LANSING, Mich. -- Voters will determine whether to place abortion rights in the Michigan Constitution, the state Supreme Court declared Thursday, settling the issue a day before the fall ballot must be completed.
Abortion rights would be guaranteed if the amendment passes on Nov. 8. A 1931 state law makes it a crime to perform most abortions, but the law was suspended in May and a judge this week followed up by striking it down as unconstitutional.
Though appeals of that decision are likely, the law would be trumped if voters approve the amendment in the fall election.
There are political implications beyond the ballot question itself. Democrats say the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is mobilizing voters and will help Democratic candidates this fall, when top races including governor, secretary of state and attorney general are on the Michigan ballot. They point to conservative Kansas, where voters overwhelmingly defeated a measure that would have allowed the Republican-controlled Legislature to tighten restrictions or ban the procedure outright.
A state elections board on Aug. 31 deadlocked along party lines on whether the abortion initiative should appear on the ballot, with Republicans voting no and Democrats voting yes. The 2-2 vote meant the measure wasn’t certified for the ballot.
Supporters submitted more than 700,000 signatures, easily clearing the minimum threshold. But Republicans and abortion opponents argued the petitions had improper or no spacing between certain words and were confusing to voters.
“What a sad marker of the times,” Chief Justice Bridget McCormack said in a brief statement that accompanied the 5-2 order.
McCormack said “there is no dispute” that every word was legible and in the correct order.
Republican members of the Board of State Canvassers “would disenfranchise millions of Michiganders not because they believe the many thousands of Michiganders who signed the proposal were confused by it, but because they think they have identified a technicality that allows them to do so, a game of gotcha gone very bad,” McCormack said.
The majority was made up of McCormack, three other Democratic justices and a Republican justice. Two Republicans dissented.
The court ordered the Board of State Canvassers, which meets again Friday, to sign off on the ballot question.
Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has asked the state Supreme Court to settle the status of the 1931 law, but the court hasn’t decided whether to intervene.
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Burnett reported from Chicago and White reported from Detroit.
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Joey Cappelletti is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
