Mississippi, Missouri GOP: No popular votes on abortion access
Following the successful passage of referendums legalizing abortion in Republican states such as Ohio and Kansas, Republican legislators in Mississippi and Missouri are passing bills to prevent ballot measures that would legalize abortion.
Mississippi State Representative Fred Shanks, a Republican, holds up a new bill that would revive state-wide referendums except in the case of legalizing abortions, on Jan. 24, in Jackson, Mississippi.
Rogelio V. Solis/AP
Chicago
Legislative efforts in Missouri and聽Mississippi聽are attempting to prevent voters from having a say over abortion rights, building on anti-abortion strategies seen in other states, including last year聽in Ohio.
Democrats and abortion rights advocates say the efforts are evidence that Republican lawmakers and abortion opponents are trying to聽undercut democratic processes聽meant to give voters a direct role in forming state laws.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e scared of the people and their voices, so their response is to prevent their voices from being heard,鈥� said Laurie Bertram Roberts, executive director of Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund. 鈥淭here鈥檚 nothing democratic about that, and it鈥檚 the same blueprint we鈥檝e seen in Ohio and all these other states, again and again.鈥�
Since the United States Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022,聽voters in seven states聽have either protected abortion rights or defeated attempts to curtail them in statewide votes.聽Democrats聽have pledged to make the issue a聽central campaign topic聽this year for races up and down the ballot.
A proposal聽passed Jan. 24 by the Mississippi House would ban residents from placing abortion initiatives on the statewide ballot. Mississippi has among the toughest abortion restrictions in the country, with the procedure banned except to save the life of the woman or in cases of rape or incest.
In response to聽the bill, Democratic Rep. Cheikh Taylor said direct democracy 鈥渟houldn鈥檛 include terms and conditions.鈥�
The resolution is an attempt to revive a ballot initiative process in Mississippi, which has聽been without one聽since 2021 when the state Supreme Court ruled that the process was invalid because it required people to gather signatures from the state鈥檚 five previous U.S. House districts. Mississippi dropped to four districts after the 2000 census, but the initiative language was never updated.
Republican Rep. Fred Shanks said House Republicans would not have approved the resolution, which will soon head to the Senate, without the abortion exemption. Some House Republicans said voters should not be allowed to vote on changing abortion laws because Mississippi originated the legal case that聽overturned Roe v. Wade.
鈥淚t took 50 years 鈥� to overturn Roe v. Wade,鈥� said Mississippi House Speaker Jason White, a Republican. 鈥淲e weren鈥檛 going to let it just be thrown out the window by folks coming in from out of state, spending 50 million bucks and running an initiative through.鈥�
But Mississippi Democrats and abortion access organizations panned the exemption as limiting the voice of the people.
鈥淭his is an extremely undemocratic way to harm access to reproductive health care,鈥� said Sofia Tomov, operations coordinator with Access Reproductive Care Southeast, a member of the Mississippi Abortion Access Coalition.
In Missouri, one of聽several states聽where an abortion rights initiative could go before voters in the fall, a plan supported by anti-abortion groups would require initiatives to win a majority vote in five of the state鈥檚 eight congressional districts, in addition to a simple statewide majority.
The proposal comes days after a Missouri abortion-rights campaign聽launched聽its ballot measure effort aiming to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution. Missouri abortion rights groups also have criticized Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, saying he is attempting to impede the initiative by manipulating the measure鈥檚 ballot summary. A Missouri appeals court recently found the summaries were聽politically partisan聽and misleading.
When asked during聽a recent committee hearing聽if the GOP proposal was an attempt to get rid of direct democracy, Republican state Rep. Ed Lewis said 鈥淚 think that our founding fathers were about as fearful of direct democracy as we should be. That鈥檚 why they created a republic.鈥�
Sam Lee, lobbyist for Campaign Life Missouri, testified on Jan. 23 for the need for provisions like this that make sure 鈥渢he rights of the minority aren鈥檛 trampled on.鈥�
Democratic Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo said controlling who can vote and on what subjects has been 鈥渢he highest priority of the Republican Party for the last 20 years.鈥�
Democratic Rep. Joe Adams criticized the plan in part by alleging that the state鈥檚 congressional and legislative districts are gerrymandered to favor Republicans. That would make it nearly impossible for an abortion measure to be approved under the proposed legislation.
Attempts to keep abortion measures off the ballot in Missouri and Mississippi follow a similar blueprint in other states to聽target the ballot initiative process, a form of direct democracy available to voters in only about聽half the states.
Florida鈥檚 Republican attorney general has asked the state Supreme Court to keep a proposed abortion rights amendment聽off the ballot聽as an abortion-rights coalition聽this month reached聽the necessary number of signatures to qualify it for the 2024 ballot.
In聽Nevada, a judge on Jan. 22 approved an abortion-rights ballot measure petition as eligible for signature-gathering, striking down a legal challenge by anti-abortion groups attempting to prevent the question from going before voters.
Ohio abortion rights advocates have said last year鈥檚 statewide vote to聽enshrine abortion rights聽in the state constitution was as much about abortion as it was a聽referendum on democracy itself. They said Republicans聽tried to obstruct聽the democratic process before the vote and attempted to ignore the will of voters after the amendment passed.
Ohio Republicans called a聽special election in August聽attempting to raise the threshold for passing future constitutional amendments from a simple majority to 60%. That effort was defeated at the polls and was widely seen as aiming to undermine the abortion amendment.
After Ohio voters approved the abortion protections last year, Republican lawmakers pledged to block the amendment from reversing the state鈥檚 restrictions. Some proposed preventing Ohio courts from interpreting any cases related to the amendment.
鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 just about abortion,鈥� Deirdre Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer of the ACLU, said last fall after the Ohio amendment passed. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about, 鈥榃ill the majority be heard?鈥欌��
This story was reported by the Associated Press. AP writers Summer Ballentine in Jefferson City, Missouri, and Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi, contributed to this report.