Abortion-rights measure will be on Missouri's November ballot, court rules

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A measure undoing Missouri’s near-total abortion ban will appear on the ballot in November, the state’s high court ruled Tuesday, marking the latest victory in a nationwide fight to have voters weigh in on abortion laws since federal rights to the procedure ended in 2022.

If passed, the proposal would enshrine abortion rights in the constitution and is expected to broadly supplant the state’s near-total abortion ban. Judges ruled hours before the Tuesday deadline for changes to be made to the November ballot.

Supreme Court judges ordered Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft to put the measure back on the ballot. He had removed it Monday following a county circuit judge’s ruling Friday.

The order also directs Ashcroft, an abortion opponent, to “take all steps necessary to ensure that it is on said ballot.”

Secretary of State's Office spokesman JoDonn Chaney in an email said the Secretary of State's Office is putting the amendment on the ballot, although Ashcroft in a statement said he's “disappointed” with the ruling.

The court's full opinion on the case was not immediately released Tuesday.

Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, the campaign backing the measure, lauded the decision.

“Missourians overwhelmingly support reproductive rights, including access to abortion, birth control, and miscarriage care,” campaign manager Rachel Sweet said in a statement. “Now, they will have the chance to enshrine these protections in the Missouri Constitution on November 5.”

Mary Catherine Martin, a lawyer for a group of GOP lawmakers and abortion opponents suing to remove the amendment, had told Supreme Court judges during rushed Tuesday arguments that the initiative petition “misled voters” by not listing all the laws restricting abortion that it would effectively repeal.

“This Missouri Supreme Court turned a blind eye and ruled Missourians don’t have to be fully informed about the laws their votes may overturn before signing initiative petitions,” the plaintiffs said in a statement after the decision.

Missouri banned almost all abortions immediately after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Eight other states will consider constitutional amendments enshrining abortion rights, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada and South Dakota. Most would guarantee a right to abortion until fetal viability and allow it later for the health of the pregnant woman, which is what the Missouri proposal would do.

New York also has a ballot measure that proponents say would protect abortion rights, though there’s a dispute about its impact.

Voting on the polarizing issue could draw more people to the polls, potentially impacting results for the presidency in swing states, control of Congress and the outcomes for closely contested state offices. Missouri Democrats, for instance, hope to get a boost from abortion-rights supporters during the November election.

Legal fights have sprung up across the country over whether to allow voters to decide these questions — and over the exact wording used on the ballots and explanatory material. In August, Arkansas’ highest court upheld a decision to keep an abortion rights initiative off the state’s November ballot, agreeing with election officials that the group behind the measure did not properly submit documentation regarding the signature gatherers it hired.

Voters in all seven states that have had abortion questions on their ballots since Roe was overturned have sided with abortion-rights supporters.

This story has been corrected to show that eight states outside Missouri will consider constitutional amendments enshrining abortion rights, not nine.

Associated Press reporter David A. Lieb contributed to this report.

Mary Catherine Martin of the conservative Thomas More Society argues before the Missouri Supreme Court that an amendment to overturn the state's abortion ban should be removed from the state's November ballot, Sept. 10, 2024, in Jefferson City. (Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP, Pool)

Chuck Hatfield, an attorney for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, argues before the Missouri Supreme Court that an amendment to overturn the state's abortion ban should remain on the state's November ballot, Sept. 10, 2024, in Jefferson City. (Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP, Pool)

The Missouri Supreme Court Justices Kelly Broniec, Robin Ransom, Brent Powell, Mary Russell, Zel Fischer, Paul Wilson and Ginger Gooch take the bench to hear a case questioning whether an amendment to overturn the state's abortion ban will remain on the November ballot, Sept. 10, 2024, in Jefferson City, Mo. (Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP, Pool)

Abortion opponents stand outside the Missouri Supreme Court in Jefferson City, Mo., on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, after the court heard arguments over whether an abortion-rights amendment should go before voters this year. (Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP)

Amendment 3 supporters Luz Maria Henriquez, second from left, executive director of the ACLU Missouri, celebrates with Mallory Schwarz, center, of Abortion Action Missouri, after the Missouri Supreme Court in Jefferson City, Mo., ruled that the amendment to protect abortion rights would stay on the November ballot in on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP)

People gather outside the Missouri Supreme Court building on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in Jefferson City, Mo., in advance of oral arguments on whether to remove an abortion rights constitutional amendment from the general election ballot. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb)

A vehicle passes in front of the Missouri Supreme Court building on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in Jefferson City, Mo., in advance of oral arguments on whether an abortion rights constitutional amendment should be removed from the general election ballot. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb)

Missouri Supreme Court to decide whether an abortion-rights amendment goes before voters

FILE - Missouri residents and pro-choice advocates react to a speaker during Missourians for Constitutionals Freedom kick-off petition drive, Feb. 6, 2024, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Ed Zurga, File)

Missouri Supreme Court to decide whether an abortion-rights amendment goes before voters

WASHINGTON (AP) — With characteristic bravado, Donald Trump has vowed that if voters return him to the White House, “inflation will vanish completely."

It’s a message tailored for Americans who are still exasperated by the jump in consumer prices that began 3 1/2 years ago.

Yet most mainstream economists say Trump’s policy proposals wouldn't vanquish inflation. They’d make it worse. They warn that his plans to impose huge tariffs on imported goods, deport millions of migrant workers and demand a voice in the Federal Reserve's interest rate policies would likely send prices surging.

