Lawsuit Filed Against Passage Of Amendment 1

Voters passed the constitutional amendment last week by a relatively slim margin, but now opponents have filed a lawsuit.

Opponents of the change, which would give more power to the Legislature to regulate abortion, said the state improperly counted the votes.

The issue is over how constitutional amendments are passed in Tennessee.

Article IX Section III of the constitution says that to pass, an amendment must get the votes of "a majority of all the citizens of the state voting for governor." The lawsuit filed Friday would require the Secretary of State to only count the amendment votes if the person also voted for governor, something the state has never done.

The state said it counted votes on Amendment 1 regardless of whether people voted in the governor's race.

Some on the Yes-On-1 side were advocating people skip voting in the governor's race and only vote on the amendment because it would lower the threshold to pass the amendment.

"We know there were a large amount of ineligible votes," said Bill Harbison, who is the attorney bringing the suit. "We also know that Amendment 1 was passed by a very close margin, so we believe the results are highly in question."

Tracey George is one of the plaintiffs bringing the suit.

She is opposed to Amendment 1, and is also a law professor at Vanderbilt University.

"In the past and on the other three ballots this year, the margin was quite large. This margin is very small. If we're right about the number of voters who participated in the governor's race but did not vote on Amendment 1 then the result changes," George said.

NewsChannel 5 requested a statement from Secretary of State Tre Hargett’s office responding to the lawsuit.

Hargett’s spokesman Blake Fontenay replied:

"We are applying the same standard for constitutional amendments that has been in place since 1953. If Amendment 1 is invalidated based on this argument, we believe that the other three amendments on the ballot - as well as every amendment approved since 1953 - would also be invalidated. Following the plaintiffs' logic, you could have a scenario where an amendment passed with more 'no' votes than 'yes' votes.

We don't feel that we have a right to tell people they have to vote in a particular race in order for their votes to be valid on the amendments.

As Secretary Hargett has said: 'The power to amend the Constitution rests with ALL the people, not just those who choose to vote in the governor's race.'

This suit could take more than a month to resolve.

Plaintiffs are asking for an injunction blocking the constitutional amendment while the lawsuit is pending. 

Story courtesy of News Channel 5

photo via tennessean.com