The event, which was broadcast via live webcast, drew GOP candidates Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and (then candidate) Rick Perry. Ron Paul appeared via satellite; Mitt Romney, due to a prior conflict, was unable to attend.

“We didn’t know until last night but, I did get a phone call from one of his state representatives that there was a conflict and he was unable to make it,” said Personhood USA co-founder Keith Mason, who noted that Romney also had a conflict that prevented him from attending a similar forum held in Iowa. But the group has plans for additional events — at least two to be held in Florida — and Mason said he was “looking forward to having [Romney] there so he can share his conviction.”

Personhood USA leaders have come out hard against Romney, specifically for his failure to sign an anti-abortion pledge penned by the organization. Romney’s credibility on abortion was brought up several times throughout the event.

“Gov. Romney’s been on both sides of the issue of life,” Perry said, referencing Romney’s past pro-choice leanings. “It is clear to most of us that this was a choice for convenience. This was a decision that Gov. Romney made for a political convenience, not an issue of his heart.”

The candidates were questioned by a panel of anti-abortion activists, including Lila Rose, Georgia Right to Life President Danny Becker, and legal analyst Roberto Garcia Jones. And though many of the questions were identical, the candidates’ answers were not always so similar.

When asked when he believes life begins, Texas Gov. Perry answered, “I would suggest it starts at conception. I’m not a lawyer but I do have a substantial amount of common sense.” When pressed on his definition of “conception,” Perry chuckled. “When the sperm and the egg come together. … You got a different idea? I’m not a doctor either, but I did grow up on a farm.”

Gingrich’s answer didn’t elicit quite so many laughs from the crowd.

“We are fully human upon conception because all of the genetic patterns needed are in existence at that moment, and therefore the rights should attach at that moment,” he said.

Paul used his appearance to espouse his libertarian views, saying, “Liberty can’t be protected if we don’t protect life itself.”

Another topic of interest was Planned Parenthood — defunding it.

Gingrich promised that, as president, he would defund Planned Parenthood “sometime early in 2013.” Perry, who proudly said his the Texas Legislature had the “courage” to shut down 12 abortion clinics in Texas, promised that, if he was sent a bill that included appropriations for abortion, “it will be vetoed.”

Santorum, arguably the most vocal candidate when it comes to abortion issues, used his reputation to distance himself from his opponents.

“I always say it’s one thing to check the box and say you’re for life. It’s another thing to go out, stick your head out of the foxhole and lead the charge,” said the former senator from Pennsylvania.

“I think we give up too much and others have in this campaign by saying they believe that life begins at conception,” said Santorum. “I don’t think life begins at conception. I know life begins at conception.”

Personhood USA has led the push to legally define life as beginning at the moment of conception, introducing measures across the country — most notably in Mississippi, where a personhood amendment failed on the state’s November 2011 ballot but might soon receive legislative support. In Florida, a Personhood affiliate is currently working on a plan to contact every church in the state between now and the end of the year, so that each church can present the group’s personhood petition to its parishioners in January 2013.

In Colorado, a personhood amendment is expected to come before voters in November.

In 2011, 26 states enacted 69 laws that in some way restricted access to abortions or reduced funding for family planning services (what NARAL calls “anti-choice” laws), said NARAL President Nancy Keenan, who told reporters that NARAL has been tracking abortion-rights-related legislation since 1995. And since that time, NARAL has calculated that 713 anti-abortion laws have been passed across America. The record year for highest number of abortion-related legislation passed in a single year was 1999, with 70 laws, just one more than last year, Keenan said.

“Last year, we predicted that our opponents would ignore the public’s call to focus on the nation’s immediate challenges, such as the economy,” Keenan said. “Sadly for women, our predictions came true at near record levels. Lawmakers waged a War on Women, and as a result, women in many states will see more political interference in their personal, private medical decisions.”

Hope for abortion rights last year, Keenan said, came from vetoes of anti-abortion bills by the Democratic governors of Minnesota and Montana; U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) describing — on the House floor — a late-term abortion she had due to health reasons, effectively humanizing the debate; and Mississippi voters rejecting a state constitutional amendment that would have outlawed abortion and potentially outlawed in-vitro fertilization and certain forms of birth control.

In 2011, Arizona, Florida, and Kansas enacted the most anti-abortion legislation in 2011, with five measures each, according to the NARAL report. Florida was among 21 states to receive an “F” on women’s reproductive rights. NARAL gave the nation as a whole a “D.” The 2012 “report card” can be viewed here (PDF).

Donna Crane, policy director of NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation (NARAL’s 501(c)3 arm) told reporters that 2012 could be a record-breaking year for anti-abortion legislation. She explained that NARAL has labeled seven states “fully pro-choice” because in these states Democrats control the governor’s office and both state houses; 19 states have been labeled “fully anti-choice” because in these states Republicans control the governor’s office and both state houses; and 25 states are “mixed-choice.”