Sixteen Nobel Prize-winning economists signed a letter in June expressing fear that Trump's proposals would “reignite’’ inflation, which has plummeted since peaking at 9.1% in 2022 and is nearly back to the Fed’s 2% target.

Last month, the Peterson Institute for International Economics predicted that Trump’s policies would drive consumer prices sharply higher two years into his second term. Peterson's analysis concluded that inflation, which would otherwise register 1.9% in 2026, would instead jump to between 6% and 9.3% if Trump's economic proposals were adopted.

Many economists aren’t thrilled with Vice President Kamala Harris’ economic agenda, either. They dismiss, for example, her proposal to combat price gouging as an ineffective tool against high grocery prices. But they don’t regard her policies as particularly inflationary.

Moody’s Analytics has estimated that Harris' policies would leave the inflation outlook virtually unchanged, even if she enjoyed a Democratic majority in both chambers of Congress. An unfettered Trump, by contrast, would leave prices higher by 1.1 percentage points in 2025 and 0.8 percentage points in 2026.

Taxes on imports — tariffs — are Trump’s go-to economic policy. He argues that tariffs protect American factory jobs from foreign competition and deliver a host of other benefits.

While in office, Trump started a trade war with China, imposing high tariffs on most Chinese goods. He also raised import taxes on foreign steel and aluminum, washing machines and solar panels. He has grander plans for a second term: Trump wants to impose a 60% tariff on all Chinese goods and a “universal’’ tariff of 10% or 20% on everything else that enters the United States.

Trump insists that the cost of taxing imported goods is absorbed by the foreign countries. The truth is that U.S. importers pay the tariff — and then typically pass along that cost to consumers in the form of higher prices. Americans themselves end up bearing the cost.

Kimberly Clausing and Mary Lovely of the Peterson Institute have calculated that Trump’s proposed 60% tax on Chinese imports and his high-end 20% tariff on everything else would, in combination, impose an after-tax loss on a typical American household of $2,600 a year.

The Trump campaign notes that U.S. inflation remained low even as Trump aggressively imposed tariffs as president.

But Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said that the magnitude of Trump’s current tariff proposals has vastly changed the calculations. “The Trump tariffs in 2018-19 didn’t have as large an impact as the tariffs were only just over $300 billion in mostly Chinese imports,’’ he said. “The former president is now talking about tariffs on over $3 trillion in imported goods.''

And the inflationary backdrop was different during Trump’s first term when the Fed worried that inflation was too low, not too high.

Trump, who has invoked incendiary rhetoric about immigrants, has promised the “largest deportation operation'' in U.S. history.

Many economists say the increased immigration over the past couple years helped tame inflation while avoiding a recession.

The surge in foreign-born workers has made it easier for fill vacancies. That helps cool inflation by easing the pressure on employers to sharply raise pay and to pass on their higher labor costs by increasing prices.

Net immigration — arrivals minus departures — reached 3.3 million in 2023, more than triple what the government had expected. Employers needed the new arrivals. As the economy roared back from pandemic lockdowns, companies struggled to hire enough workers to keep up with customer orders.

Immigrants filled the gap. Over the past four years, the number of people in the United States who either have a job or are looking for one rose by nearly 8.5 million. Roughly 72% of them were foreign born.

Wendy Edelberg and Tara Watson of the Brookings Institution found that by raising the supply of workers. the influx of immigrants allowed the United States to generate jobs without overheating the economy.

In the past, economists estimated that America’s employers could add no more than 100,000 jobs a month without igniting inflation. But when Edelberg and Watson factored in the immigration surge, they found that monthly job growth could reach 160,000 to 200,000 without exerting upward pressure on prices.

Trump's mass deportations, if carried out, would change everything. The Peterson Institute calculates that the U.S. inflation rate would be 3.5 percentage points higher in 2026 if Trump managed to deport all 8.3 million undocumented immigrant workers thought to be working in the United States.

Trump alarmed many economists in August by saying he would seek to have “a say” in the Fed’s interest rate decisions.

The Fed is the government’s chief inflation-fighter. It attacks high inflation by raising interest rates to restrain borrowing and spending, slow the economy and cool the rate of price increases.

Economic research has found that the Fed and other central banks can properly manage inflation only if they're kept independent of political pressure. That’s because raising rates can cause economic pain — perhaps a recession — so it's anathema to politicians seeking reelection.

As president, Trump frequently hounded Jerome Powell, the Fed chair he had chosen, to lower rates to try to juice the economy. For many economists, Trump's public pressure on Powell exceeded even the attempts that Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon made to push previous Fed chairs to keep rates low — moves that were widely blamed for helping spur the chronic inflation of the late 1960s and ’70s.

The Peterson Institute report found that upending the Fed's independence would increase inflation by 2 percentage points a year.

FILE - Cranes and transporters work at an automated container port in Qingdao in eastern China's Shandong province on July 7, 2024. (Chinatopix Via AP, File)

FILE - Freshly picked bananas float in a sorting pool as they are readied for packing and export at a farm in Ciudad Hidalgo, Chiapas state, Mexico on May 31 2019. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)

FILE - A member of the Texas delegation holds a sign during the Republican National Convention on July 17, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

FILE - An array of solar panels float on top of a water storage pond in Sayreville, N.J., April 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

Trump's economic plans would worsen inflation, experts say

Trump's economic plans would worsen inflation, experts say

FILE - Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks along the southern border with Mexico, on Aug. 22, 2024, in Sierra Vista, Ariz. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)