Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin and attorneys for the group behind the Arkansas Abortion Amendment both filed reply briefs late Friday afternoon in a lawsuit that will determine the fate of a petition that has been signed by some 102,000 Arkansans.
The case is now fully briefed, and a ruling from the Arkansas Supreme Court could come at any time in the coming days.
Here’s the new brief from Griffin’s office. And here’s the new brief from the abortion rights petitioners, Arkansans for Limited Government (AFLG). (This 19-page PDF is an abridged version of the group’s submission; the entire filing, available on the state’s court document clearinghouse, includes an addendum of more than 150 pages of supporting documents.)
We’re reviewing the documents now and will have details later.
AFLG is aiming to place a proposed constitutional amendment before voters in November that would restore abortion access in Arkansas — a state with one of the harshest and most uncompromising abortion bans in the nation. On July 5, organizers with the group turned in their petition to Secretary of State John Thurston’s office and seemingly surpassed the 90,704 signature threshold required to make the 2024 ballot.
But Thurston rejected the petition five days later, saying the group had failed to include a piece of paperwork with their petition related to paid canvassers. Though most of the group’s signatures (about 88,000) were gathered by volunteers, it also hired paid canvassers who collected another 14,000. Arkansans for Limited Government needs at least some of those paid canvasser signatures to count in order to meet the 90,704 threshold.
AFLG sued, arguing that it had in fact met the requirements — and, even if it hadn’t, that Thurston overstepped his authority in disqualifying the petition when he did. The Arkansas Supreme Court requested both parties submit briefs by Aug. 2 and gave them until today, Aug. 9, for each to file a response to the other side’s brief.
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Publish date : 2024-08-09 11:27:00
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