Based on this assumption and recent legislative trends related to abortion, NARAL suggests that in 2012:

• 36 states could introduce mandatory ultrasound laws.
• 28 states could introduce bans on private insurance coverage of abortion
• 38 states could introduce “copycat” legislation first introduced in Nebraska in 2010 that bans abortions after 20 weeks without any exceptions.
• 40 states could introduce laws that would penalize doctors who fail to determine if race or sex is a factor in a woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy.
• 33 states could introduce legislation prohibiting abortion providers like Planned Parenthood from receiving state funds for other health services they provide.
• 5 states — Oregon, California, Nevada, Colorado and Ohio — could Florida and Montana in Personhood-style amendment initiatives.

Lissy Moskowitz, deputy policy director of NARAL, said that federal legislative trends expected to be carried over in 2012 include attempts to strip federal family planning funding from abortion providers, to prohibit any insurance coverage — even private — of abortion services, to enact federal race-/sex-selective abortion legislation, and to dismantle parts of Obama’s health-care reform act that guarantee coverage of gynecological exams, birth control and emergency contraception. Moskowitz noted that in 2011 the House of Representatives voted on abortion-related issues eight times, compared with one time in 2010, three times in 2009, zero times in 2008, and two times in 2007 and 2006.

The NARAL representatives also pointed out that if any one of the current GOP presidential candidates unseats President Obama in November, the above federal laws would have a much greater chance of succeeding. Last night in Greenville, S.C., all the candidates but frontrunner Mitt Romney attended an anti-abortion presidential forum sponsored by Personhood USA, during which Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum stated support for personhood-style amendments without exceptions for rape or incest and promised to veto any piece of legislation that includes family-planning funding for abortion providers.

NARAL has created a graphic look of anti-abortion legislation in 2011 compared to other years here. All the information in the report is available here.

The same day NARAL released its report, anti-abortion-rights policy group Americans United for Life released its own 2012 rankings, based on which states enacted the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in 2011. Unsurprisingly, AUL ranked Louisiana its best state in “protecting life,” while NARAL ranked Louisiana its worst state in supporting reproductive rights. AUL’s worst state is Washington, which is NARAL’s second-best state. NARAL ‘s best state is California, which was ranked second-worst by AUL.

]]> http://coloradoindependent.com/110404/anti-abortion-measures-gaining-steam-around-the-country/feed 1 http://coloradoindependent.com/109746/colorado-gop-swing-district-candidates-already-dodgy-on-%e2%80%98personhood%e2%80%99 http://coloradoindependent.com/109746/colorado-gop-swing-district-candidates-already-dodgy-on-%e2%80%98personhood%e2%80%99#comments Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:06:55 +0000 John Tomasic http://coloradoindependent.com/?p=109746 Mike Coffman and Scott Tipton, the Republican representatives of new more-competitive districts Six and Three, have yet to articulate for the record their stands on "personhood," the hard-line anti-abortion proposition that has become a litmus-test issue in Colorado after having landed on the ballot as an initiative in the last two general elections and after clearing hurdles to speed toward the ballot again this year. ]]> Federal presidential-election-year campaigns are heating up in Colorado now that the boundaries of the state’s congressional districts have been updated. Yet, so far, Mike Coffman and Scott Tipton, the Republican representatives of new more-competitive districts Six and Three, have yet to articulate for the record their stands on “personhood,” the hard-line anti-abortion proposition that has become a litmus-test issue in Colorado after having landed on the ballot as an initiative in the last two general elections and after clearing hurdles to speed toward the ballot again this year.

Media outlets and organizations on the left and right are already trying without success to nail down Coffman and Tipton on the issue. Calls to both representatives placed by the Colorado Independent went unanswered this week. Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains spokesperson Monica McCafferty told the Independent her organization has yet to get either congressman to go on the record. Likewise, a Colorado Right to Life staffer told the Independent that her organization had no news to relate on lawmakers’ positions.

“[T]he only info we have right now is a reminder to you that supporting the dismembering of unborn children is a crime against humanity and against God for which some day all pro-choice people will answer,” wrote a staffer named Donna.

The lack of information on where the lawmakers stand is telling. Colorado Right to Life is diligent in getting elected officials to go on the record. The group’s questionnaires go out early and often and the CRTL blog includes an exhaustive list of where state and federal candidates stand on abortion rights.

In 2010, the group raised doubts about Coffman’s commitment to ending abortion, citing his absent support for federal personhood measures. And the group flagged Tipton as untrustworthy on the issue, reporting that he avoided responding to the organization’s surveys over the last three years.

“[Tipton] has lied to us and others about having responded… His website says he is pro-life but he approves of abortion in cases of rape or incest. Scott Tipton is NOT PRO LIFE and is lying in order to get your vote!”

The latest Colorado personhood initiative, pushed by Personhood USA, the Colorado-based national organization, has just won a ballot title setting over objections. Opponents have filed suit to have the title language reviewed. Assuming the initiative backers aren’t held up in court, they will have to collect roughly 76,000 valid signatures of support from Coloradans.

