Bellevue ‘Sanctuary City for the Unborn’ initiative falls short of signatures, but fight isn’t over

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily of Live Action or Live Action News. This article has been minimally edited for clarity.

On March 30, 2023, a letter was mailed to the chief petitioners on the Bellevue Sanctuary City for the Unborn Initiative, which began on August 26, 2022, was submitted to the City of Bellevue in Nebraska on February 27, and was sent to the Sarpy County Election Commission on March 10. 

The letter from Bellevue City Clerk Susan Kluthe and Bellevue City Attorney Amy Bataillon read, “Commissioner Ethington has determined that the City Initiative and Referendum Petition is not signed by the requisite number of qualified electors required by Nebraska Revised Statute Section 18-2525. As such, no further action on your Petition will be taken.”

In order for the petition to be accepted as valid and move on for consideration by the Bellevue City Council, the petition had to have signatures equal in number to at least 20% of the qualified voters in the City of Bellevue.

In a letter to Bellevue City Clerk Susan Kluthe, Election Commissioner Emily Ethington wrote, “There were 39,058 voters in the City of Bellevue when the petition was filed with the Bellevue City Clerk, which requires the initiative petition to bear signatures equal in number to at least 7,812 qualified electors in order to request that a special election be called to submit the initiative measure to a vote for the people.” Commissioner Ethington determined there to be “a total of 7,372 signatures … of which there were 4,600 signatures of qualified electors and 2,772 signatures of unqualified persons.”

The effort to end abortion in Nebraska’s oldest city lasted six months and was spearheaded by residents of Bellevue ready to see LeRoy Carhart’s C.A.R.E. Abortion facility out of their community for good. The citizen initiative was also supported by churches and pro-life organizations throughout the area and beyond, including Nebraskans Embracing Life, Life Runners, Right To Life of East Texas, Students for Life of America, and Sidewalk Advocates for Life.

Threats of violence against residents

These signatures were not collected without difficulty. Throughout the signature collection process, many volunteers were intimidated out of taking part in collecting signatures and many residents of Bellevue were intimidated out of signing the petition. Several expressed fear of having their schools or churches attacked by the terrorist group known as Jane’s Revenge. 

In December, a note from Jane’s Revenge was left on the door of a student center at the University of Nebraska at Omaha campus. That letter read, in part, “If our right to abortion in Bellevue is taken away due to the attempt to pass an abortion ban and it gets passed we will shoot up your [student] center.” A similar letter was left at a church in west Omaha with the same threat of violence. 

In addition to this, circulators of the petition in Bellevue have reported individuals defacing or ripping up their petitions – making all of the signatures collected on those petitions unsubmittable.

Another circulator reported an incident where he was told by an angry Bellevue resident not to collect signatures in his neighborhood again, and that if he was seen doing so, he would be shot. 

On the last weekend signatures were being collected, one individual posted a picture with a clipboard which appeared to contain several signatures. The caption read, “Took the anti-abortionist clipboard and now have their top sponsors and chief petitioner’s names and addresses.” Clearly, this could be interpreted as a threat.

Bellevue resident and Chief Petitioner Judy Mansisidor shared (emphasis added):

While we did fall short of the required number of signatures for our petition, one has to ask why our petition fell short. Did our petition fall short because there are not enough people in Bellevue who want to see abortion outlawed, or did our petition fall short because they are afraid of their name, address, and signature being on a petition which could be accessed by anyone through an open records request?

When people are threatened with being shot in a neighborhood, a church, and a school, it impacts their political involvement. I hope and pray that the City of Bellevue does not let Jane’s Revenge have this victory. I hope that the City of Bellevue will settle this once and for all and put this ordinance forward for a public election – apart from the initiative process.

Other options

If the City Council of Bellevue does decide to vote to send the ordinance to the ballot, it will not be the first municipality in Nebraska to do so apart from a citizen initiative process.

On August 17, 2022, the Village Board of Paxton, Nebraska (pop. 523), voted 4-0 to pass a resolution to send an ordinance outlawing abortion to the November ballot. The action came after a resident of the village collected over 138 unofficial signatures expressing interest in the community. Instead of requiring the resident to re-collect signatures on an official citizen initiative petition, the Village Board decided to voluntarily place the proposed Paxton Ordinance Outlawing Abortion on the November 8th, 2022 ballot for the voters of Paxton to decide. On November 8th, 2022, the citizens of the Village of Paxton passed the ordinance outlawing abortion within the borders of their village. The results were 52.15% for the ordinance and 47.84% against. 

Throughout America, the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn Initiative has seen a total of 65 cities and two counties pass ordinances which have kept abortion out of their city or county limits. The largest of these cities was the City of Lubbock, Texas (pop. 264,000), which saw Planned Parenthood stop committing abortions as a result of the ordinance. The Lubbock victory gives much hope to the city of Bellevue – just as it was possible to end abortion in Lubbock, Texas, it is possible to end abortion in Bellevue, Nebraska.

Despite the sombering news about the initiative petition the effort to see Bellevue become a Sanctuary City for the Unborn is far from over. 

Dave Zebolsky, Executive Director and Chairman of Nebraskans Embracing Life, shared, “Intimidation tactics and death threats made it challenging for those who wanted to defend ‘the least of these’, as Jesus taught. John 15:18-27. We extend compassion to the deceived mother, the endangered child, and those lost in the culture of death. We continue to fight for sacred, innocent life in the womb. Where there is faith, there is no fear. We know Bellevue residents love children and reject abortion.” 

Bellevue resident and Chief Petitioner Bernadette Costello shared, “We know that God doesn’t want abortion. Let’s keep going.” Dr. Pat Castle, President and Founder of Life Runners shared, “Forward, forward, always forward, until abortion is gone!” 

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