In Texas and California, new laws call on the people of each state to watch and report their neighbors — and reap a reward for doing so. Unusual, yes — although it’s a concept that dates back to the earliest days of the American republic.
But what do Civil War-era legislators raging about sick mules and wet gunpowder have to do with Texas Senate Bill 8, its “heartbeat” abortion law, and California Senate Bill 1327, its newest gun act?
They all set out bounties, with the state entrusting its citizens to enforce the law and promising remuneration to those who do.
The Texas law, passed in 2021, bans abortions if a doctor detects a fetal heartbeat, usually at about six weeks — but it’s not up to the state to enforce it. Instead, people anywhere in the United States can sue anyone who helped a Texan get an abortion. Successful lawsuits offer at least $10,000 per reported abortion, and the defendant, not the state, pays the plaintiff.
As U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts noted, the law ran contrary to abortion rights guaranteed under Roe vs. Wade, then the law of the land. Instead, he wrote in a concurring opinion, “Texas has employed an array of stratagems designed to shield its unconstitutional law from judicial review.”
Opponents included the firearms industry, which started getting nervous about the implications for gun owners.
Sure enough, by the time the U.S. Supreme Court later jettisoned Roe’s right to abortion, perhaps making the machinations of Texas unnecessary,...
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