"Bless your heart."
That was Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill's response to a tweet in which California Governor Gavin Newsom profanely rebuked Murrill's threat to sue California and New York for refusing to extradite doctors who ship Mifepristone and other abortion-inducing drugs to Louisiana residents.
"Louisiana plans to sue me because I won’t extradite a doctor for providing an abortion," Newsom wrote on Twitter Thursday night. "@AGLizMurrill: Go fuck yourself. California will never help you criminalize healthcare."
Murrill responded two hours later.
"Bless your heart, @GavinNewsom," Murrill tweeted. "Killing Louisiana babies isn’t healthcare, nor is shielding California drug dealers. The sovereign State of Louisiana will defend life. See ya soon. ⚜ "
The online battle underscores a legal fight that likely will be settled by the United States Supreme Court.
"What's going to happen in federal courts is really unclear," University of Louisiana at Monroe political science professor Pearson Cross said, adding that the Supreme Court would use the Constitution's Full Faith and Credit and Interstate Commerce clauses to settle this matter. "It's up to the federal courts to sort the extent to which what's criminal in what state is not in another state."
Legalities aside, Cross says Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill may be the winner in her online war of words with California Governor Gavin Newsom.
"I think a standoff with Gavin Newsom helps Murrill," Cross said. "Liz Murrill is appealing to her base in terms of their values, right to life values in Louisiana."
What's more: Cross says Murrill's refusal to respond to Newsom's f-bomb with her own profanity was a shrewd move politically.
"There's no reward, frankly, in American political life for a woman who appears to be overly aggressive or who makes comments that are of the sort that Gavin Newsom made," Cross said. "For some reason, the standard seems to be a little looser for men to do bad behavior than for women. She's being circumspect. It's smart to do that."
Cross says Murrill's online beef with California's governor positions her well in terms of future elections regardless of what office she seeks.
"It's unclear at this point what her ambitions may be and to what extent they're tied to Governor Jeff Landry, with whom she's been a close ally for years," Cross said.