When former President Trump called for states to decide abortion access, Republicans lined up behind him in support.
“The people are now deciding,” Trump said in June, adding “it’s a beautiful thing to watch.”
But conservative state lawmakers and activists are working the levers of governmental power to keep abortion rights off the ballot in red states or complicate the process.
They are changing rules on signature collections, inserting anti-abortion language into official summaries, and sometimes suing over the underlying language. Officials are also using routine steps like a taxpayer cost estimate to slow the amendment process.
Abortion rights and progressive ballot measure proponents say the moves are undemocratic and prevent voters from having their voices heard.
“Politicians are not playing fair games, and they are changing the rules, or changing the goalposts for advocates on the ground who are trying to move forward issues that are important to their communities,” said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.
“This is all part of a larger effort to prevent the people from actually engaging and being a part of our democracy and making change,” she added.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment on state actions related to ballot initiatives.
Abortion protection measures have won overwhelmingly in every state that’s voted on them since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Nearly a dozen states will try to replicate the success this year, fueling calls on the right to take the issue out of voters’ hands — despite Trump’s position.
“It is not right for democratic societies to vote on the fundamental rights of unpopular minorities,” said Lila Rose, president and founder of the anti-abortion group Live Action, in a post on the social platform X. “Abortion is not about the ‘will of the people,’ it’s about respecting the human right that we are endowed with by our creator.”
Florida’s ‘impact analysis’ fight
In Florida, a coalition of abortion rights groups is challenging the state’s official financial assessment of a ballot amendment to protect abortion access and overturn the state’s current near-total ban. The amendment was given the green light to appear on the ballot in April by the state’s conservative-majority Supreme Court.
The group Floridians Protecting Freedom petitioned the state Supreme Court to toss out the state’s financial impact analysis, which it said contains misleading anti-abortion language that has “nothing to do” with the financial impact of the amendment.
“This lawsuit was important, not just to the Sponsor’s right to a fair presentation of Amendment 4 on the ballot, but to the right of every Floridian to decide for themselves, without a thumb on the scale in favor of any one outcome, whether to support or oppose an amendment to their governing charter,” the group wrote in the petition.
The financial analysis statement accompanies the amendment on the ballot. Drafting one is often no more than a bureaucratic formality for a panel of state economists, but the abortion statement was developed by three members appointed by opponents of the amendment — Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), Florida Senate President Kathleen Passidomo (R), and Florida House Speaker Paul Renner (R).
The analysis said the amendment could cost the state money because of lawsuits over whether the state will use public funds to subsidize abortions.
The statement also noted the amendment would result in “significantly more abortions and fewer live births per year,” which “may negatively affect the growth of state and local revenues over time.”
Panel representatives said during public hearings the language is accurate and not political.
Signature challenges
In Arkansas and Montana, state officials have been attempting to challenge the number of signatures submitted by abortion-rights groups to ensure their measures qualify.
Arkansans for Limited Government (AFLG) submitted more than 101,000 signatures in support of the proposed constitutional amendment by the July 5 deadline, but Secretary of State John Thurston (R) subsequently disqualified the signatures over what he said was essentially a paperwork error related to paid canvassers.
The group filed a lawsuit asking the state Supreme Court to vacate the disqualification. As of Monday, the court had ordered Thurston’s office to count all the signatures and refused to dismiss the lawsuit.
AFLG Director of Strategy Rebecca Bobrow said the group knew there was a possibility of challenges from anti-abortion activists, but not necessarily state officials.
“They are looking for a rationale to match up with a decision that they made,” Bobrow said. “It certainly feels to me like 102,000 people who signed this petition would feel like their voices were silenced if it ends up that this does not go through.”
The amendment would forbid government entities from restricting or banning abortion services within 18 weeks of fertilization.
In a new filing to the Supreme Court on Monday, Thurston’s office continued to argue the ballot initiative backers did not submit all the required paperwork.
Thurston’s office said they had no comment about ongoing litigation beyond what has been filed in court.
The anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America applauded Thurston, saying in a statement the ballot measure’s backers were cutting corners.
Meanwhile in Montana, a district court will hear arguments about whether Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen (R) acted lawfully when she changed election rules to disqualify the signatures of inactive voters on three potential ballot measures for November.
Jacobsen made the change a week after the deadline to turn in petitions to counties, after some signatures had already been verified.
In the lawsuit challenging Jacobsen’s actions, Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights argued the change upended decades of long-standing practice.
The district court judge issued a preliminary injunction ordering that signatures from inactive voters must be included in the certification process, and it barred Jacobsen from preventing the verification or counting of those signatures while the case continues.
Jacobsen’s office told The Hill the amendment’s backers are tying to “politicize” the process “at every turn,” while the Secretary of State’s office is merely applying the Legislature’s laws equally, “regardless of the topic or parties involved.”
Arizona’s summary pamphlet spat
Conservative officials in Arizona tried another tactic.
The Republican-controlled Legislative Council approved the inclusion of the phrase “unborn human being” in a voter summary pamphlet for the abortion-rights ballot measure.
State law requires a summary of the laws that will be impacted by ballot initiatives, but it expressly calls for an “impartial” analysis.
The amendment’s sponsors sued, and a judge last week ordered the council to reword the summary and remove the phrase “unborn human being.”
House Speaker Ben Toma (R), who chairs the council, said he plans to appeal the ruling and in a statement called it “just plain wrong and clearly partisan if the language of the actual law is not acceptable.”
Abortion is banned after 15 weeks of pregnancy in Arizona, with an exception for the life of the mother — but not rape or incest.
The GOP-controlled Legislature narrowly repealed a Civil War-era near-total abortion ban in May after a massive nationwide backlash, including from Trump. Toma was one of the dozens of GOP lawmakers who voted against repeal.
