Page:Arkansas Women's Political Caucus v. Riviere.pdf/2

and popular names of proposed constitutional amendments are (1) intelligible, (2) honest, and (3) impartial.

1. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—INITIATIVE & REFERENDUM—POPULAR BALLOT NAMES CONTAINING MISLEADING CATCH PHRASES AND PARTISAN COLORING—REJECTION BY COURT REQUIRED.—The requirements for the popular name of a proposed constitutional amendment are not as stringent as those for the ballot title; however, popular ballot names which contain catch phrases or slogans that tend to mislead or give partisan coloring to the merit of a proposal will be rejected.
2. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—INITIATIVE & REFERENDUM—"UNBORN CHILD AMENDMENT"—POPULAR BALLOT NAME MISLEADING.—The popular ballot name, "The Unborn Child Amendment" is misleading.
3. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—INITIATIVE & REFERENDUM—"UNBORN CHILD AMENDMENT"—BALLOT TITLE MISLEADING TO THOSE FOLLOWING DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT ON WHEN LIFE BEGINS.—Since there are three schools of thought on the issue of when life begins, i.e., at conception, upon live birth, or at the point upon which the fetus becomes viable, and since the Unborn Child Amendment Committee believes that life begins at conception, the ballot name "unborn child," standing alone, would tend to mislead those voters who follow an alternate school of thought and do not think of fetuses of certain gestational ages as unborn children.
4. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—INITIATIVE & REFERENDUM—"UNBORN CHILD AMENDMENT"—FAILURE OF POPULAR NAME TO DISCLOSE CONSEQUENCES—PARTISAN COLORING—BALLOT NAME MUST BE FAIR AND IMPARTIAL.—The enactment of the proposed Unborn Child Amendment would immediately prohibit the use of public funds for abortion, including a female impregnated by rape or incest, unless the life of the mother were in danger, and would empower the General Assembly to prohibit abortion under any circumstances to the extent permitted under the United States Constitution, yet, the popular name makes no reference to this subject; the popular name contains only the inviting catch words "unborn child," which gives the voters only the impression the proponents of the amendment want them to have, and is a clear-cut example of the partisan coloring of ballots which the Arkansas Supreme Court has uniformly condemned in its decisions holding that a ballot name must be fair and impartial.
5. ELECTIONS—INITIATIVE & REFERENDUM—RESPONSIBILITY OF COURT TO SEE THAT RESULT OF ELECTION REPRESENTS OBJECTIVE JUDGMENT—DUTY TO DECLARE POPULAR BALLOT TITLE