The initiative would grant full legal rights to fertilized human eggs, outlawing abortion in all cases as well as some of the most popular forms of birth control, including the pill. It could also endanger biomedical research and the fertilization industry in the state. Coloradans defeated the proposal in landslides in 2008 and 2010.

A personhood ballot initiative pushed in Mississippi was roundly defeated this year but supporters of the initiative say they are taking the fight to the state legislature there and believe they have enough support among lawmakers to place a personhood law on the books.

Mississippi already has passed some of the nation’s most strict anti-abortion laws, raising questions over the need for yet another stiff statute.

Laws on the books there include “a mandatory waiting period and a requirement that doctors perform ultrasounds on pregnant women to discourage abortions…. Mississippi only has one abortion clinic,” reports the Hattiesburg American, “So, one might wonder, what’s the point? Everything that can legally be done to discourage abortion has been done.”

As personhood supporters are quick to concede, getting a personhood law on the books is mainly part of a legal strategy aimed at overturning the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v Wade decision.

Nearly all of the major Republican candidates for president this year support personhood.

In a recent appearance with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Cecil Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, discussed how extreme mainstream Republicans have become on the topic of women’s reproductive health, where the the question has moved beyond abortion to contraception.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

“Used to be in the Republican primary, the whole question was whether you wanted to overturn Roe or not. Now, that’s not good enough. Everyone is for ending access to birth control,” Richards said.

Richards pointed out how difficult it would be to win over women in a general election once a candidate goes on record that he or she is in favor of outlawing the pill.

In 2008 most Republican candidates in Colorado opposed personhood as “too extreme” but, in the Tea Party campaigns of 2010, all of the major Republican candidates for office supported personhood, at least during the primary season. Senate candidate Ken Buck backpedaled during the general election campaign, saying he didn’t understand that personhood laws would ban popular birth control methods.

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“I was extremely concerned when I saw that Romney embraced [proposed state-constitution personhood amendments]. It’s extreme legislation and it’s deceptive. It goes far beyond anti-choice,” DeGette told reporters on a conference call. She underlined the fact that personhood initiatives would outlaw birth control pills and would place in jeopardy millions in private and public money being invested in medical stem cell research.

Coloradans have roundly voted down personhood measures twice at the ballot box in recent elections, she said.

“I think voters in Colorado reject this. Families dealing with parkinsons and diabetes and alzheimers, they’re not in favor of passing edgy bills that endanger [the search for cures].”

Palacio said the fact that the GOP presidential frontrunner has now come out in support of personhood will rightly focus more attention on the groups pushing personhood and the kind of laws they seek every year to write into state constitutions.

“Personhood places the rights of rapists above the rights of their victims,” he said, referring to the fact that personhood initiatives would outlaw abortion in all cases. There would be no exceptions for rape or incest or if the life of the mother were in danger.

“Voters have to know how dangerous these [laws] are.”

Palacio pointed out that Colorado voters during the Republican wave election of 2010 rejected the U.S. Senate candidacy of Republican Ken Buck due in part, he said, to the fact that Buck embraced personhood and admitted he would support a complete ban on abortion in all cases.

Critics of the personhood measure proposed for Colorado in 2010 argued that it would shut down large parts of the thriving biomedical research industry here. Not just stem cell research but basic fertilization research and practices would suffer. In-vitro fertilization, for example, would be outlawed. Legal analysts said the laws would force the state constitution to be altered in hundreds of instances. Pregnant women who used drugs or drank too much or otherwise endangered the fertilized eggs they were carrying could be confined. Penalties for damaging or destroying fertilized eggs would have to be written and funds allocated to cover related difficult to enforce laws.

Asked about the legal consequences of the initiative, Keith Mason, co-founder of Personhood USA, said he would “worry about the [legal] details later,” after the bill had passed.

Yet Buck wasn’t the only Republican candidate last year to support personhood. Although in 2008 most Colorado Republican candidates rejected personhood as extreme, in 2010 nearly every major Republican candidate in the state embraced the proposed amendment. Fourth District Republican Cory Gardner told Tea Party supporters that he was passing out the personhood petition at his church. Gardner won a seat in Congress and has voted for a slew of sweeping anti-abortion bills passed by the GOP-controlled Congress this year.

Beyond Colorado, the national Democratic Party is pushing hard to highlight Romney’s support for personhood, betting the vast majority of voters will shy away from electing a president who will work both to outlaw birth control pills and risk resurrecting the blackmarket abortion industry.

Democratic National Committee launched a video campaign this week and Executive Director Patrick Gaspard sent a letter to supporters going hard at Romney on the issue.

“Personhood” amendments are the notorious measures now being considered in states like Mississippi, Florida, and Ohio, that would elevate a fertilized human egg to the status of a legal person. They would ban IUDs, the morning-after pill, in-vitro fertilization, and all abortions — with no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest or in cases where the life of a woman is at stake…

“If Romney wants to take the position that abortion and birth control are equal to murder, that’s up to him, but we’ll hold him accountable for it, and not let anyone forget that he’s made the choice to go this far to the right on this issue.”

