Secretary of State Robin Carnahan defends the summary her staff wrote for the anti-cloning initiative petition supporters want to circulate in Missouri. The group pushing the change, Cures Without Cloning, has called the language misleading and confusing. It accuses Carnahan of playing partisan politics with the issue.
Carnahan stands by the language. She says her staff has met its constitutional duty to explain in summary form what the initiative petition would do if approved by voters. Carnahan says the criticism from Cures Without Cloning is nothing new. She says her office is often criticized for summary and ballot languages by groups that want the language slanted in their favor.
Carnahan rejects suggestions that a $25,000 campaign donation from Supporters of Health Research and Treatments had anything to do with her staff’s writing of the language. She says lawyers in the office carefully reviewed the summary before it was approved. Carnahan says her job is to follow the law, which she insists her office did in this case.
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