The Missouri Roundtable for Life on Thursday filed a lawsuit in federal court that accuses two Democratic state officials of plotting to block proposed ballot initiatives seeking to prevent public funds from being allocated to abortion services and certain types of human embryonic stem cell research, the AP/Belleville News Democrat reports. The lawsuit claims that Secretary of State Robin Carnahan and Auditor Susan Montee are violating the group's right to free speech by drafting ballot summaries that could convince residents to vote against the initiatives.

The AP/News Democrat reports that under Missouri law, the secretary of state is expected to summarize ballot initiatives and that the auditor must determine a ballot's financial cost. The antiabortion-rights group has not started collecting signatures to place the initiatives on the 2010 ballot because the group's officials oppose the official summaries on the petitions and ballot. A state judge in June rejected a similar lawsuit by the group and upheld the summaries.

Laura Egerdal, spokesperson for Carnahan, said that the summaries help voters "to clearly understand what they are voting on." A spokesperson at the auditor's office declined to comment on the lawsuit. Matt Hearne, the attorney for Roundtable for Life, said in a written statement, "This lawsuit is an attempt by Missouri Roundtable for Life to hold Carnahan and Montee accountable for their flagrant abuse of their responsibility to fairly and impartially handle citizen groups' initiative petitions" (AP/Belleville News Democrat, 12/11).

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