While Democrats turned their national convention in Chicago into a days-long pro-abortion rally, anti-life ballot initiatives are facing setbacks in two states.
In Arkansas, the state’s Supreme Court struck down a ballot initiative to enshrine a “right” to abortion in the state’s constitution. On Thursday, the court rejected a petition brought by Arkansans for Limited Government (ALG), citing an insufficient number of volunteered signatures. Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston (R) “correctly refused” to count the signatures of paid canvassers when considering whether to allow ALG’s proposed amendment to appear on November’s ballot.
“This court is being asked to order another constitutional officer, the Arkansas Secretary of State, to ignore a mandatory statutory provision that he has enforced. That is not the proper role of the court,” Justice Rhonda Wood wrote for the majority. The court found that ALG “failed to comply with the statutory filing requirements for paid canvassers. That statute was inapplicable to volunteer canvassers.” Thus, the court “ordered the Secretary to count the signatures from volunteer canvassers, but we do not order him to count the signatures from paid canvassers. Because the number of the initial count of signatures fails to meet the facial validity threshold required by law, we deny further relief.”
Arkansas’s Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin issued a statement responding to the court’s decision, saying, “Changing the Arkansas Constitution involves a rigorous process requiring strict adherence to the law. The Arkansas Supreme Court confirmed today that the abortion advocates failed to follow the law that other ballot committees had successfully followed for over a decade since Governor Mike Beebe signed the law governing paid canvassers in 2013.” He added, “This is a win for the rule of law in Arkansas and for those who have followed the rules for years to participate in the state’s ballot initiative process.”
ALG had tried twice before to add a pro-abortion amendment to November’s ballot, but Griffin rejected the proposals based on “misleading” language, before the group’s third attempt was approved, provided that ALG could gather enough valid signatures. The group claims that it collected over 102,000 signatures, but since ALG failed to submit documentation identifying which signatures came from paid canvassers and which came from volunteers, Thurston rejected the ballot initiative.
Meanwhile, the Sunshine State’s Supreme Court has slapped a financial warning on a pro-abortion measure which will appear before voters on November’s ballot. The ballot initiative, if passed, would enshrine a “right” to abortion in Florida’s constitution. While the proposed amendment will be voted on in November, Florida’s Financial Impact Estimating Conference attached some advisory notes to the measure, asking voters to consider whether the proposed amendment would force taxpayers to subsidize abortion and how much the state may end up paying in litigation to resolve that issue, as well as a warning that an increase in abortions in Florida could “negatively affect the growth of the state and local revenues over time.” The conference’s note concludes, “Because the fiscal impact of increased abortions on state and local revenues and costs cannot be estimated with precision, the total impact of the proposed amendment is indeterminate.”
The left-wing Floridians Protecting Freedom and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenged the warning, alleging that its attachment to the ballot initiative was politically motivated and that the Conference lacks the authority to add any such warning. Florida’s Supreme Court shut down the challenge on Wednesday, writing, “The petitioners actively participated in the Estimating Conference process that they now challenge, without questioning or objecting to the Conference’s authority to issue a revised financial impact statement on its own initiative.” The court concluded, “For that basic reason, the petitioners waived or forfeited any reasonable claim to extraordinary relief from this Court.”
Currently, nine states will decide on abortion-related ballot initiatives in November’s election: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, New York, Nevada, and South Dakota. Montana became the ninth state on Tuesday, when Ballot Issue #14 was approved by Montana’s secretary of State. If approved, the measure would “amend the Montana Constitution to expressly provide a right to make and carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy, including the right to abortion.” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen (R) had initially rejected the ballot initiative, calling it “legally insufficient” to appear before voters, but his decision was reversed by the state’s supreme court earlier this year. Efforts are also currently underway to place a pro-abortion proposal on the ballot in Nebraska.
California, Michigan, Ohio, and Vermont have already voted to enshrine a “right” to abortion in their states’ constitutions, while pro-life amendments in Kansas and Kentucky failed to pass in referendum. Alabama and Tennessee both voted to enshrine pro-life language in their states’ constitutions, providing pro-life protections in almost all circumstances.
S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.
