After the Virginia legislature followed the law by approving a ballot measure, first in 2025 and again this year, voters are scheduled to choose whether to add abortion rights to the constitution.
The lawsuit challenging the amendment is Bansley v Nardo. The plaintiff is Charla Bansley, a Bedford County supervisor. The defendant is Paul Nardo, clerk of the Virginia House of Delegates.
Bansley’s lawsuit argues Nardo failed to follow the strict procedures for placing a constitutional amendment on the ballot, since copies of the amendment were not sent to circuit court clerks across the state as required.
Bansley is represented by Liberty Counsel, which is now asking the Virginia Supreme Court to hear its appeal after a circuit court judge ruled against Bansley in a mid-July decision.
Describing the legal fight on the “Washington Watch” program, Liberty Counsel attorney Stephen Nast said the judge acknowledged in court the statute was not followed as required.
“Yet he still found that, because the dissent found that it was a directory statute, not a mandatory statute, that the statute did not need to be followed,” Nast told the program.
A mandatory statute is a strict, word-for-word requirement while a directory statute operates more like a manual, or a guide, to follow.
Bansley and Liberty Counsel are appealing the judge’s decision on the basis there are several strict procedures, including posting the amendment for public view, before altering the Virginia Constitution.
Supreme Court ruled against redistricting measure
There is legal precedent in Virginia for rejecting the ballot measure, the attorney stressed, because the Virginia Supreme Court struck down a proposed amendment to redraw the state’s district lines.
“If you recall, just a few months ago,” Bansley stated, “the General Assembly ran through a constitutional amendment seeking to redraw district lines to give the Democrats a 10-to-1 advantage in the House of Representatives.”
In its narrow 4-3 ruling, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down the redistricting amendment based on several failures. One was a lack of an “intervening election” by the General Assembly as required in the Virginia Constitution.
A second reason for the ruling, the majority said, was a failure to post and publicize the proposed constitutional amendment 90 days before Election Day.
Predictably, in the Democrat-led state government, the biased ballot question describes abortion as “reproductive freedom” rather than ending a life.
The ballot question itself, which is 71 words in length, is cleverly written. It lists abortion among five other birth-related descriptions, including prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, miscarriage management, and fertility care.
