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Topline Republicans in four states are still challenging abortion ballot measures less than two months before Election Day—with Missouri’s possibly set to be removed from the ballot this week—as the GOP fights against abortion ballot measures after previous referendums in 2022 and 2023 have always broken in favor of abortion rights. Pro-abortion rights activists rally to protect abortion rights for Floridians in Orlando, Florida, ..
. [+] on April 13. Key Facts Missouri: A Republican-appointed state judge ruled Friday that the state’s abortion ballot measure—which would protect abortion rights until a fetus is viable, and afterward if medically necessary—isn’t legal, ruling it was “insufficient” because it didn’t properly say how it would affect existing state laws.
The Missouri Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Tuesday morning about whether the measure should stay on the ballot, ahead of a deadline later that day for removing ballot questions. Florida: Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has been fighting against Amendment 4, which would enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution, launching an investigation into the validity of signatures in support of the measure—which had already been approved—that the Tampa Bay Times reports has resulted in police showing up at Floridians’ homes to question them about signing.
A Florida state health care agency launched a website about the proposed amendment that claims it “threatens women’s safety,” with Florida Democrats suggesting they’re looking into taking legal action over the website allegedly violating laws prohibiting the government from engaging in campaigning. DeSantis also established a political spending committee ahead of November dedicated to raising money to oppose ballot measures on abortion and marijuana legalization, along with some individual candidates. South Dakota: A trial will begin Sept.
23 to determine the legality of the state’s abortion ballot measure, which would expand when the procedure is permissible, as anti-abortion activists and the Republican secretary of state have challenged the validity of signatures in favor of the measure. The measure will still appear on the ballot regardless of how the trial goes, as the deadline for removing questions has already passed, but if the court strikes down the measure, any votes on it won’t be counted, according to the South Dakota Searchlight. Nebraska: The Nebraska Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in a lawsuit over whether to invalidate the state’s ballot measure proposing to protect abortion rights, as opponents claim the measure covers too many subjects and violates the state’s law requiring each ballot measure to only focus on one issue.
Get Forbes Breaking News Text Alerts: We’re launching text message alerts so you'll always know the biggest stories shaping the day’s headlines. Text “Alerts” to (201) 335-0739 or sign up here . Tangent Additional court battles have already taken place over the ballot measures in Missouri and Florida.
Missouri Attorney General Jay Ashcroft, a Republican, had already separately been challenged in court for writing a summary of the ballot measure that abortion rights advocates claimed was misleading. Ashcroft suggested the ballot measure would allow abortion at any point during a pregnancy, which is untrue, and a court agreed with abortion rights advocates who challenged the language. The Florida Supreme Court in April allowed the abortion measure onto the ballot—though it also separately greenlit the state’s six-week ban—but later ruled in August that a financial impact statement could remain as part of the ballot measure’s language.
Abortion rights advocates have fought against that language, which says the constitutional amendment, if passed, could lead to Medicaid funds being used on abortion. Court battles have also played out in other states where abortion rights measures are now on the ballot, including Arizona , Montana and New York , while the Arkansas Supreme Court blocked that state from putting abortion rights up for a vote. What To Watch For Ten states in total are set to have abortion-related ballot measures in the general election: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York and South Dakota.
Nebraska is set to have two competing measures on the ballot in November, one of which would legalize abortion while the other would preserve the state’s 12-week ban. It remains to be seen how the ballot measures will fare: though polling in Florida , Arizona and Nevada has shown majority support in favor of preserving abortion rights, polling by the Public Religion Research Institute in 2023 found South Dakota is one of the few states where only a minority of residents (47%) favor abortion rights. The measures stand to have a notable effect on abortion access in the U.
S. if they were all to break in favor of abortion rights. While the procedure is still legal in Colorado, Maryland, Montana, Nevada and New York, the measures would overturn total abortion bans in Missouri and South Dakota, along with Florida’s six-week ban and Arizona’s 15-week ban.
In states where the procedure is already legal, advocates argue the constitutional amendments proposed in the ballot measures would safeguard abortion rights in case any politicians try to restrict it in the future. What We Don’t Know How the abortion ballot measures will impact the election. Democrats have used abortion as a key catalyst to get the party’s base to the polls in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v.
Wade, with an April memo released by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) arguing, “When abortion is on the ballot, voters turn out to defend their rights.” Increased turnout on the left could benefit Vice President Kamala Harris in the battleground states of Arizona and Nevada, while Democrats are hoping Montana’s referendum will boost vulnerable incumbent Sen. Jon Tester.
In its memo, the DCCC identified 18 close House races in states with abortion measures in which Democrats could get a boost from the referendums—a list that, since being compiled in April, is likely to have grown since then as more states have had ballot measures approved. Key Background The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, ruling there is no longer a federal right to an abortion and kicking off a wave of state-level bans.
The ruling and ensuing bans have made abortion a key issue in federal and state elections ever since, with abortion ballot measures becoming a primary tactic for abortion rights advocates to preserve access. Seven states have had abortion-focused ballot measures since the Supreme Court’s ruling—California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio and Vermont—with all breaking in favor of abortion rights. Polling has repeatedly shown a majority of Americans support abortion being at least mostly legal and oppose banning it, so ballot measures have been a way for abortion rights advocates to harness that support even in states where conservative lawmakers oppose abortion.
Republicans’ efforts against many of the ballot measures in this election cycle are part of a broader trend of GOP officials trying to prevent abortion from making the ballot: in Ohio , for instance, voters approved a measure in favor of abortion rights last year after Republicans held a referendum months earlier trying to make it harder for such ballot measures to pass. Their efforts to raise the bar failed, paving the way for the reproductive rights measure’s success. Further Reading.