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Colorado voters in 2008 and 2010 roundly rejected “personhood” initiatives that aimed to grant full legal rights to human eggs from the moment of fertilization. The national organization behind the idea, Personhood USA, then took its campaign to Mississippi, betting the state’s large bloc of religious voters might put it over the top and set the stage to challenge Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in 1973.

The personhood proposal would criminalize abortion without exception and outlaw some methods of birth control. The rights of pregnant women would be curtailed. The bill would shut down much of fertility and stem-cell research industries in the state, a fact which weighed strongly against the proposal in Colorado, where the biotech sector thrives.

Most of Colorado’s major Republican candidates for office in 2008 rejected the proposal as overreaching. In the tea party election of 2010, however, all of the major Republican candidates endorsed it. Fourth District freshman Representative Cory Gardner at a tea party candidate forum said he had circulated copies of the initiative at his church.

The Republican and the Democratic candidate for governor in Mississippi have endorsed the proposal, as did the state legislature, which has to approve initiatives before they land on the ballot.

Indeed, Colorado has a much looser initiative system than does Mississippi. In the roughly 30 years that the initiative system has been in place there, only two initiatives have ever made it to the ballot, according to Stateline.

The personhood measure crossed Mississippi’s high procedural hurdles this week, another product of the Republican wave-election of 2010.

Stateline:

The ballot measure comes after a historic legislative year in which states enacted more than 80 new restrictions on abortion, according to a report from the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights. This year’s flurry of laws is more than double the previous record of 34 abortion restrictions enacted in 2005, the institute says. But none are like the measure that Mississippi voters are expected to consider November 8.

Backers of the Mississippi measure are clear: If approved, they say, the initiative would ultimately outlaw abortion and human cloning, embryo stem cell research, and “other forms of medical cannibalism. would be effectively stopped.” Opponents say the measure could make in-vitro fertilization and certain forms of birth control illegal “and miscarriages could become suspect.”

The hard line drawn by the initiatve pleases its backers but it also raises alarm bells for pro-life strategists looking to successfully challenge Roe. They say the bill is sure to be struck down as violating federal law and that such a decision would create even stronger precedent in support of the legalized abortion status quo.

In its report today on the Mississippi proposal, Stateline echoes much of the commentary around the bill that emerged during the last two elections in Colorado. The organization quotes University of Denver political scientist Seth Masket.

“[Personhood] was widely seen as a radical proposal that would require massive changes in state law.”

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The Montana secretary of state has approved a “Personhood” initiative for signature gathering. Personhood measures have cropped up across the country — including in Florida — in an attempt to ban abortion and some forms of birth control.

In order for the initiative to make it onto Montana’s 2012 election ballot, it would need the signatures of more than 48,000 Montana voters. The effort is being spearheaded by the Montana Pro Life Coalition, which attempted and failed to pass a similar measure last year. Groups including Montana Right to Life, Montana Catholic Conference and the Family Foundation all opposed the amendment during past election cycles, arguing that it wasn’t the proper way to make abortion illegal, and could easily be overturned in court — leading to a strengthened Roe v. Wade.

Personhood Florida is currently trying to place a similar measure on the Sunshine State’s 2012 ballot. Pro-life lawmakers are wary of throwing their support behind the bill — preferring, instead, to stay on the fringes of the abortion issue and support initiatives like mandatory ultrasound and parental notification bills.

A handful of high-profile Christian activist groups, including the Family Policy Council and the Florida Catholic Conference, also declined to lend their support to the bill. Bryan Longworth, the head of Personhood Florida, remains undeterred.

Though Personhood initiatives have been viewed as radical, even among conservatives, the movement has gained traction in the past year. In Mississippi, a Personhood Amendment has received a slew of high-profile endorsements, including Mississippi Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant and American Family Association founder Don Wildmon. The Mississippi Personhood Amendment will be voted on this November.

State establishment political progressives, including the staff at gay rights group OneColorado, seem cool on Aurora college student Mark Olmstead’s plan to introduce a 2012 ballot initiative that would overturn the state’s gay marriage ban. There’s a sense that financial and human resources would be better spent pressing lawmakers to pass legislation securing equal rights for LGBT citizens here. Lone actor Olmstead’s initiative, however, might force the issue, drawing on the energy of New York’s big gay-marriage win this month and on the sea change shift among the U.S. population generally on the matter of gay equality.

“I think attitudes in Colorado toward gay marriage have shifted since 2006,” Olmstead told the Denver Post. He’s right about that.

Repeat surveys have demonstrated support steadily rising in the state. Last year support moved into the 70 percent range for civil unions and well over the 50 percent range for gay marriage. There’s no reason to believe those figures will dip, but there is reason to believe they will continue to rise. Election Day 2012 is more than a year and probably a few relevant court rulings away.

As the Colorado Independent reported in 2009, voting statistics pro Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight and now of the New York Times said that, based on trends in 30 states, opponents of the gay marriage ban in Colorado would stand a very strong chance of repealing it in the 2012 election cycle.

