Justices Erase Scarlet Letter

WASHINGTON, D.C.: The Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling preventing Arkansas from branding legislators who do not vote for term limits. The case involved Amendment 9, a state ballot initiative stipulating that elected officials who did not enthusiastically support a particular version of a term limits bill would get a nasty reminder come election day: the words "Disregarded Voter Instruction on Term Limits" would be placed on the ballot next to their names. Opponents have called the measure a "Scarlet letter" in ridicule, while supporters have defended their efforts as representative of the public will. The Arkansas court struck down Amendment 9 as unconstitutional, saying it violated the Constitution's requirement that all amendments originate either in Congress or a state legislature. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled two years ago that neither Congress nor the separate states could unilaterally impose term limits, meaning that it would take a Constitutional amendment to implement limits. The ballot-branding idea is the brainchild of U.S. Term Limits, a citizens group which zealously advocates limiting service to 12 years in the U.S. Senate and 6 in the House; the group finds no other limits to tenure acceptable. Referenda with essentially the same details as the Arkansas measure have passed in Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Maine, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada and South Dakota. It is not immediately clear whether the Court's refusal to overturn the Arkansas case will directly affect those states.