Court Throws Out Anti-Abortion Petitions Initiative Supporters Must Start Over With New Title

The Idaho Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Friday that the ballot titles drafted by Attorney General Alan Lance’s office for the Idaho Citizens Alliance’s anti-abortion initiative are insufficient.

That means all signatures collected so far for the proposed November 1996 ballot measure are invalid and the process must start over.

Initiative sponsors have until July to collect 41,335 signatures of registered voters to put the proposal on the general election ballot. But the process cannot start until new petitions are prepared and receive preliminary approval.

Kelly Walton of Heyburn, chairman of the Idaho Citizens Alliance, said Friday’s ruling would eliminate well over 10,000 signatures. And he questioned why it took the high court five months to reach its decision.

“It’s definitely a setback. It’s just really frustrating to collect that many signatures and have a third party just throw them out,” Walton said. “We’re viewing this as a major speed bump. It has the potential of keeping us off the ballot, but we are going forward.”

The alliance is proposing an initiative that changes and imposes new criminal and civil penalties for most abortions. As required by law, the attorney general’s office prepared a short and long ballot title for the proposal.

In a decision written by Chief Justice Charles McDevitt, the Supreme Court ruled that the ballot titles do not adequately inform voters of the substantial changes proposed by the initiative.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Law & Policy challenged the titles, saying they were too vague, and it was wrong to ask voters to enact major changes in abortion law without making it clear what they were doing.

“This decision is a victory for Idaho voters as well as for the constitutional right of women to control their reproductive choices,” Janet Crepps of the Center for Reproduction Law & Policy said in a statement issued by the ACLU.

Kurt Holzer, an ACLU of Idaho cooperating attorney, said the high court “recognized the initiative dramatically expands civil liability, subjecting any individual to lawsuit who helps a woman obtain an abortion. Even the woman herself can be sued, even if impregnated by rape.”

A statement from Lance acknowledged that it was difficult to please everyone with a short ballot title limited to 20 words and a long title of no more than 200 words.

“This office makes every effort to draft titles that are accurate, objective and fair, and we have no interest in the outcome of these initiatives,” Lance said. “But, it can still be difficult to satisfy all parties to this process.

“The most important factor is for the public to be fully informed when they vote,” he said.

The Supreme Court said its previous rulings on initiative titles involved proposed new laws, not amendments to existing ones. But it said the ballot title must make it clear what is “distinctive” about the new proposal.

“The short title is insufficient based on the fact that it does not distinguish the initiative from Idaho’s existing abortion laws,” the Supreme Court said.

“The attorney general’s short title fails to capture the distinctive characteristics of the initiative,” the court said.

In the interests of speeding the process, the Supreme Court came up with its own short and long ballot titles that it said would meet legal requirements.

Lance’s short title was: “An initiative prohibiting abortions beyond the point of viability and providing exceptions.”

The Supreme Court’s version: “Initiative amending existing law regarding third trimester abortions; creating civil and criminal liability for violations; deleting certain existing criminal penalties.”

The Supreme Court’s long version also went into much more specific detail about changes in criminal and civil penalties for late abortions.

Walton said the Idaho Citizens Alliance would use the titles supplied by the Supreme Court, but that the impact of Friday’s decision could continue for some time.

“One of the major factors is we distributed petitions all over the 1st Congressional District in November. People who don’t get the word on this will still be circulating the old forms, so this could affect a lot more names before it’s over,” he said.

Even if the setback keeps the antiabortion initiative off the November 1996 ballot, Walton said his group would try again.

“We’ve got a good track record of getting things on the ballot,” he said, “and I have no intention of breaking the string.”