ACLU Condemns Amendment 12 as "Scarlet
Letter" Law;
Intervenes in Challenge Before Colorado Supreme Court
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 7, 1997
Condemning Amendment 12 as the modern political equivalent of the Scarlet Letter, the ACLU of Colorado moved on Friday to intervene in a legal challenge that is currently pending before the Colorado Supreme Court.
Amendment 12, which the voters approved in November, requires members of Colorado’s congressional delegation to sponsor and support a specified amendment to the United States Constitution that would impose term limits. The measure also requires state legislators to vote to call for a constitutional convention for the purpose of proposing that constitutional amendment.
If legislators do not vote as Amendment 12 requires, a label stating "DISREGARDED VOTER INSTRUCTION ON TERM LIMITS" will appear next to their names on the ballot at the next general election. Similarly, candidates running for their first legislative office will be branded with a special ballot label that says "DECLINED TO TAKE PLEDGE TO SUPPORT TERM LIMITS" if they do not formally pledge to support the specific term limits amendment endorsed by Amendment 12.
"Amendment 12 violates the First Amendment rights of candidates and legislators," said Mark Silverstein, ACLU legal director. "It identifies one particular viewpoint on a controversial issue as the official, government-approved, orthodox position. It declares that dissenters are heretics and brands them with the political equivalent of the scarlet letter."
"Legislators who do not support Amendment 12's particular version of the politically-correct term limits amendment have no opportunity to rebut, explain, or respond to the pejorative label that the government threatens to place by their name on the ballot," said Edward Ramey, an ACLU cooperating attorney and partner in the law firm of Isaacson, Rosenbaum, Woods & Levy, who filed the legal papers on the ACLU’s behalf. "Under Amendment 12, only the government is permitted to present its viewpoint at the critical last moment when voters make their choice in the voting booth. To avoid the possibility that negative labels will appear next to their names on the ballots, legislators and candidates who sincerely disagree with the official government position on term limits may be intimidated into silence or forced into conformity."
"The public has a First Amendment right to receive information and ideas, to hear the views of legislators and candidates on all sides of controversial issues," added Silverstein. "When the government threatens public figures with sanctions for expressing certain views, everyone’s First Amendment rights are threatened. "
Two separate challenges to Amendment 12, filed by petitioners acting without lawyers, are already pending in the Colorado Supreme Court. The Court consolidated the two cases and asked that all "interested parties" come forward and file a statement of suggested legal issues to aid the court in setting a briefing schedule. The ACLU, represented by Ramey, filed its entry into the case on Friday as an interested party.
Measures similar to Amendment 12 appeared on the ballots of a number of states in 1996. In Arkansas, the state supreme court has already held that its version of the Scarlet Letter Law is unconstitutional. The ACLU has filed still-pending challenges to similar laws in Maine and Idaho.