Arkansas Women's Political Caucus v. Riviere

by the Arkansas Supreme Court

Supreme Court of Arkansas

283 Ark. 463

ARKANSAS WOMEN'S POLITICAL CAUCUS  v.  The Honorable Paul RIVIERE, Secretary of State, State of Arkansas; THE STATE BOARD OF ELECTION COMMISSIONERS of the State of Arkansas; and THE COUNTY BOARDS OF ELECTION COMMISSIONERS OF THE STATE OF ARKANSAS

The UNBORN CHILD AMENDMENT COMMITTEE, Intervenor

Petition to have Popular Name and Ballot Title of Amendment No. 65 declared invalid;

No. 84-215.---Delivered: October 24, 1984 

1. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—ABORTION—U.S. CONSTITUTION PROTECTS A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO HAVE AN ABORTION.—The United States Supreme Court has held that the Constitution protects a woman's right to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy and that a state may not unduly burden the exercise of a woman's fundamental right to obtain an abortion.
2. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—ABORTION—PUBLIC FUNDING OF ELECTIVE ABORTIONS FOR POVERTY STRICKEN WOMEN NOT REQUIRED BY FEDERAL CONSTITUTION OR STATUTES.—Neither the United States Constitution nor federal statutes require public funding of elective abortions for poverty stricken women.
3. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—ABORTION—STATE CONSTITUTION ALLOWS ENACTMENT OF STATUTES PERMITTING ABORTION AND PAYMENT THEREFOR FROM PUBLIC FUNDS.—The Arkansas Constitution, through its silence on the subject of abortions, presently allows a statute to provide that a woman and her physician may make the choice under certain circumstances [Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-2554 (Repl. 1977)]; it also allows the state, if it chooses, to treat abortion as an accepted medical procedure under Medicaid type programs.
4. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—INITIATIVE & REFERENDUM—RIGHT OF CITIZENS TO INITIATE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS.—Ark. Const., Amend. 7, gives all citizens of the State of Arkansas the right to initiate constitutional amendments.
5. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—INITIATIVE & REFERENDUM—BALLOT TITLES AND POPULAR NAMES OF PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS—TEST USED IN DETERMINING VALIDITY.—It is the duty of the Arkansas Supreme Court to see that ballot titles and popular names of proposed constitutional amendments are (1) intelligible, (2) honest, and (3) impartial.
6. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—INITIATIVE & REFERENDUM—POPULAR BALLOT NAMES CONTAINING MISLEADING CATCH PHRASES AND PARTISAN COLORING—REJECTION BY COURT REQUIRED.—The requirements for the popular name of a proposed constitutional amendment are not as stringent as those for the ballot title; however, popular ballot names which contain catch phrases or slogans that tend to mislead or give partisan coloring to the merit of a proposal will be rejected.
7. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—INITIATIVE & REFERENDUM—"UNBORN CHILD AMENDMENT"—POPULAR BALLOT NAME MISLEADING.—The popular ballot name, "The Unborn Child Amendment" is misleading.
8. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—INITIATIVE & REFERENDUM—"UNBORN CHILD AMENDMENT"—BALLOT TITLE MISLEADING TO THOSE FOLLOWING DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT ON WHEN LIFE BEGINS.—Since there are three schools of thought on the issue of when life begins, i.e., at conception, upon live birth, or at the point upon which the fetus becomes viable, and since the Unborn Child Amendment Committee believes that life begins at conception, the ballot name "unborn child," standing alone, would tend to mislead those voters who follow an alternate school of thought and do not think of fetuses of certain gestational ages as unborn children.
9. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—INITIATIVE & REFERENDUM—"UNBORN CHILD AMENDMENT"—FAILURE OF POPULAR NAME TO DISCLOSE CONSEQUENCES—PARTISAN COLORING—BALLOT NAME MUST BE FAIR AND IMPARTIAL.—The enactment of the proposed Unborn Child Amendment would immediately prohibit the use of public funds for abortion, including a female impregnated by rape or incest, unless the life of the mother were in danger, and would empower the General Assembly to prohibit abortion under any circumstances to the extent permitted under the United States Constitution, yet, the popular name makes no reference to this subject; the popular name contains only the inviting catch words "unborn child," which gives the voters only the impression the proponents of the amendment want them to have, and is a clear-cut example of the partisan coloring of ballots which the Arkansas Supreme Court has uniformly condemned in its decisions holding that a ballot name must be fair and impartial.
10. ELECTIONS—INITIATIVE & REFERENDUM—RESPONSIBILITY OF COURT TO SEE THAT RESULT OF ELECTION REPRESENTS OBJECTIVE JUDGMENT—DUTY TO DECLARE POPULAR BALLOT TITLE CONVEYING BIASED VIEW MISLEADING.—The Arkansas Constitution plainly places the responsibility on the Arkansas Supreme Court to see that the result of an election represents the objective judgment of the voters, and, when, as here, the popular ballot title of a proposed constitutional amendment conveys a biased view of the merits of the proposal, it is the Court's duty to declare it misleading.

Petition to have Popular Name and Ballot Title of Amendment No. 65 declared invalid; petition granted.

Mays & Crutcher Law Firm, by: Richard L. Mays and Tara Levy, for petitioner.

Steve Clark, Att'y Gen., by: Curtis Nebben, Dep. Att'y Gen., for respondent.

Robert S. Shafer and Leon Holmes, for intervenor/respondent.

[Opinion of the court by Justice ROBERT H. DUDLEY. Dissenting opinions by Chief Justice WEBB HUBBELL and Justice DARRELL HICKMAN. Justice JOHN I. PURTLE not participating.]