Youth voters will surely be energized by the initiative and, as AP reporter Kristen Wyatt has intimated, when teamed with a planned marijuana legalization initiative, it could be a boon for Democratic Party get-out-the-vote efforts.

In 2009, two Colorado State University students made a small media splash when they submitted a very well-written civil unions initiative to the state legislative council for review. They later dropped it, vaguely citing what they said was an “unfavorable political climate.”

Should Olmstead stick it out, it will be crucial that progressive groups get on board– for any single reason or for a combination of any of them. As Olmstead told the Post, “I just want to draw attention to the issue. Hopefully, that will bring in some sort of fundraising.”

A successful campaign would run at least half a million dollars and likely a lot more than that. In the messaging battle over proposed anti-abortion “personhood” amendment 62 last year, the opposition prevailed. But the “No on 62″ coalition spent $578,000 in victory, and it had history on its side. A similar amendment lost big in 2008 as well.

Although it seems a lifetime ago in terms of gay rights, Colorado voters just six years ago did vote against gay marriage.

Olmstead said he doesn’t even remember that battle. He was only 13 years old.

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Despite the Legislature’s failure to pass a bill this year to increase the percentage of votes needed to pass a voter initiated constitutional amendment, grassroots advocates recently voiced their opposition to the move they see as part of a trend by legislators to limit the power of the people.

Those advocates say that making it more difficult for the people to circumvent the Legislature by changing the constitution by direct vote only gives Capitol lobbyists more power to make laws and reduces the influence of the average citizen. Legislators and policy makers in favor of the bill said special interests have already taken over much of the ballot initiative system and making it more difficult to change the constitution will help the state as lawmakers try to work through the layers of incongruous amendments already put in place that they say are challenging Colorado’s long-term fiscal integrity.

Colorado’s ballot initiative system currently allows voters to collect signatures to place either a statutory measure or constitutional amendment on an election ballot, which then takes a simple majority of voters to pass.

“There is widespread agreement from scholars, politically active people and even the broad citizenry that it is not necessarily good policy to allow easy amendments to the Colorado Constitution. I think you find wide support to not amend the Colorado Constitution because that becomes a straitjacket that is hard to change,” Professor Anthony Robinson, who teaches political science at the University of Denver, said. Robinson said people should use the statutory form of the initiative process, which he feels is a needed check on representative government created through the threat of citizen action.

However,others say that legislators are simply trying to take power away from the people.

“The legislature, or people in power, tend to think that they are smarter than the people, and they resent people putting stuff on the ballot to get something done the way they didn’t want it to be done,” Joe Trippi, former campaign manager for Howard Dean’s presidential race, California Proposition 2 organizer, and political analyst, told the Colorado Independent. “That is the great thing about America–we are the people who should be deciding things.”

Trippi, who was in town to speak at a panel discussion in favor of protecting the initiative process hosted by Citizens in Charge Foundation, Colorado Common Cause, and the Independence Institute, said that he has been an advocate of grassroots participation throughout his career. He said he is concerned by any attempt by legislators to limit or direct citizen involvement.

The panel was hosted largely in response to SCR 1, also known as the “Son of Ref. O,” a legislative referendum to amend the initiative system this last legislative session and make it harder to change the Colorado Constitution.

SCR 1

SCR 1, the bipartisan referendum, was crafted in response to the University of Denver Economic Future Panel final report and a series of planning meetings conducted by Colorado’s Future, which hosted over a thousand civic leaders from all walks of life and political affiliations to determine the proper steps to create a more stable backdrop for Colorado’s growth.

The referendum, as adopted by the Senate, would have asked voters to decide whether to raise the number of votes needed to pass a constitutional amendment from a simple majority to a 60 percent threshold. In addition, it would have made it more difficult for legislators to change statutory measures passed by a citizen initiative and would have required initiative signatures to be garnered from each of the congressional districts before reaching the ballot.

Under a 60 percent threshold for voter initiated constitutional change, only four of the 19 amendments to the constitution since 1990 would have passed. Those four are: Standards of Conduct in Government, Tobacco Tax Increase for Health Purposes, Campaign Finance Reform and Term Limits.

The bill ultimately died on the House calendar at the request of the sponsor who told the Colorado Independent she did not have the votes to pass the referendum.

‘If it was only an issue of policy,” House sponsor Lois Court, D-Denver, said, “we would have passed the bill.”

However, Court said that while legislators may be policy makers, they are also creatures of politics and it was politics that killed the bill.

One political observer said those politics include an initiative dressed in the same language as SCR 1, with one exception. The initiative has a provision that, if passed, would amend the constitution to ensure that all tax increases must pass by a 60 percent majority. Concerned that they would be unable to craft a message that both promoted SCR 1 and disparaged the tax-limiting measure, groups that saw a need for future tax increases called for SCR 1 to be benched.

While there remains clear interest by those stakeholders involved in SCR 1 to revive the referendum, many fear that their attempts will continue to be thwarted by what they see as Trojan horse initiatives, leaving in question a clear way forward.

Despite Trippi and other organizers concerns, advocates for the legislation say the changes are small but needed.

