Ordinance petition drive halted in Roosevelt County

A petition drive calling for an election over the Roosevelt County anti-abortion clinic ordinance has been withdrawn over what organizers termed possible “safety” concerns.

In addition, Krista Pietsch, a Portales woman who said she intended to file a lawsuit calling for an election on the issue with presentation of signed petitions, said she no longer intends to file the action, because the petition is being withdrawn.

“The petition drive was stopped due to what took place in Clovis with the possibility of the names of those who signed the petition being printed in the paper,” said Tate Turnbough, Roosevelt County Democratic Party chair. “I did not want to risk anyone’s safety or privacy by having their names published.”

Turnbough said he was unaware of the state law regarding the publishing of names and addresses of petition signers until Wednesday when he heard about it from representatives of Eastern New Mexico Rising. That group started a petition calling for an election in Clovis over the city’s anti-abortion ordinance.

“It’s a state statute about what must be done if a petition is not certified,” Clovis City Clerk LeighAnn Melancon said. “Had the petition been certified as valid we wouldn’t be needing to publish the names, addresses and signatures.”

Melancon said the purpose of publicly naming those who sign a failed petition is to ensure accuracy. If a person sees their name has been invalidated, that person can come to the clerk’s office and present evidence their name was wrongfully purged, she said.

Roosevelt County Clerk Mandi Park was not available for comment Thursday.

Michael Garcia, Roosevelt County’s attorney, said on Feb. 2 that state law would not allow an election to challenge the ordinance in Roosevelt County, anyway as Roosevelt County is not a “home-rule” county where calling an election to challenge an ordinance based on a petition would be allowed.

In Clovis, Eastern New Mexico Rising, a Clovis-based organization that calls itself a “non-partisan, progressive movement,” submitted a petition with 449 signatures, more than the minimum of 269 required to force an election. But Melancon said only 238 of the signatures were valid.

The Clovis city charter requires the petition include signatures of 20% of the voters who cast ballots in the last municipal election. The last municipal election attracted 1,346 voters, meaning the group had to secure at least 269 valid signatures from registered voters.

Turnbough said the Roosevelt County Democrats didn’t want to withdraw their petition, but “If it protects the safety and privacy of these members who signed then that’s what we will do,” Turnbough said.

Turnbough said petition signers were not made aware that their names and addresses could be made public.

“In the climate we live in, publishing peoples’ addresses and names just seems to be a major safety and privacy concern,” he said. “These nuts coming from Texas, I have no doubt might go to some of their homes and harass them. We stop(ped) the petition process strictly due to the fact of wanting to protect the safety and privacy of those members who signed.”

Pietsch said she understood the intent of the state law requiring publication of the signatures, but said people “for whatever reason see this from an insidious point of view.”

David Stevens, publisher of The Eastern New Mexico News, said it’s disappointing that some of those who signed petitions were not aware that their names and addresses could be published in the newspaper as the law requires.

“I’ve published an opinion piece on this topic, saying these anti-abortion ordinances are examples of big government run amok,” Stevens said. “That’s becoming more apparent every day.

“But our advertising and news departments will remain neutral. We will report both sides of the issue as fairly as we can. We will accept advertising from those who support the ordinance and those who oppose the ordinance. And we will publish legal notices related to this matter as the law requires.”

Steve Hansen of The News contributed to this article.