “fetal heartbeat” is detected, or roughly after six weeks into pregnancy.
- “I think that it’s a shame that here in Texas, which is being lauded as such a conservative state with regard to the issue of life, half of Europe has stricter laws than we do here,” he said during the forum, which was hosted by a group called Far North Dallas Tea Party Patriots. “I think we can’t just let the issue lie where we’re at. We need people to continue to go back to Austin who understand the sanctity of life.”
- Opponents of the 2013 law argued it would lead to many of the state’s abortion clinics shutting down because they would be required to meet the same standards that hospital-style surgical centers do, and because the law mandated that a doctor who performs abortions have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned those parts of the law in 2016.
- Last election cycle, abortion also proved to be a motivating issue in Nevada, particularly for Democratic voters. A July 2022 poll of Nevada registered voters found that abortion ranked second behind the economy as the issue most motivating respondents to vote, and a KFF/AP voter survey last fall found that for more than four-in-ten Nevada voters, the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade had a major impact on who they voted for.
- Abortion access also proved to be a winning issue for Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s (D-NV) 2022 re-election campaign, with the incumbent running hard on the issue amid her narrow victory over Republican Adam Laxalt.
- While Brown has avoided saying whether he would support specific limits on abortion nationally or within Nevada, his campaign website states that he “will oppose any bill that pushes for federal funding of abortion, late term abortions or abortion without parental notification.”
- In his failed run for U.S. Senate last year and a repeat run that began this past July, Brown has highlighted how his Christian faith has shaped his view on the subject.
- “The first thing I’m gonna tell you is because of my personal life experience and my faith, I am pro life,” he said in July.
- In the wake of his primary election loss last year, Brown became the chairman of the Nevada Faith and Freedom Coalition, a nonprofit group “dedicated to educating and mobilizing people of faith, advancing individual liberty, helping those in need, protecting life and building strong bonds within our communities,” according to its website.