“It is a fine tuning [of the initiative process] to protect the constitution from frivolous initiatives so that if the people do have a really strong beef with their government they still have the opportunity to go to the ballot,” Republican Rep. Carole Murray, R-Castle Rock, said in defense of SCR 1.

Brenda Morrison, executive director of Colorado’s Future, said civic leaders agree with Murray. She said it was clear that the ballot initiative should remain and that the threshold should be increased to create better stability for Colorado citizens.

Pointing to the cost, she said that the $177 million that has gone into initiative campaigns since 2000 could have been used to help stimulate the economy.

“$177 million is a lot of money that could have gone to creating jobs,” Morrison, said.

Janice Sinden, executive director for the business advocacy organization Colorado Concern, agreed with Morrison and said business was looking for a more equitable and stable environment.

“We are not trying to take away people’s right to initiate. We are trying to set a higher threshold for changing the constitution. So go crazy statutorily, though we certainly want it to be thoughtful, but let’s stop putting things in the constitution, because we are building layer upon layer of conflicting measures. And now we have a structural deficit that we can not address [without changing the constitution],” Sinden said.

Initiatives: A tool for out-of-state activists and special interests

While activists argue that the ballot initiative system allows voters to circumvent a Legislature controlled by lobbyist interests, in 2009, The Colorado Independent reported that the National Conference of State Legislatures found that initiatives have increasingly become the handiwork of special interest groups outside of the state.

“Advocates of the initiative process will argue that the role of special interests is exaggerated. But that’s not what we found [on the NCSL task force]. On the left and the right, if you follow the money, you will see that a lot of the ideas originate outside the state,” Jennie Drage Bowser, an elections expert with the National Conference of State Legislatures, said at the time.

Today, with one of the nation’s lowest thresholds for ballot initiative signatures in the country, those conditions do not appear to be changing in Colorado.

“Often initiatives are something that represent legitimate organic felt need or movement in the community of Colorado.” Robinson said. “Undeniably it is also used by people who want to come to the state and use the initiative process. So, it is both. It is an open tool that can be used by anybody who chooses to pick it up.”

Justine Sarver, executive director of the progressive Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which tracks trends in initiative integrity and helps progressive causes develop more effective strategies for initiative defense and support, said that she was aware of a number of out-of-state interests that had targeted Colorado for testing ballot initiatives.

“The big picture on citizen initiatives is that they have become the tool of special interests but especially corporations or organizations that are seeking to make government smaller,” Sarver said. “Looking at Colorado as one of the biggest ballot initiative states, certainly there are national trends that are picked up and carried from state to state.”

Sarver pointed to initiative attempts such as one which would have made state-sanctioned affirmative action illegal and the personhood initiative as examples of campaigns fueled by out-of-state interests. She went on to say her own group was currently in discussions about how they could nationalize many progressive issues campaigns in much the same way as their opponents.

Colorado Political analyst Eric Sondermann, who worked as a consultant on Ref. O in 2008, agreed that special interests increasingly were playing a large part in the initiative system. But he said Colorado grown grassroots initiatives continued to thrive in the state despite the presence of outside interests.

Trippi, like Sarver, argued that a good idea is a good idea, no matter where it comes from.

“The fact still is that the people get to vote on that initiative … If they do agree with it, why does it matter how it got qualified?” Trippi asked.

Special interests and disclosure

Voter advocacy groups say how special interests might use the system matters a lot. They contend that voters are rarely able to do the deep research needed to make complicated and long-term policy decisions state legislators can make. Instead, they are forced to fall back on slogans from campaigns, headlines, or ballot titles that may provide a visceral social appeal but often hide the true nature of an initiative where even its funders remain hidden in a maze of campaign finance laws.

“One thing that we have learned is that when something is put into the constitution by way of ballot initiative that you get either more or less than you voted for,” Murray said.

Jenny Flanagan, executive director for Colorado Common Cause, who joined Trippi and others in their opposition to SCR 1, said voters should first and foremost be informed of which individuals and special interest groups are supporting a campaign. However, she said that protection is currently in flux.

Colorado currently requires disclosure of those contributing to an issues (initiative) campaign. Yet, those laws have recently been weakened after Secretary of State Scott Gessler said he was complying with a court ruling that found a small neighborhood association’s rights were suppressed by burdensome reporting requirements. Gessler changed the reporting requirement from a $200 threshold to a $5,000 threshold. While Colorado Common Cause has filed a complaint, Flanagan says the change removes yet another layer of citizen protections.

“We are not only limiting disclosure by raising these limits and the timeliness of disclosure, but we are hiding money from voters,” Flanagan said. “A key part of making a decision is understanding who is funding a message and is trying to influence your vote.”

Beyond campaign contribution thresholds, however, is a tortuous maze of 401c 4 and 527 groups that through incestuous contributions are able to mask donors.

Sinden, who said her own organization has not taken a position on disclosure, said donation masking makes it difficult to determine if out-of-state interests are funding a campaign. However, she said, if those donating to campaigns could not mask their identity many would choose to opt out of voicing their opinion through their wallets due to the fear of retaliation from either their employers or friends.

