Carnahan Ballot Babble?
I find it disconcerting that the Secretary of State continues to confuse the public with ballot language. Ms. Carnahan, please honor valid initiative petitions without twisting it. It makes it appear that you are trying to sway the public in another direction.
Press release from the Missouri Roundtable:
MISSOURI ROUNDTABLE FOR LIFE UNCERTAIN AS TO SECRETARY CARNAHAN’S BALLOT LANGUAGE
St. Louis, MO - January 30, 2009 - Late yesterday evening, the Missouri Roundtable For Life received notice from a member of the press that Secretary of State Robin Carnahan has issued ballot language for our initiative petition. The Roundtable has yet to receive notification from Ms. Carnahan’s office. This is at least the second time in this process that Ms. Carnahan has communicated with third parties before she has communicated with the filers of the petition.
“If the language given to the press in a press release yesterday is in fact the ballot language that Ms. Carnahan has prepared, then we are disappointed by Ms. Carnahan’s language which is unrecognizable to us and in relation to our amendment that seeks to stop public funds from going to abortion services, human cloning, and other prohibited research,” said Roundtable Executive Director Todd Jones. “We submitted a very short, clear amendment of only 44 words because we wanted to give voters a clear amendment that stopped taxpayer dollars from going to abortion, cloning and other prohibited research. Ms. Carnahan has re-written our amendment into a 128 word ballot title and has created the false impression of what that amendment does. In particular, Ms. Carnahan - who is publicly pro-abortion and has a long record of supporting abortion on demand, including partial birth abortion in Missouri - has unnecessarily politicized the amendment. We appeal to her to reconsider and rescind this ballot language; if she will not, we will consider all our options including going to court to fight her.”
