LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The Arkansas Supreme Court has ruled that Secretary of State John Thurston was right when he refused signatures collected by paid canvassers for the proposed abortion amendment and that since the group failed to meet the required amount of signatures it "is not entitled to any further relief."
The 4-3 ruling from the court comes after arguments from Arkansans for Limited Government (AFLG), the group hoping to expand abortion access in the state, and Attorney General Tim Griffin.
AFLG filed the lawsuit on July 16, arguing that the initial rejection by Thurston was "unlawful" and that signatures collected for the proposed amendment should be counted.
The state's highest court ordered the Secretary of State's office on July 25 to count any signatures collected by volunteers, which came to a total of 87,675. "There is no constitutional or statutory authority to support not counting them," said Associate Justice Rhonda Wood in the court's opinion.
The group initially submitted over 100,000 signatures to the Secretary of State's office before the petition was rejected by Thurston.
But Wood also wrote that Thurston "correctly refused" to count signatures collected by paid canvassers "because the sponsor failed to file the paid canvasser training certification."
In the majority opinion, Wood notes that the abortion group "admits that at least [74] of the paid canvassers failed to ever have such certification filed."
It's that technicality involving a lack of paperwork for paid canvassers that law professor Joshua Silverstein said became the main focus of the disputed issues of the case.
Silverstein narrowed it down to two questions: if AFLG needed a member to sign the certification, or could the canvassing firm act as an agent for Arkansans for limited government and have one of their officers sign?
He said the court did not resolve that issue.
AFLG, in its arguments, said it didn't file further certifications after June 27 and didn't file "the actual required certification" because an employee in the secretary's office said it was "unnecessary." However, the court cited a previous ruling that "the burden of determining what the law requires falls on the filer," not officials meant to enforce the law.
"There was a complete failure to file the paid canvasser training certification along with the petition [on July 5]," Wood wrote in the majority opinion. "She also noted there's no rule for late filing for require paperwork and the court can't order officials to do what "the law does not require."
The court further ruled that since AFLG failed to meet 90,704 signatures, the amount of required signatures for the proposed measure to make it on the ballot, to complete the first state of the initial count to proceed the group "is not entitled to any further relief."
That means the proposed amendment is not eligible to be on the November ballot.
Silverstein said that's what it came down to if that technicality aligned with the law.
"Failed to comply with one of those rules, and since the rule is mandatory, failure to comply means they're not going to be on the ballot," Silverstein said.
In a dissent, Associate Justice Karen Baker quoted the motto of Arkansas which is "Regnat Populus" which translates to "the people rule" said the court's ruling "strips every Arkansan of this power" to put initiatives onto the ballot.
"The majority has reconfigured the relevant statute in order to cater the initiative process to the preference of the respondent while this process is the first power reserved for the people," Baker said.
Baker continued that although the majority opinion stated the court cannot rewrite a statute, "the majority has done just that multiple times to achieve a particular result." The justice said that nothing in the law declares that the certification and the petition have to be filed at the same time.
"Even a cursory review of how the present ballot initiative has progressed since its inception demonstrates that both the respondent and the majority have treated it differently for the sole purpose of preventing the people from voting on this issue," Baker said.
After the ruling, AFLG said the court ruling silences the voices of the people who signed the petition in hopes of it appearing on the ballot.
"Despite this infuriating result, our fight isn’t over," said Rebecca Bobrow, director of strategy for AFLG. "We can’t — and won’t — rest until Arkansas women have access to safe, standard health care and the autonomy to make decisions about their bodies free from governmental interference. To Arkansans: We hope that you will stick with us in this fight. We are certainly sticking with you."
Griffin applauded the ruling and called it a "win for the rule of law."
“The people rule in Arkansas, through the law," Griffin said. "Changing the Arkansas Constitution involves a rigorous process requiring strict adherence to the law."
Thurston joined Griffin in applauding the decision and claimed that his staff "did not allow partisan politics or misinformation to deter them from their duty to comply with the law."
Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to the decision and said she was proud that she "helped build the first conservative Supreme Court majority in the history of Arkansas" and that the majority upheld what she called the rule of law "and with it, the right to life."
The group's proposal would have expanded abortion access up to 18 weeks as well as allow abortions in cases of rape, incest, or fatal fetal anomaly. It would have also allowed an abortion to protect the life of the pregnant woman or their physical health.
However, the optimism of expanding abortion access may not be over in Arkansas. Silverstein said he believes we will see AFLG make an appearance again.
"They've already got language approved by the attorney general and then they'll begin this process again," Silverstein said. "We can be darn sure of two things. First, they will make sure to file the certification in the way the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled, and there will still be litigation because someone else will fight on some other technicality. That's just how this process works."
You can read the full ruling by clicking here and Baker's dissent by clicking here.
We will update this article with more information from the ruling as well as statements from AFLG and Arkansas officials.