Federal Court Denies Challenge To Tennessee Abortion Amendment

CINCINNATI, OH -- The push to strike Tennessee's constitutional amendment on abortion took a hit this week when a federal appeals court denied a further hearing on the challenge.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati issued an order Monday denying an en banc review - a hearing before the full 16-judge court - of the challenge to Amendment 1.

Amendment 1, which says "Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to an abortion," was approved by 53 percent of Tennessee voters in 2014. The results of the vote were almost immediately challenged, hinging on an argument that the state's method of counting the votes is faulty.

Under the Tennessee constitution, amendments are voted on during gubernatorial election years and require a "majority of all the citizens of the state voting for governor, voting in their favor." For decades, the state has construed that to mean that amendments are approved if "yes" votes are greater than half of the total votes cast for governor.

The plaintiffs argued that the language instead requires that people who vote on amendments be the same who vote for governor. They said that many conservative voters abstained from the 2014 gubernatorial election - popular incumbent Gov. Bill Haslam, a Republican, was facing Democratic nominee Charles Brown, a political unknown whose platform included strapping Haslam to the electric chair and giving him half a jolt and raising the speed limit to 80 mph - and that the abstention thus lowered the threshold for enacting the amendment.

Though a district court judge agreed and ordered a new count, that count was delayed while the state appealed. A three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit reversed the district court's decision and the plaintiffs asked for the en banc review.

“The issues involved in this lawsuit had absolutely nothing to do with abortion,” said Daniel Horwitz, election counsel for the Yes On 1 Campaign, which filed an amicus brief in the matter. “Instead, this was a direct challenge to pro-life voters’ right to vote itself, and fortunately, the right to vote won. Anybody who cares about the integrity of the democratic process should be both gratified and reassured by this outcome.”

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