A Nevada judge has tossed out a proposed so-called personhood initiative saying the language was too vague and violated state law that limits questions to one subject.
Like in Montana, the Nevada ballot initiative petition does not specifically mention abortion, but is a back door attempt to totally ban abortion in the state.
Carson City District Court Judge James Russell said the measure was too broad and general in nature to be put before voters in November.
"The issue to me is, are we adequately informing voters on what they're voting on," Russell said in a ruling from the bench after listening to about two hours of arguments.
Besides being vague, Russell said, the initiative violates a law limiting referendum questions to a single subject.
"There's no way for the voter to understand the effects of the initiative," he said.
The case came to court after a Nevada woman, a pharmacist and an OB-GYN together filed a legal challenge against the petition, arguing that the initiative proposes far reaching changes to the Nevada Constitution and laws, is misleading and fails to give voters a clear understanding of the changes it proposes and its purpose and effect.
That's one reason why what Annie Bukacek is doing is so, so wrong. Bukacek is an uber-right, would-be abortion banner who is giving other Kalispell crazies a run for their money after criminal investigators rolled in to investigate her for Medicaid fraud. Bukacek not only harmed the patients she is alleged to have scammed--she's ripped-off every single one of us who have ever paid taxes in this state. Medicaid fraud puts an extra hurt on Montana taxpayers because unlike Medicare, the federally funded health care benefit program for seniors, Medicaid is a joint state-federal funded program for low-income people.
Fun fact: that sum is enough to pay for one third of U.S. defense spending for fiscal year 2010. It could cover the entire defense spending this year for Iraq and Afghanistan combined--and leave the U.S. with $100 million dollars to spare.
This year, New York state doubled their Medicaid fraud crackdown efforts and recovered an additional $114 million. I wonder how much money Montana could recover if all the Bukaceks out there were stopped.
If the rash of absurd self-fellating letters to the editor and blog comments pretending that this is about praying with patients means anything, Bukacek and her minions just don't get it. Here's an idea Bukacek: instead of rabble-rousing, how about reading the Bible now and again. There's this part about not stealing...
It was reported today that Annie Bukacek of the Montana Policy Institute's anti-health care "conferences" and demonstrations and the abortion ban ballot initiative backed by Warburton, McGee, and Butcher, among others:
...is under investigation for alleged abuse of patients or fraud with regard to Medicaid billing involving Bukacek's medical practice. Questions about praying with patients also have been raised. Bukacek said she spent an hour and a half Wednesday with an FBI agent, a criminal investigator and two health-care fraud investigators...
National activists are again trying to use Montana as electoral proving grounds to challenge Roe v Wade since federal legislative efforts have been fruitless.
But after a whistle-stop tour from out-of-state activists failed to bring out local support, Wendy Warburton, R-Havre, and the rag-tag group of misfits who refuse to see the writing on the wall are also having trouble putting on a happy face today.
"They have a lot more money than we do," she said of local Montana-based organizations who oppose the constitutional amendment.
The amendment also failed to qualify for the ballot last election cycle.
Local Montana groups don't seem surprised at the lack of support the initiative idea is getting.
"We raise all of our money from the grassroots in Montana," [Allyson Hagen, Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Montana] said, "If we have more money, it's because we have more support."
Even those who Warburton thought would be on her side aren't supporting the amendment:
"the Montana Catholic Conference, a mainstay in the pro-life movement, is not supporting the proposal. It questions the strategy of an all-out challenge to Roe v. Wade at this time."
This weekend, one of the nations most infamous opponents of birth control will travel to Montana to pitch the so-called "personhood" amendment. The amendment is a total ban on abortion with no exceptions that is written in such a way that it could also ban many forms of birth control, some fertility treatments, and cause a host of legal and budgetary problems.
The Pill Kills project is among the more extreme and dangerous of the American Life League's activities. The campaign spreads lies such as telling women that birth inherently dangerous and may lead to "shrinking of the womb" and even death.
These "Bury Obamacare with Kennedy" signs, first seen at the 9/12 march in Washington DC, were the brainchild of Judie Brown, director of the American Life League and denounced by the Catholics she claimed to work to support as
"an outrage and an embarrassment to the Catholic community [that] scor[es] cheap political points at the expense of common good solutions to the current crisis in the health care system."
This campaign marks the fourth attempt in two years (two initiatives, two legislative referenda) in Montana to redefine personhood and interfere in Montana's constitutionally protected right to privacy. Anti-choice groups fell nearly 20,000 signatures short of qualifying for the 2008 ballot. In order to qualify for the 2010 ballot, proponents will have to collect 48,674 signatures, including 10 percent of the voters in each of 40 legislative house districts.
As if the striking defeat of abortion bans in South Dakota and Colorado last year (and the failure of a ban in Montana to even get on the ballot) weren't clear enough, out-of-state zealots are headed for Montana this week for what they call a "Personhood Conference." (This thing is sure to be a fascinating bunch of out-of-state total extremists--reporters won't want to miss it.)