University of Colorado associate professor Michele Moses, who recently published a study looking at information distribution to voters concerning the 2008 anti-affirmative action initiative campaign, said knowing who is behind information does matter. She said that of those who voted to support Amendment 42 and eliminate affirmative action in Colorado, over 66 percent of voters actually meant to support affirmative action. Moses pointed to a number of causes for the confusion including the ballot amendment title and petitioner explanations.

Sondermann agreed that voters are often confused by exactly what is in the body of an initiative. He explained while it is hard to get them to vote to amend the constitution, those same voters more often than not are influenced by headlines that create a visceral appeal. In doing so, he said that many special interest groups have been able to pass initiatives without the public being fully aware of what they were voting on. He said the AmeriStar Casino-funded Amendment 50, which purported to increase funding for community colleges while actually increasing the bet limit at casinos, was just such an initiative.

Ameristar is now reaping the benefits of that initiative after seeing its taxes decreased and the funding to schools slashed.

“I don’t know that initiatives are a way to deal with complex public policy,” Sondermann said.

Trippi and Robinson disagreed with the notion that voters are ill informed.

“When you offer an initiative, people tend to pay attention to that issue, talk about it, it elevates the discourse of the citizenry in a broad way because they are forced to deal with it,” Robinson said. “I understand they don’t become deep experts, but there isn’t any evidence that the legislature’s deep expertise leads to better laws.”

Trippi had a similar analysis.

“Are you going to have bad laws? Of course you are going to have bad laws, but if it is a mistake at least it is a mistake that the people make. They engaged, they got involved, they had their day and it won or lost.”

Murray was of a different opinion. She said that while legislators can fix their mistakes through the legislative process, mistakes passed through a constitutional amendment are almost impossible to remove unless they find their way into a courtroom. She, like others, said her intentions with SCR 1 were to encourage voters to pass laws through the ballot initiative system, so that if they were later found to be unconstitutional or detrimental to Colorado they could be fixed before becoming law.

A major theme at this past weekend’s faith-based conference The Awakening at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., was winning over young voters. During the two-day-long stream of panel discussions, workshops, movie screenings and Christian rock concerts, speakers discussed strategy on how to engage the young in politics (social media!) and social issues like abortion (capitalizing on the teen urge to revolt and fight for a cause).

When Ohio-based radio personality and anti-abortion rights activist Janet Folger Porter talks about using the young to help criminalize abortion in this country, she’s talking about the very young.

It was Porter’s group, Faith2Action, that in early March called a nine-week-old fetus to testify before the Ohio House Health Committee in favor of a bill Faith2Action crafted, which would “prohibit an abortion of an unborn human individual with a detectable fetal heartbeat.”

Even Ohio Right to Life does not support the bill, but Porter said she has confidence it will be approved by the House this Wednesday. The bill has almost 50 co-sponsors in the House and made it out of health committee last month. And she noted that potential presidential contender and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee recently gave his support for the bill.

Porter said she doesn’t buy the argument that the bill goes too far in terms of challenging Roe v. Wade, and if it does not pass, she’s confident that some portions of it will, such as forcing women to be exposed to an ultrasound before they can have an abortion.

“What we’ve got to do is stop the killing,” she said.

Porter told her audience that patience and persistence are key to fighting the abortion war and explained that though she supports Personhood initiatives, in her view, success in the anti-abortion rights movement will come after the many incremental changes that have recently come to pass — late-term abortion bans, mandatory parental consent laws, waiting periods and sonogram bills.

But Porter’s confident Roe will be reversed. Watch:

It’s Faith2Action’s position that all penalties related to performing abortions — were they to become illegal in Ohio — would be solely targeted at the abortion providers and not the women having abortions, based on the notion that women have long been misinformed about what abortion really is.

Asked if she thinks people will stop having abortions were they to become criminalized, Porter told The Independent: “Right now there are laws against homicide, but people still die in the process of homicide.” She conceded that abortions would likely still occur, but “there will be less of them.”

Porter told The Independent that more than 100 pregnancy help centers in Ohio that will be ready and waiting for an uptick of women wanting to put their babies up for adoption if the heartbeat bill were to become state law.

“There are people from New York to Chicago who would give their right arm to adopt,” Porter said. “I would love to adopt.”

But when asked if she has firm plans to adopt a child, Porter said she is “seeking God about it” and that she thinks she would like to have her own. One of the obstacles to adopting, Porter said, is that the waiting lists are enormous; however that could change with more restrictions (or eventual prohibition) of abortion.

In the fall, Faith2Action plans to host a “value voters debate” for 2012 Republican presidential candidates. The plan is to get every candidate on the record saying their stance mirrors the group’s stance on issues such as abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality and marriage.

When asked by an audience member who Faith2Action currently supports for president of the candidates that are likely to run, Porter said Mike Huckabee.

Read The Independent’s full coverage of The Awakening 2011 conference.

