California Gov. Jerry Brown (D.) said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he does not think there should be an abortion litmus test for Democrats.
Host Chuck Todd asked Brown how the Democratic Party can bridge the differences between the centrist and far-left wings of the party, using the issue of abortion as an example.
"How do you tell the Democratic base that says, look, sometimes you've got to compromise?" Todd asked. "So, for instance, the issue of abortion. You've got some inside the Democratic Party, some major Democratic leaders from a senator in New York, Kirsten Gillibrand, to others who think the Democratic Party should not support Democrats who are not pro-choice on abortion. But you have people like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer who say you know what, the Democrats need to be a big tent. How do you tell the Democratic base to compromise?"
Brown said the party should be inclusive to people with a wide spectrum of beliefs and reminded Todd that not that long ago many Catholic Democrats were opposed to abortion.
Well, first of all, I don't know who the Democratic base is. It's shifted. The Democratic—the segments of our party are highly differentiated. They're environmentalists, they are gun owners, there are pro-choice people, there are religious fundamentalists—not very many, but they're there.
Even on the abortion issue, it wasn't very long ago that a number of Catholic Democrats were opposed to abortion. So the fact that somebody believes today what most people believed 50 years ago should not be the basis for their exclusion. And in America, we're not ideological. We're not like a Marxist party in 1910. We are big tent by the very definition. We're not ideological in the European sense of what political parties used to be. Even in Europe now, they don't have that same ideological purity.
America is not one place, you can't let hot-button issues that work great in particular congressional districts one way or the other to be the guiding, the guiding light for a national party that covers a very wide spectrum of belief.
Todd followed up by asking Brown if there should be any issue that serves as a litmus test for the Democratic Party.
"So you don't believe there should be a litmus test on abortion. Is there an issue there should be one on for the Democrats?," Todd asked.
The governor said intelligence should be the litmus test and Democrats running in California will not be the same as Democrats running in Alabama.
"Well, the litmus test should be intelligence, caring about ... the common man," Brown said. "We're not going to get everybody on board. And I'm sorry, but running in San Francisco is not like running in Tulare County, or Modoc, California, much less Mobile, Alabama. If we want to be governing party of a very diverse—and I say diverse ideologically as well as ethnically—country, then you have to have a broader—a party that rises above the more particular issues to the generic, the general issue of making America great."
Democrats have been in disarray when it comes to the issue of abortion since the 2016 election. Democratic leaders have made contradictory claims on whether they accept Americans into their ranks who are pro-life. The divisions within the party were most recently on display when the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said there will be no litmus test on abortion for Democratic candidates in the 2018 midterm elections.
Democratic leaders are not united on the issue.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) has said the party needs to be an inclusive party, while Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez said that every Democrat needs to be pro-choice. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) tried to appease both sides.