Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) is distancing himself from a six-week abortion ban set to go into effect in Florida, instead proposing a 15-week limit as he runs for a second term in the Senate.
Scott, who served as Florida’s governor for eight years, indicated last year that he would sign the six-week bill were he still leading the state. But he has followed in the steps of former President Donald Trump in recent days, taking a softer stance as Democrats seek to use the issue as a wedge in November.
“What I’ve said is, I signed every pro-life bill that came to me as governor, if that’s the bill that came to me, that’s the bill that came to me,” he told the Washington Examiner on Monday. “But the consensus in my state is 15 weeks. OK? And that’s what we ought to — we ought to do that plus the exceptions.”
A 15-week ban has been on the books in Florida since 2022, but the GOP-led legislature passed the more restrictive, six-week limit a year later. That law, which the Florida Supreme Court greenlighted on April 1 after a monthslong legal battle, is set to take effect in two weeks.
Scott declined to comment on whether Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) had made a mistake in signing the law, seen as a way for him to attract evangelical support during his failed run for president last year.
But Scott did count himself among a crop of Republicans rejecting calls for a federal ban. Trump, who cleared the way for Roe v. Wade to be overturned with his appointment of three conservative justices to the Supreme Court, notably called for the issue to be left to the states last week after months of mixed signals.
“I don’t support legislation up here. I support each state making their decision,” Scott said. “That’s very important to us.”
Florida, despite its history as a swing state, has become reliably red in recent cycles. Today, Republicans have a voter registration advantage of roughly 800,000 votes.
But Democrats see abortion access as a winning issue that could prove decisive in the Senate race.
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Scott’s Democratic challenger, former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, trails the senator by 7 points in the latest Emerson poll on the race. But Scott could be facing a wave of Democratic enthusiasm after the state Supreme Court concurrently allowed a ballot measure in November that would, if approved, enshrine abortion access in the state constitution.
That ballot measure would allow abortion up until fetal viability, which is generally considered to be 24 weeks.
