Like groups in several other states whose legislatures immediately passed strict abortion bans immediately after the Supreme Court decision in 2022 overturning Roe v. Wade, forces within the State of Missouri have been working to place a constitutional amendment on the November 2024 ballot that would re-instate access to abortion rights within the state and ensure doctors are not targeted by politicians with vindictive penalties providing reproductive care. Those efforts are being thwarted by Missouri’s Secretary of State, Jay Ashcroft, using a process unique to his official appointed duties. For a second time, a Missouri Court has ruled Ashcroft is abusing his role and essentially interfering with the rights of citizens to place issues on the ballot.
Missouri has a “fair ballot language” law requiring any constitutional amendment put to a vote by the people to include a summary approved by the Secretary of State that summarizes the proposal and provides an unbiased estimate of the recurring cost of the proposal to taxpayers. This requirement essentially pits the Missouri Secretary of State as a final layer of protection of Missouri’s ignert voters against the hordes of special interests who might attempt to get an intentionally ambiguous amendment in front of a naive public who would vote to pass it without understanding its financial consequences.
Of course, that requirement does nothing to protect those same ignert rubes from being misled by a partisan Secretary of State in a position to apply additional political spin around any initiative being put to a vote. Like many other states which enacted these abortion bans in 2022, Missouri’s legislature is overwhelmingly Republican and poses no threat to reversing that abortion ban. But the CITIZENS of Missouri? Like many other bright red states, they may have voted for Republicans overwhelmingly for state offices but they are not in favor of abortion bans either, hence the effort to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to override the legislature.
This is infuriating to Republican officials so they are using the one tool left in their arsenal to thwart The People from getting what they want via the electoral process. Jay Ashcroft has now used his “power of the pen” TWICE to distort language put in front of voters as a means of peeling away potential votes that would reject the state’s abortion ban. His first attempt involved rewriting the language used to solicit signatures from voters to place the amendment on the ballot. That first effort triggered a lawsuit in 2023 which led a judge to reject Ashcroft’s language on September 25, 2023, stating
The court finds that certain phrases included in the secretary’s summary are problematic in that they are argumentative or do not fairly describe the purposes or probable effect of the initiative.
For the final amendment approved for the November 2024 ballot, Aschroft crafted the following description, which not only appears on his official web site for the office of Secretary of State but also appears at each polling location next to a sample ballot for voters to read before filling in their ballot:
A ‘yes’ vote will enshrine the right to abortion at any time of pregnancy in the Missouri Constitution. Additionally, it will prohibit any regulation of abortion, including regulations designed to protect women undergoing abortions and prohibit any civil or criminal recourse against anyone who performs an abortion and hurts or kills the pregnant women.
The actual amendment
- does NOT allow abortion at ANY time during pregnancy
- does NOT protect doctors from malpractice suits or professional citations for improper care
Here is the language of the actual amendment voters will consider on November 6, 2024:
Do you want to amend the Missouri Constitution to:
- establish a right to make decisions about reproductive health care, including abortion and contraceptives, with any governmental interference of that right presumed invalid;
- remove Missouri’s ban on abortion;
- allow regulation of reproductive health care to improve or maintain the health of the patient;
- require the government not to discriminate, in government programs, funding, and other activities, against persons providing or obtaining reproductive health care; and
- allow abortion to be restricted or banned after Fetal Viability except to protect the life or health of the woman?
State governmental entities estimate no costs or savings, but unknown impact. Local governmental entities estimate costs of at least $51,000 annually in reduced tax revenues. Opponents estimate a potentially significant loss to state revenue.
Note that language in the official ballot EXPLICITLY states that the measure would allow restrictions or bans on abortion after fetal viability except to protect the life or health of the mother. Note that language in the official ballot EXPLICITLY calls for appropriate regulation of providers offering reproductive care. Note that Ashcroft’s summary EXPLICITLY mis-represents these points.
Here is the revised “fair ballot language” summary Judge Cotton Walker required the Secretary of State to post on its website and at the polling locations:
A ‘yes’ vote establishes a constitutional right to make decisions about reproductive health care, including abortion and contraceptives, with any governmental interference of that right presumed invalid; removes Missouri’s ban on abortion; allows regulation of reproductive health care to improve of maintain the health of the patient; requires the government not to discriminate, in government programs, funding, and other activities, against persons providing or obtaining reproductive health care; and allows abortion to be restricted or banned after fetal viability except to protect the life or health of the woman.
Of course, the games do not end in the Secretary of State’s office. Another group of anti-abortion activists filed a suit to block Amendment 3 from appearing on the ballot because it violates Missouri law by including more than one subject and does not explicitly identify which existing Missouri laws would be altered or repealed if passed. That suit will be reviewed in a bench trial slated for September 6, 2024.
So much for that "faithfully execute" language in the oath of office. Ashcroft's conduct and abuse of power in the handling of this issue is beyond rationalization.
WTH
