Missouri Eight-Week Abortion Ban and Regulations Referendum (2020)

Missouri Eight-Week Abortion Ban and Regulations Referendum
Election date November 3, 2020
Topic Abortion
Status Not on the ballot
Type Referendum	Origin Citizens
List of Missouri measuresMissouri Amendment 1Missouri Amendment 2Missouri Amendment 3Submit

The Missouri Eight-Week Abortion Ban and Regulations Referendum was not on the ballot in Missouri as a veto referendum on November 3, 2020.

The veto referendum was designed to overturn House Bill 126 (HB 126), which included an eight-week abortion ban, among other provisions.

Sara Baker, legislative director for the ACLU of Missouri, filed a petition for a veto referendum. Lowell Pearson, a lawyer, also filed a petition for a veto referendum. The ACLU-sponsored veto referendum petition was cleared for circulation on August 14, 2019, but the ACLU announced that the campaign was abandoning the petition effort because there was not enough time to collect the required signatures before the submission deadline.

Text of measure

Ballot title

The ballot title for this referendum was as follows:

“

Do you want to adopt House Bill 126 passed by the General Assembly in 2019, which specifically amends Missouri law to: provide the unborn child with the same protections as those already born; prohibit abortions at eight weeks of gestation (at which time there is a medically detected heartbeat), except in cases of medical emergency; establish successive times at which abortions are prohibited (fourteen weeks, eighteen weeks, twenty weeks, all with medical emergency exceptions) if earlier time frames are found unlawful; and prohibit an abortion based solely on the sex, race or Down Syndrome screening of the unborn child? Revenues from state sources may decrease by at least $4.9 million annually and federal Medicaid revenues may decrease by an unknown amount, up to $7.2 billion annually. The Public Defender’s Office anticipates increased costs of an unknown amount to defend women’s medical actions after conception. Local governmental entities anticipate a significant negative impact.

”

Full text

The full text of the measure is available here.

Path to the ballot

See also: Laws governing the initiative process in Missouri

Process in Missouri

In Missouri, the number of signatures required to qualify a veto referendum for the ballot is equal to 5 percent of the votes cast for governor in the previous gubernatorial election in six of the eight state congressional districts. Signatures must be filed 90 days following the adjournment of the legislative session in which the law was passed.

The requirements to get a veto referendum certified for the 2020 ballot:

• Signatures: The smallest possible requirement for veto referendums for the 2020 ballot is 100,126 valid signatures. The actual requirement depends on the congressional districts in which signatures were collected.
• Deadline (2019 bills): The deadline to submit signatures for bills passed in 2019 was 90 days after the 2019 session adjourns.
• Deadline (2020 bills): The deadline to submit signatures for bills passed in 2020 was 90 days after the 2020 session adjourns.

Once the signatures have been filed with the secretary of state, the secretary copies the petition sheets and transmits them to county election authorities for verification. The secretary of state may choose whether the signatures are to be verified by a 5 percent random sample or full verification. If the random sampling projects between 90 percent and 110 percent of required signatures, a full check of all signatures is required. If more than 110 percent, the veto referendum is certified, and, if less than 90 percent, the initiative fails.

Stages of this referendum

On May 28, 2019, Sara Baker, legislative director for the ACLU of Missouri, filed a petition for a veto referendum. On August 14, 2019, the ballot title was approved and the petition was cleared for signature gathering by the secretary of state. The ACLU abandoned the petition effort, stating there was not enough time to gather the required signatures before the submission deadline.

On May 31, 2019, Lowell Pearson filed Referendum 2020-2 and Referendum 2020-3. Both petitions were not cleared for signature gathering.

On June 6, 2019, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (R) rejected the filed referendum petitions. He said the targeted legislation included an emergency clause, which caused a provision of the bill to take effect immediately. Secretary Ashcroft stated, "Because of that declaration by the Legislature, and because of the responsibility of the Secretary of State's office to follow Missouri Supreme Court precedent, and the Constitution, we have no other avenue but to reject Referendum 1 and Referendum 2." He also stated that court rulings have made "it clear that the Secretary of State's Office does not have the ability to decide whether or not an emergency clause is truly an emergency."

House Minority Leader Crystal Quade (D-132) responded to Secretary of State Ashcroft, saying, "Nearly a century ago, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in Westhues v. Sullivan that the General Assembly cannot thwart a bill from being subject to a referendum petition simply by tacking on an emergency clause. Secretary Ashcroft should voluntarily certify these petitions for circulation before a court orders him to do so."

Ashcroft certified the ballot title for Referendum 2020-1 and cleared it for circulation on August 14, 2019.

ACLU of Missouri Development Director Nicole Rainey said that the ACLU abandoned the referendum petition effort because there was not enough time to collect a sufficient number of signatures between the August 14 petition approval and the deadline for signature submission two weeks later. Rainey said, “Our push now is to register voters for the 2020 election. Like I said - it is impossible to collect signatures within this timeframe.” Robin Utz of the No Bans On Choice committee said that Ashcroft “ran out the clock and blocked the people’s right to a citizen veto.”

Maura Browning, Ashcroft's spokeswoman, said, “This referendum has followed the same process we use for every initiative petition and referendum, and has taken an amount of time comparable to any other petition or referendum.” Browning also stated that the petitioners could have filed the petition 11 days earlier to give themselves more time.

In December 2020, Cole County Circuit Court Judge Jon Beetem ruled that the laws Ashcroft invoked that delayed the certification of the petition were unconstitutional. Beetem wrote, "The State may not constitutionally delay the circulation of a referendum petition for the purpose of certifying a ballot title."

Sara Baker, policy director of the ACLU of Missouri, responded to the ruling saying, "The referendum process, which acts as guardrails for the people to halt their government from enacting laws that are harmful, overzealous, and out of touch, is a bedrock principle of the Missouri Constitution. Judge Beetem's decision to uphold those principles ensures that all Missourians have a direct remedy to government overreach."

The case was appealed. The Missouri Supreme Court heard arguments in the case on September 29, 2021.

On February 8, 2022, the state Supreme Court upheld the lower court's order, finding that "The legislature must not be permitted to use procedural formalities to interfere with or impede this constitutional right that is so integral to Missouri’s democratic system of government."

See also

2020 measures

• 2020 ballot measures
• Abortion on the ballot

Missouri

• Missouri ballot measures
• Missouri ballot measure laws

News and analysis

• Ballot measure lawsuits
• Ballot measure readability
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