Friend,

Yesterday, Ohio voters passed a state constitutional amendment to reverse the state's law imposing an abortion ban after 6 weeks of pregnancy. State officials tried to take away voters' rights to the initiative process, fought to make the ballot language more biased, and campaigned hard to keep the ban.

Sound familiar? Here were the results:

56.62 percent voted yes for the abortion amendment, 43.38 percent voted no

Ohio becomes the next state to reverse an extreme abortion ban, and their ban isn't as extreme as Missouri's. Ours is so restrictive and so dangerous that even President Donald Trump objected to it when our Republican state legislators passed it.

Here's the language that appeared on the Ohio ballot:

The proposed amendment would: • Establish in the Constitution of the State of Ohio an individual right to one's own reproductive medical treatment, including but not limited to abortion; • Create legal protections for any person or entity that assists a person with receiving reproductive medical treatment, including but not limited to abortion; • Prohibit the State from directly or indirectly burdening, penalizing, or prohibiting abortion before an unborn child is determined to be viable, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means; • Grant a pregnant woman's treating physician the authority to determine, on a case-by-case basis, whether an unborn child is viable; • Only allow the State to prohibit an abortion after an unborn child is determined by a pregnant woman's treating physician to be viable and only if the physician does not consider the abortion necessary to protect the pregnant woman's life or health; and • Always allow an unborn child to be aborted at any stage of pregnancy, regardless of viability if, in the treating physician's determination, the abortion is necessary to protect the pregnant woman's life or health. If passed, the amendment will become effective 30 days after the election.

In Missouri, a petitioner has submitted several different versions of an abortion initiative. First, our Attorney General illegally held up the process for months, even trying to usurp the authority of the Republican state Auditor, who refused to participate in the Attorney General's illegal delays. The Attorney General lost in a lengthy court fight.

Now, the Attorney General and Secretary of State are further delaying the process in court by defending the Secretary's biased ballot summary language. The language is so out there that the trial court had to rewrite almost the entire summary, and the appellate court agreed. Andrew Bailey and Jay Ashcroft have lost at every level of review so far, and Missouri's ballot initiatives have one more court battle soon to be scheduled with the state Supreme Court.

But that means Missourians will have a short window to collect signatures, with months lost to frivolous court hearings designed to take away our right to access the ballot initiative process. They do not want this issue going to Missouri voters.

They know Missouri's abortion ban is extreme, dangerous, and unpopular. They know voters have successfully gone to the ballot to override our ineffective state legislature. And they don't care what kind of precedent they're setting, what future Attorneys General or Secretaries of State could do on issues they personally disagree with. It's all about exercising power without a care for Missouri.

We need an Attorney General who is our attorney, who wants the voice of the people to be heard in our government, who will protect our initiative petition process, who will take on Big Government surveillance and intervention in our private lives, who will ensure that our health care decisions are OUR health care decisions, and who will do the job we elect the Attorney General to do.

The initiative petition process is important. But our state needs an Attorney General who is here for us. We have a big opportunity in 2024, and I need you to be a part of it.