## Facts

- Initiative proponents sought to place the “Wyoming Human Life Protection Act” on the general election ballot, substantially restricting or criminalizing abortion with limited exceptions.
- Advocacy groups, physicians, and individual voters filed two consolidated pre-election actions to prevent the Secretary of State from certifying the initiative for the ballot.
- Plaintiffs argued the initiative was substantively unconstitutional under controlling federal abortion precedent and also alleged procedural defects.
- The procedural challenges included alleged violation of Wyoming’s single-subject and title/summary clarity requirements and an alleged error in the election-year basis used to calculate required signatures.
- The district court denied relief, and plaintiffs appealed; the Wyoming Supreme Court consolidated the appeals.

## Issues

1. Whether a pre-election challenge asserting that an initiative would be unconstitutional if enacted presents a justiciable controversy or instead seeks an advisory opinion.
2. Whether a court may enjoin placement of an initiative on the ballot based on predicted substantive unconstitutionality.
3. Whether the initiative violated Wyoming’s single-subject requirement or the requirement that the title and summary clearly express the measure’s subject.
4. Whether the initiative failed to qualify for the ballot because proponents used an incorrect election-year basis to compute the signature threshold.

## Decision

- The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed the district court and declined to block the initiative from appearing on the ballot.
- The court held that pre-election adjudication of an initiative’s substantive constitutionality would be an impermissible advisory opinion because the measure was not yet law and might never be enacted.
- The court recognized that pre-election review is available for certain procedural or structural challenges to the initiative process when a justiciable controversy exists.
- On the record presented, the court rejected the asserted procedural defects: it found the title and summary sufficiently expressed the general subject, the measure’s provisions were sufficiently related to constitute a single subject, and the signature-count method was acceptable under the governing provisions.

## Legal Principles

- Wyoming courts do not decide the substantive constitutionality of a proposed initiative before enactment; doing so constitutes an advisory opinion absent an enacted law and an actual controversy.
- Pre-election judicial review may be available for procedural or structural compliance with initiative requirements (including single-subject, title/summary clarity, and signature-qualification rules) when a justiciable controversy is shown.
- Single-subject and title/summary requirements are applied to determine whether the measure’s provisions are reasonably germane to a common purpose and whether the title/summary reasonably informs voters of the general subject.
- Absent a clear, disqualifying defect in the initiative process, courts will generally allow measures to proceed to the ballot, leaving substantive constitutional challenges for post-enactment litigation if the measure is adopted.

## Conclusion

The court refused to remove a proposed abortion-restricting initiative from the ballot based on anticipated conflict with federal constitutional doctrine, holding that such merits review before enactment would be advisory, while permitting (but rejecting here) pre-election challenges limited to procedural validity of the initiative process.


Wyo. Nat'l Abortion Rts. Action League v. Karpan, 881 P.2d 281 (Wyo. 1994)