Last month, Arkansans for Limited Government announced that they had obtained enough signatures to get abortion rights on the ballot in their state in November — which was pretty incredible, for reasons of, well, Arkansas.
But then, Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston rejected the petition on the grounds that they submitted information about paid canvassers on a rolling basis and not in a single large bundle.
And for reasons of, well, Arkansas.
Arkansans for Limited Government appealed the decision, but on Thursday, the Arkansas supreme court ruled 4-3 in favor of Thurston.
“We find that the petitioners failed to comply with the statutory filing requirements for paid canvassers. That statute was inapplicable to volunteer canvassers. As such, we ordered the Secretary to count the signatures from volunteer canvassers, but we do not order him to count the signatures from paid canvassers. Because the number of the initial count of signatures fails to meet the facial validity threshold required by law, we deny further relief,” wrote Justice Rhonda Wood for the majority.
Justice Karen Baker wrote the dissent, noting that many other petitioners had previously filed signatures the same way with no problem.
“I would be remiss if I neglected to highlight these allegations,” she wrote, “as the differing treatment of these petitions is alarming. As set forth above, the initiative is the first power reserved for the people by the Arkansas Constitution. Why are the respondent and the majority determined to keep this particular vote from the people? The majority has succeeded in its efforts to change the law in order to deprive the voters of the opportunity to vote on this issue, which is not the proper role of this court.”
I think we know exactly why they were all so determined to keep the people of Arkansas from voting on abortion — because there have been seven similar ballot initiatives in seven other states and they’ve succeeded seven times. They don’t trust that people, even in Arkansas, are as willing to give up bodily autonomy as they hope they are.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!:
Seems clear that Republicans have ceased believing in democracy, the law, and the constitution.
"Give it back to the states!" they said. "Let the people decide!" they said. "We're fucking liars!" they meant.