by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Christopher K. Limbaugh, an Associate Circuit Judge with Missouri's 19th Judicial Circuit (Cole County), ruled on Friday that the proposed reproductive rights petition, also known as "Amendment 3," does not comply with state law and is therefore ineligible to be on the state ballot on November 5th. The deadline for removing amendments from the state ballot is next Tuesday, and Limbaugh said that he would wait until then for the amendment to be removed in order to give the appeals court time to weigh in on his decision. (Two whole business days.)
The Missouri State Legislature, which is dominated by Republicans, had passed a law that would almost totally eliminate abortions in the show-me state when and if Roe v. Wade was ever overturned by the US Supreme Court. When that happened with the Dobbs Decision in June of 2022, Missouri became the first state in the nation to outlaw the healthcare procedure.
This year Missouri citizens used the initiative process to secure a place on the ballot to have their say on the matter by proposing a reproductive freedoms amendment to the state constitution. That amendment would ensure a woman's right to an abortion up to the time of fetal viability, along with protections surrounding other reproductive healthcare such as miscarriage care, birth control, and in vitro fertilization.
A coalition calling itself "Missourians for Constitutional Freedom" organized the movement to collect enough signatures to place the measure on the ballot which would reinstate the right to abortion services while protecting other reproductive freedoms. They needed a minimum of eight percent of voter signatures from six of Missouri's eight congressional districts (more than 171,000 total signatures), and wound up turning in petitions with a total of 380,159 signatures - more than double the number needed.
(Full disclosure: This blogger is proud to declare that one of those signatures was his!)
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a conservative Republican who himself opposes abortion rights, certified the measure as eligible for the ballot last month.
This past Friday Judge Limbaugh, in responding to a suit filed by a group that included some hard-right Missouri legislators and others, ruled that the amendment did not comply with state law in that it failed to identify specific statutes which would be overturned if the amendment to the state constitution was approved.
Judge Limbaugh, a Republican, is the former prosecuting attorney of Cape Girardeau County, Missouri, and has also served as the General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer to Missouri Governor Mike Parson, a Republican who went on to appoint him to his current position as an associate justice with Missouri's 19th Circuit Court.
It all feels like one big family!
And speaking of family, Judge Christopher Limbaugh was also a cousin to Missouri radio provocateur, the late Rush Limbaugh.
Sooner or later the people of Missouri will be heard on the subject of reproductive healthcare, and when they do have their say, it will be a mighty roar indeed!
Enough of the games already - let the people vote!
1 comment:
Always remember and never forget that Missouri voters determine which judges are retained in office and which are shown the door. It would be a fools errand to attempt to identify each law the Republican supermajority in the Missouri General Assembly has passed abridging the rights of women and the science of biology that Amendment 3 would impact. It seems sufficient to say that the amendment provides for the state constitutional right to reproductive freedom free from government overreach until the time of fetal viability. That just smacks of the initial standard set in the SCOTUS case of Roe v. Wade, which was a case about the fundamental right of privacy which a woman has when it comes to making healthcare decisions about her own body.
It seems tricky to impose a statute on a privilege the people of Missouri have reserved to themselves to the exclusion of the General Assembly. See, Mo. Const. art. III, § 49 -- "The people reserve power to propose and enact or reject laws and amendments to the constitution by the initiative, independent of the general assembly, and also reserve power to approve or reject by referendum any act of the general assembly, except as hereinafter provided."
That the case rises moments before the deadline for the drop dead date for making changes prior to the printing of ballots reeks of gamesmanship. Courts should not weigh in on territory staked out as the exclusive province of Missouri's sovereign people.
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