This election season, WESA and PublicSource are analyzing the political advertising you’re seeing on air and online. Look for Spot Check on Thursdays.
The spot
“Extremist voting record” is a 30-second TV ad from the re-election campaign for Democratic U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio, taking aim at his opponent, Republican state Rep. Rob Mercuri, for his record on abortion policy.
A narrator walks viewers through the implications of what the ad calls Mercuri’s “extreme” record of votes in the state legislature.
Deluzio, of Aspinwall, originally won the 17th District seat in 2022, by about 7 percentage points over a different Republican opponent. The district, which includes some western, northern and eastern Pittsburgh suburbs as well as the whole of Beaver County, is one of several dozen that Democratic and Republican groups alike are targeting with ad spending as the race to control Congress next year intensifies.
When did it launch? Sept. 4.
How many airings? At least 179, according to AdImpact, which tracks political advertising.
How much? At least $172,457 so far, according to an AdImpact estimate.
Who’s paying? Deluzio’s campaign paid for the ad. His campaign has raised almost $3 million since the start of 2023, including donations of the maximum allowable amount under FEC rules from a host of labor unions, liberal and progressive political action committees and frequent Pittsburgh-area political donors.
The claims
The ad begins with an unattributed quote. “An extremist voting record. That’s what Republicans say about Rob Mercuri’s time in the legislature.”
The narrator then says Mercuri supported an “abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest,” and that he supported bills that could put in vitro fertilization [IVF] “at risk,” and “throw doctors in jail.”
The ad claims that if elected to Congress, Mercuri could one day be the deciding vote for a national abortion ban.
Mercuri addressed the topic in an ad that first aired Sept. 18, titled “Unites Us.” Mercuri says directly to camera, “I oppose criminalizing abortion, because demonizing women over healthcare choices isn’t right.”
The facts
The ad’s first claim — that Republicans say Mercuri has an extreme voting record — is only partly true.
Asked to provide evidence for this, the Deluzio campaign pointed to just one Republican, Jim Nelson, who ran unsuccessfully in the primary against Mercuri, and penned an Op-Ed in November in which he wrote that Mercuri has an “extremist voting record” and would have trouble winning a general election in the swingy 17th.
The ad’s central premise, that Mercuri supported an “abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest,” is based on Mercuri’s co-sponsorship of a bill in the state House in 2021 that never received a vote on the House floor.
The bill, HB 904, would have amended Pennsylvania’s current abortion law, drastically shortening the amount of time pregnant women have to obtain legal abortions. It would have nixed the current time limit, which is 24 weeks, and replaced it with “after a fetal heartbeat is detected.” That typically occurs after about six weeks.
The bill was co-sponsored by 33 House Republicans in addition to Mercuri. The bill text does not mention exceptions for cases involving rape or incest. It would allow doctors to perform abortions if no heartbeat is detected if they deem it “necessary.”
The Mercuri campaign wrote in response to PublicSource questions that Mercuri supports exceptions for the life of the mother, rape and incest. Addressing the bill he co-sponsored that lacked those, campaign spokesperson Brittany Yanick said the bill “never came to the floor and Mercuri’s actual voting record and federal policy positions have been clear.”
That bill did not contain any language about criminal penalties for doctors or patients. But Bruce Antkowiak, a St. Vincent College law professor and former longtime prosecutor, said that the bill would have retained criminal penalties that exist under the current law.
Pennsylvania law holds that people who perform abortions beyond current limits can be charged with a felony of the third degree — which can result in up to seven years in prison.
“An amendment to that section would simply change the definition of an authorized abortion,” Antkowiak said. ”It would remain a criminal act to perform such a procedure in violation of the statute.”
The Mercuri campaign said in a statement to PublicSource that Mercuri “opposed efforts in the state legislature to criminalize abortion,” pointing to his vote in favor of a 2023 bill that would have shielded people in Pennsylvania from out-of-state prosecution relating to reproductive health care. (The bill passed the House still and awaits a vote in the Senate.)
The Deluzio campaign’s claim that Mercuri’s actions put IVF at risk are not as direct. The campaign said the claim is backed by Mercuri’s support for a proposed amendment to the Pennsylvania constitution in 2022, which would have decreed that the constitution does not guarantee the right to abortion. The proposed amendment, which never became law, did not mention IVF.
The campaign cited a statement from the ACLU of Pennsylvania’s legislative director, who said that the amendment could have led to regulations on IVF and contraception. IVF became a hot political issue after an Alabama court ruled this year that frozen embryos are people, which led to a brief halt to IVF treatments in the state.
Yanick said Mercuri “will always support the ability of women to choose IVF.”
Tracy Ortega, an attorney and family law professor at Penn State University, said the idea that the amendment would have led to an IVF ban is “a stretch.” She cited the language of the amendment, which makes no mention of reproductive treatments other than abortion, and the current abortion law, which she said excludes IVF treatment as a potential criminal violation.
“Courts would have to interpret the amendment to include IVF treatment which I find highly unlikely given the current public policy and sentiment surrounding IVF,” she added.
The ad’s claim that Mercuri could end up the deciding vote on a national abortion ban is technically true, given that the U.S. House could end up narrowly divided next year, potentially giving any one legislator the power to sink or propel a bill.
U.S. Rep Mike Kelly, a Butler Republican who represents a neighboring district, sponsored a bill in Congress that would ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected.
The Mercuri campaign said he would not support a federal ban on abortion, and in a May Op-Ed, the Republican wrote that “consensus does not exist in this country over abortion — and [I] would oppose efforts to nationalize abortion policy on the right or the left.”
PublicSource’s access to AdImpact data on political advertising is made possible through a partnership with WESA and support from The Heinz Endowments.
Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.
