Group organizing Idaho abortion-rights initiative files lawsuit over ballot language

Yahoo

31-01-2025

The Idaho Supreme Court building in downtown Boise. (Courtesy of the Idaho Supreme Court)
The group organizing a 2026 ballot initiative to restore abortion rights in Idaho is asking the state Supreme Court to order the attorney general and other state agencies to fix language it says is biased and misleading about what the initiative will do and how much it will cost taxpayers.
Idahoans United for Women and Families filed the lawsuit Thursday night. Idaho has a citizen ballot initiative process, but only its Legislature can propose constitutional amendments, unlike many other states. So instead of a constitutional amendment, the voters are asked to approve a citizen-crafted piece of legislation to be adopted. The measure requires a simple majority of voters to pass.
As part of the initiative process, the Idaho Attorney General's Office is responsible for drafting short and long ballot titles that summarize what the legislation would do if passed. Idaho law states that the language must describe the proposal accurately and use common language without phrasing that is likely to prejudice voters.
Idahoans United announced it would pursue the initiative in April 2024, and filed four proposed policies for approval in August. After that, the group moved forward with one proposed policy that would establish a fundamental right to contraception and fertility treatments under Idaho law, including in vitro fertilization, to make decisions about pregnancy and childbirth, and legalizing abortion before fetal viability, as well as preserving the right to abortion after viability in medical emergencies. Fetal viability would be determined by a physician and what treatment is available, but the commonly accepted gestational age of viability in the medical community is 23 to 24 weeks.
In the lawsuit, the group contends that the short ballot title includes the term 'fetus viability,' which is not the medical phrase, and conflicts with the term fetal viability being used in the long title. Melanie Folwell, Idahoans United's spokesperson, said the short title also left out that the law would provide for abortions in medical emergencies after viability.
The bigger issue, Folwell said, is with the fiscal impact statement, which is required to be drafted by the Idaho Division of Financial Management, to determine if the new law would cost taxpayer dollars.
As written, the statement says the laws affected by the initiative would not impact income, sales or product taxes and have no effect on the general fund. But it goes on to say it could change state expenditures in minor ways.
'Costs associated with the Medicaid and prisoner populations may occur,' it says, citing Idaho Code. 'Passage of this initiative is likely to cost less than $20,000 per year. The Medicaid budget for providing services was about $850 million in FY2024. If passed, nominal costs in the context of the affected total budget are insignificant to the state.'
Dan Estes, spokesperson for Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador's office, said they had no comment, citing pending litigation. Reclaim Idaho, a group that pursued an initiative to change Idaho's primary and general election system in 2023, sued over similar issues with their ballot language and ultimately prevailed.
The complaint filed in Idaho Supreme Court calls the statement biased and says it includes contradictory language, 'wrongly implies' that Medicaid and corrections spending would increase, and 'prejudicially includes an irrelevant reference to the state's $850 Medicaid budget.'
The statement in compliance with Idaho Code, the complaint says, should read that there is no financial impact to state or local governments.
The lawsuit includes public records that Folwell requested and received showing email exchanges between Juliet Charron, deputy director of Medicaid and Behavioral Health at the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, and Greg Piepmeyer, chief economist at the Idaho Division of Financial Management, as well as Lori Wolff, chief administrator at DFM. Wolff is named as a defendant in her capacity as administrator.
States Newsroom has reached out to Charron, Piepmeyer and Wolff's office for comment.
The emails indicate there would be no impact to the general fund, but one email from Piepmeyer details the possible effects for the female prison population, including the 'rate of pregnancy occurring due to events within prison, and the rate at which each of these is already ascribed to rape or incest.'
'None of these are ones into which DFM ought to wade,' Piepmeyer's email said. 'Similar considerations apply to the Medicaid population, but with (probably reasonably) different rates.'
The lawsuit includes a motion to expedite, with a request that a final ruling be issued by the Idaho Supreme Court by April 15. The group has to gather at least 70,725 signatures by April 30, 2026, to qualify for the ballot.
The Idaho Supreme Court will determine whether to hear the case in the coming days. If so, and if the motion to expedite is granted, an initial hearing would likely take place within the next month, Folwell said.
1-30-25 Declaration of Melanie Folwell 1-30-25 Verified Petition for Writs of Certiorari & Mandamus
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