Why us? National groups are focusing their attention on the states because Congress wants no part of something this extreme. They are coming to Montana because our low population and cheap media rates make us the perfect target to force their extremist experiment on the nation without spending a lot of money. Also, we actually elected a member of the Constitution party to our state legislature who backed previous failed bans.
The thing is, they don't have local support - the Montana Right to Life, Montana Catholic Conference, and the Montana Family Foundation have all said in the press that they want no part of this.
Even Republicans are starting to come out against these efforts to force their big government extremist agenda on the rest of us though state ballot initiatives.
Women in Montana (and especially Native women) don't want to give the government control over whether and when we have children. In addition to the out-of-staters, it will be interesting to see if any local officials actually show up. The personhood conference website touts Senator Jonathan Windy Boy (D-Box Elder) as supposedly attending.
Why would Windy Boy attend? He may be confused. When asked what the reason is for his anti-abortion rights votes in the legislature Windy Boy has said "my uncle had 23 children and he told me to go forth and multiply."
I love kids as much as the next gal. However, 23 kids! That's five more kids than the Duggars. What if each of those kids all had 23 kids, how much is 23 x 23? 529 I think. And 529 x23 = 12, 167. In just three generations this family could be 12,000 strong. Two hundred eighty thousand strong in four generations.
The conference website lists Senator Windy Boy's phone number--give him a call and tell him that if he's against abortion, he should vote to increase access to affordable birth control and medically accurate sex education in his district to prevent unintended pregnancy in the first place instead of aligning himself with wing-nuts.
These guys have quite the reputation. So the Montana Pro-Life Coalition scoured their ranks for a front person they hoped would have as little baggage as possible--but Annie Bukacek is turning out to be every bit as much the self-aggrandizing wing-nut as the rest of them.
Not familiar with Bukacek? You should be, she's the new official face of extreme-right politics in Montana. Bukacek's all about giving rights to "the unborn"-- but once born, she doesn't want them to have healthcare.
Reporters I know have found that Bukacek is the only member of the so-called organization that is allowed to talk to the press.
If you're so inclined, you can seek out Bukacek's comparison of "islamofaciasts to christofacists" and her views on radical Islam being the "true" Islam of the Koran. Or her advice that husbands love their wives as Christ loved his church (ick.)
The treatises are a catalogue of her beliefs that the laws of Montana and the United states should reflect "God's laws." Montana Taliban anyone? How long before adultery is punishable by a weak without food in the stocks? And divorce? Forget about it. We should probably go ahead and cancel the NFL on Sundays, too. (There is no mention of abortion or NFL in the bible, so both are clearly abominations.)
Does Bukacek have a right to believe this stuff? Of course, but she doesn't have the right to force them on the rest of us by permanently amending our constitution.
If Bukacek really wanted to decrease the need for abortion in Montana, she would join the mainstream and work to increase access to affordable birth control and medically accurate sex-ed to decrease unintended pregnancy in the first place.
The Attorney General has an obligation to protect the integrity of the election system by not allowing voters to be misled about a ballot initiative's true purpose, effects, and fiscal impact.
So why would he allow Rick Jore and Trevis Butcher to put forward another fraudulent ballot initiative (Yep, this same Butcher is on the board of this initiative campaign) --this time, an initiative to amend the constitution to strip away the privacy rights of all Montana women without tipping off the voters as to what this proposed initiative would really do and its exorbitant costs to Montana taxpayers?
First, there are some obvious problems with the latest Butcher/Jore amendment:
If passed, it would prevent a woman from getting an abortion - even if her life is in jeopardy - prevent treatments like in vitro fertilization, and allow legislators and the courts to dictate permissible activities and medical care for pregnant women.
I would think the AG would also be worried that the proposed initiative could seriously burden the court system by requiring court-appointed guardians to advocate for fertilized eggs and fetuses. Yet, the Attorney General didn't even bother request a fiscal impact statement on the potential costs to the state.
Maybe someone dropped the ball and this just fell through the cracks.
It couldn't have been a political decision--even arch religious conservative groups like the Montana Catholic Conference, Right to Life Montana and the Montana Family Foundation, have rejected this proposed initiative as too extreme.
It couldn't have been that he couldn't find substantive legal problems with the language. The Billings Gazette has already reported on some of the many legal problems with the language pointed out by Legislative Services Attorney David Niss such as
... the proposed ballot statements fail to make it clear that the three proposals apparently are intended to prohibit abortion.
You don't have to be an Attorney General to know that initiative language is supposed to tell voters what the initiative will actually do. It has some other wacky legal implications too. Implications that were pointed out for Bullock in this handy memo.
For example, the proposed initiative seeks to grant constitutional due process rights to all fertilized human eggs by amending the due process section of the Montana Constitution to define "person" as "from the beginning of the biological development." This definition is so broad that it could include unfertilized eggs and sperm, potentially impacting all sexual activity of men and women. Also, by requiring the Legislature to implement "this section by appropriate legislation," the initiative could remove every Montanans' current ability to pursue claims of due process violations.
