The Democrats in New York have been working for more than a year on a plan to place an amendment to the state constitution on the ballot this November. The proposed amendment would formally ban discrimination based on “gender identity” as well as “pregnancy outcomes.” It’s a transparent ploy to attempt to drive liberal voter turnout by putting both the trans agenda and abortion on the ballot as other states including Ohio have done. Unfortunately for them, they ran into a brick wall this week when a state Supreme Court judge ruled that the proposal could not appear on the ballot because the legislature made a procedural error while processing the initiative. This will set the process back to the point where there will not be sufficient time to resubmit it during this election cycle. (Associated Press)
A proposed amendment to New York’s constitution barring discrimination based on “gender identity” and “pregnancy outcomes” cannot appear on the state ballot in November because legislators made a procedural error during an initial round of approval, a judge ruled Tuesday.
The ruling from state Supreme Court Justice Daniel J. Doyle found lawmakers incorrectly approved the language before getting a written opinion from the attorney general.
The decision removes a politically charged question from the November ballot that Democrats hoped would drive turnout.
As noted, this wasn’t a case of the opposition blocking the referendum. The legislature rushed to approve the language in the referendum without first seeking formal approval from the New York Attorney General. It is perhaps somewhat ironic that the current AG is Letitia James, one of the most liberally biased people imaginable. If she knew her job and had been paying attention, she could have stepped in and ensured that her role in the process was completed, but that didn’t happen. Perhaps she was too busy trying to convict Donald Trump of anything she could dream up.
Convincing people to come out and vote for Joe Biden in November is becoming increasingly difficult, even in New York. But in other states, we have seen that many people will show up on election day if access to abortion is on the ballot. Without that referendum, New Yorkers will likely be left looking at policy questions and considering a referendum on Biden’s performance in November. Things have been changing in New York this year and polls bear that out. The latest survey from Siena shows Donald Trump closing the gap with Joe Biden in New York to ten points, trailing 47 to 37. That same survey from a year ago had Biden leading by 22. In 2020, Biden carried New York 61-38. In 2016, Hillary Clinton beat Trump 60 to 38. I’m not saying that Donald Trump has a realistic shot at carrying New York, but the political temperature has definitely changed considerably during Biden’s time in office.
The New York legislature will eventually be able to put this referendum on the ballot, perhaps in 2026. It’s interesting to note how they decided to cram the entirely unrelated issues of abortion and transgenderism into the same amendment. That’s because access to abortion is overwhelmingly popular among Empire State voters. But the Democrats here seem to realize that the entire transgender fad isn’t selling as well, particularly when it comes to the destruction of girls’ and women’s sports. It’s a fairly safe bet that the amendment will still make it through, but it would be very interesting to see what would happen if they split the two issues into different amendments. I would guess that support for the trans rights amendment would be considerably softer and it might not even pass at all.
It’s also at least somewhat curious how the Democrats working on this proposed amendment were hesitant to put the word “abortion” into the state constitution. They instead want to ban discrimination based on “pregnancy outcomes.” Everyone knows that you’re talking about abortion. Why not just come out and say it? Perhaps there is still some stigma attached to the procedure, even in a place as blue as New York.