Petition for rehearing denied in Amendment 1 case

Wednesday, February 28, 2018 | 03:49pm

In January, a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati unanimously ruled against the plaintiffs and in favor of the State in Tracey George v. Hargett, the case in which the plaintiffs claimed the State had counted the votes on the Amendment 1 abortion measure in 2014 in a way that violated their constitutional rights.  Today, the Sixth Circuit rejected the plaintiffs’ petition for a rehearing, stating that the original three-judge panel had fully considered all the issues raised in the petition for rehearing and that no judge of the full court had requested further review by the entire (en banc) court.

“Today’s decision denying a rehearing leaves no doubt that the unanimous decision from earlier this year is correct.  The State’s position from the outset of this litigation has been that determining what vote is required to amend the Tennessee Constitution is a matter of state law; that the vote-counting method used by the Tennessee State Officials in the 2014 election was true to the meaning of the Tennessee Constitution, as confirmed by the ruling of the Williamson County state court; and there was no infringement at all of the plaintiffs’ voting rights,” said Attorney General Slatery.

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