The Associated Press reports that “A judge rewrote the ballot language Wednesday for a proposed constitutional amendment banning a particular kind of embryonic stem cell research after supporters claimed the state’s original description was biased.”

The story notes that it’s second court loss in a month for Secretary of State Robin Carnahan. A few weeks ago, “a judge rewrote the ballot language for a proposal limiting affirmative action programs.”

In the latest case, “Cole County Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce ruled that Carnahan’s summary of the stem cell amendment was ‘insufficient and unfair’, ” although her ruling didn’t offer any explanation.

All sides agree that the initiative-petition ballot proposal would reverse part of Amendment 2, the constitutional amendment narrowly approved in Missouri in November 2006. It protects all forms of embryonic stem cell research and treatments allowed under federal law.

The proposed ballot measure would ban somatic-cell nuclear transfer, a procedure protected under Amendment 2, and in which the nucleus of an unfertilized human egg is replaced with the nucleus from another cell.

As the AP story explains, “Under Missouri law, sponsors of citizen initiatives submit their proposals to the secretary of state’s office, which then writes a summary to appear on the ballot.

“After Carnahan released the stem cell summary in October, the sponsoring group Cures Without Cloning immediately claimed her language was biased against it. Now that its legal challenge is resolved, a group spokesman said supporters plan to start gathering the petition signatures needed to qualify for the November ballot.

“Cures Without Cloning chairwoman Lori Buffa claimed Carnahan’s language was a “blatant attempt to mislead the Missouri voters.”

” ‘This ruling proves what we’ve said along: that our clear, concise initiative would prohibit human cloning and the taxpayer funding of human cloning in Missouri,’ Buffa said in a written statement.

“Carnahan’s office released a brief written statement defending its description:

‘It’s our job under the law to summarize initiative petitions, and the summary we prepared for this measure is fair and accurately reflects the underlying measure. ‘ “

The Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures, which lead the campaign in favor of Amendment 2, said in a statement that it was considering whether to appeal the judge’s ruling. The coalition said it wanted “to ensure that the ballot summary fairly reflects the harmful consequences of this proposed repeal of Missourians’ rights.”

In any case, the coalition said it would conduct a “vigorous campaign” encouraging people not to sign the initiative petition.

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UPDATE:
An aide to Carnahan said this evening that the characterizations of the secretary’s court cases was misleading. “First, the SOS office had 6 total court challenges over ballot language since Sec. Carnahan has been in office, and the office’s language was upheld in three (3) of these,” said aide Mindy Mazur. “The other three are still in litigation, as the anti-affirmative action is being appealed and this stem cell research one likely will be as well; the third this year is on abortion - but that case has not been heard yet.”

“To give you more context in what this all means, you should know that the SOS office summarized (and the Attorney General’s office approved, as required by state law) at least 18 initiative petitions for the 2006 election…only 3 of these had ballot challenges.

“The SOS office has already summarized 10 petitions for the 2008 election, and the SOS and AG offices are in the process of finishing the summary process for many others…”