Misinformation ended the life of House Bill 1256 that would have made the willful killing of a fetus up to a 2nd degree felony in Colorado statutes, according to Republican prime sponsor Mark Waller, R-Colorado Springs. Waller said emails he received made it clear the bill would become the focal point for a fight over abortion, a fight neither he nor others wanted this year.

The bill was never intended to address abortion in any way, but simply make a crime to kill a fetus in situations ranging from domestic abuse to hit and run automobile accidents.

Waller said emails he was receiving made it clear his bill was about to elicit a firestorm of propaganda that would only serve to kill the bill when it moved into the Senate.

“I was getting emails last night that said, I can’t believe that you want to use my federal tax dollars to support abortion. Where the heck did that come from? I don’t know,” Waller told the Colorado Independent. “But the problem was that it was growing legs of its own. It was becoming way too politically charged of an issue that had a significant risk of dying if we amended the language to what some people wanted versus the way some other people wanted to have it amended. Rather than trying to massage that system and have everybody beat-up beyond belief at the end of the day when the chances were not looking good–why do that?”

Both Democratic and Republican members of the House Judiciary committee expressed dismay at Waller’s decision to postpone indefinitely a bill he said he had spent numerous hours working through with people on both sides of the debate.

Sponsors and members of the committee, Reps. Bob Gardner, B.J. Nikkel, and Mark Barker, all raised the importance of the issue and said the bill was one that deserved a better end than was being handed to it. They, like Waller, blamed misinformation for trying to turn the bill into one that fueled the fires of the abortion issue.

“You have, in my mind, what is a good bill,” Gardner said. “…But let me say there has never been a bill that has seen this level of disinformation and misinformation.”

Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, told Waller that he still had a good bill and one that should move forward. “I share your dismay that we are not going to move with the bill because of arguments that are completely extraneous to the issue.”

The bill would have created new offenses: unlawful termination of a pregnancy in the first degree, unlawful termination of a pregnancy in the second degree, unlawful termination of a pregnancy in the third degree, unlawful termination of a pregnancy in the fourth degree, vehicular unlawful termination of a pregnancy and aggravated vehicular unlawful termination of a pregnancy.

Waller said that he wanted to bring the bill forward because a woman who was 8 1/2 months pregnant recently lost her unborn child due to a hit and run driver.

“There is really no charge for the loss of that baby,” Waller said. “While this is a criminal justice issue, it inflames both sides of the abortion issue. I have to tell you members of the committee, I believe that is incredibly unfortunate…that we can’t come together and pass a law that absolutely needs to happen.”

“It thought maybe this year it could happen. I have worked my tail off to try and make that happen because I believe 100 percent it is the right thing to do. We have to have a statute that punishes people for killing unborn children.”

Waller said 35 other states have laws to address this issue. He said he worked with both Planned Parenthood and Colorado Right to life. He said the issue came down to a clause that said personhood is not implicated while the other said this is a criminal statute and that information did not need to be in the bill.

Waller told the Colorado Independent said there were amendments that would have removed a section of the bill.

“The right to life folks bring up a valid point when they said that this is a criminal justice provision. Why does this language need to be in there? My goal was never to move the dial and if we are somehow doing that I don’t want to be a part of that,” Waller told journalists.

Waller said he was not interested in advocating for either side on the bill.

“What it boiled down to was a construction piece that said nothing in this article shall be construed to confer the status of personhood. We couldn’t come to an agreement on that.”

The bill’s language states: “Nothing in this article shall be construed to confer the status of “person” upon a human embryo, fetus, or unborn child at any stage of development prior to birth.”

Father Bill Carmody said he had met with Waller for close to an hour to express his concerns about the bill and had advocated for California style fetal homicide legislation.  He said he was concerned that though abortion had been decriminalized since 1967, the bill’s removal of the criminal statute would take Colorado back a step “if and when the Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade.”

“The other problem is that other than in the title, there is no mention of the word child in the bill. It goes out of its way to say it is not a person. It goes out of its way to say it is not anything human, so bring manslaughter charges if it is not human.”

While Carmody said it was the pro-choice folks who killed the bill by placing the “personhood” article in the bill, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains spokesperson Monica McCafferty said that was simply not true. She said they had come to the table with the understanding that the bill was not an abortion or personhood bill.

Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains CEO & President Vicki Cowart reiterated McCafferty’s statements in a press release.

“The text of the bill itself made it clear from the beginning that this bill was not about abortion. In fact, the abortion exclusion was necessary to ensure that this bill remain a criminal justice statute,” Cowart said in a statement. “It is evident that anti-choice extremists were successful in hijacking what began as a bipartisan bill, pushing an ideological, dogmatic agenda, and turning this into a denunciation against women and reproductive health.”

Senate prime Sponsor of the bill Pat Steadman, D-Denver, had been watching the bill carefully for changes that might have weakened women’s rights.

Steadman told the Colorado Independent, “It is really unfortunate that it has become complicated by Republican party politics and the far right fringe of their base standing in the way of public safety legislation that protects crime victims, but those are the choices that they have made.”