COLUMBIA, Mo. — The ACLU of Missouri is seeking a new ballot summary for a proposed initiative petition that would restore abortion rights in Missouri, where the procedure is banned.
The civil liberties group on Thursday filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, accusing the Republican of crafting a misleading and unfair summary that would encourage Missourians to vote against the ballot measure. Ashcroft is running for governor in 2024.
The group is asking Cole County Judge Jon Beetem to toss Ashcroft’s language, which, in part, would ask voters to “allow for dangerous, unregulated, and unrestricted abortions.”
Ashcroft “disregarded his duty to craft a sufficient and fair summary statement and instead certified one that is argumentative against adoption of the Initiative, is misleading as to the Initiative’s probable effects, and prejudicial,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit comes amid a separate dispute between a pair of Republican statewide officials, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick, over how much the ballot measure would cost the state.
Beetem ruled this month that Bailey overstepped when he tried to inflate the cost, but the Republican has yet to follow Beetem’s order and approve the fiscal notes filed by Fitzpatrick. The case is now in the Missouri Supreme Court.
The standoff has delayed Missouri in finalizing 11 versions of a state constitutional amendment that would restore abortion rights in Missouri. Anna Fitz-James, a retired St. Louis doctor, submitted the proposals in March.
Tom Bastian, a spokesperson for the ACLU, said that Thursday’s lawsuit was one of 11 challenges the group plans to file against Ashcroft’s ballot summaries. By filing them now, “the courts will have what they need to expedite the process after the ballot initiatives are certified.”
Ashcroft, in a statement Friday afternoon, called the lawsuit frivolous and it was “wasting the judiciary’s time and the taxpayer’s money.”
“The law regarding the initiative petition process is clear and we will continue to follow it, as should the ACLU,” he said.
Instead of Ashcroft’s summary, the ACLU proposed its own ballot summary for the petition. It, in part, would ask voters to “establish the right to reproductive freedom that includes the right to make decisions about reproductive health care, including prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion care, miscarriage care, and respectful birthing conditions.”
The ACLU’s proposed summary would also ask Missourians to ban criminalization “for exercising the right to reproductive freedom” and discrimination against those “providing or obtaining reproductive health care.”
