Update on Colorado Personhood fight

The Colorado Personhood Coalition says it filed suit in Denver on Thursday. According to Personhood USA, the suit is due to the secretary of state’s office dismissing a petition from the Colorado Personhood Coalition. Planned Parenthood worked to see the petitioning time shortened. That caused the ballot initiative by the Coalition to have fewer days to obtain signatures.

According to Personhood USA, other initiatives were given time to make up for lost of invalidated signatures, but the Colorado Personhood Coalition was denied that time. The Coalition says it turned in far more than the number of signatures required to see the initiative on the ballot, but the secretary of state’s office said the amendment could not appear. Sixty-eight hundred registered voters’ signatures were discounted by the secretary of state’s office.

“The Secretary of State’s actions unconstitutionally deprived us of our fundamental right under the State and Federal Constitutions to the initiative process which is core political speech. After being denied the same timeframe that every other initiative received, and denied the opportunity to appear on the ballot, we have filed a writ of mandamus to ensure that our rights are recognized and the hard work of our volunteers is not dismissed.”

You can read the text of the Colorado Personhood Amendment here. It deals with issues including birth control, IVF, miscarriage, and rape, which the Colorado Personhood Amendment claims is different from other initiatives throughout the nation.