Nevada law requires that all initiatives be accompanied by an official explanation of their effects, so that voters can make more informed decisions. But the explanation accompanying the Nevada personhood measure only discussed its effects on the legality of abortion and said nothing about the effects it could have on other health-care services.

Critics of personhood measures have long argued that redefining life could have several unintended consequences, potentially affecting cancer and disease research, as well as in vitro fertilization.

Yesterday’s ruling is likely a setback for personhood supporters, many of whom have argued that their measures would not limit women’s access to basic health-care services or birth control and would only ban abortion.

Despite those claims, Nevada District Judge James E. Wilson ordered the Nevada Prolife Coalition, the group sponsoring the amendment, to include the following language in the initiative before it can begin collecting signatures:

The initiative would protect a prenatal person regardless of whether or not the prenatal person would live, grow, or develop in the womb or survive birth; prevent all abortions even in the case of rape, incest, or serious threats to the woman’s health or life, or when a woman is suffering from a miscarriage, or as an emergency treatment for an ectopic pregnancy. The initiative will impact some rights Nevada women currently have to access certain fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization. The initiative will impact some rights Nevada women currently have to utilize some forms of birth control, including the “pill;” and to access certain fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization. The initiative will affect embryonic stem cell research, which offers potential for treating diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, and others.

Though many have deemed the personhood movement “extreme,” it’s not just fringe groups that support the measures. Presidential candidates Michele Bachman, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry have all signed a pledge to support personhood.

The Nevada Prolife Coalition must collect 72,352 valid signatures by June to get the measure on the state’s 2012 ballot.

According to a spokesperson for Personhood’s Florida affiliate, the movement to place a personhood amendment on Florida’s 2014 ballot is currently underway.

But Bachmann’s voting record in the U.S. House of Representatives has not reflected her rhetoric at last night’s debate. From the transcript:

ANDERSON COOPER: Congresswoman Bachmann, does the federal government have a role in keeping people in their homes, saving people from foreclosure, in the state of Nevada?

MICHELE BACHMANN: That was the question that was initially asked. And what I want to say is this — every day I’m out somewhere in the United States of America, and most of the time I’m talking to moms across this country. When you talk about housing, when you talk about foreclosures, you’re talking about women who are at the end of their rope because they’re losing their nest for their children and for their family. And there are women right now all across this country and moms across this country whose husbands, through no fault of their own, are losing their job, and they can’t keep that house. And there are women who are losing that house.

I’m a mom. I talk to these moms. I just want to say one thing to moms all across America tonight. This is a real issue. It’s got to be solved. President Obama has failed you on this issue of housing and foreclosures. I will not fail you on this issue. I will turn this country around. We will turn the economy around. We will create jobs. That’s how you hold on to your house.

Hold on, moms out there. It’s not too late.

As The American Independent’s sister site The Minnesota Independent previously reported, in March, Bachmann voted to defund the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) in a bill titled the “FHA Refinance Program Termination Act.” Within that same bill, Bachmann voted against an amendment that would have saved a portion of HAMP for senior citizens whose mortgages are in negative equity, or “underwater.”

The Minnesota Independent has also reported that Minnesota’s 6th District, which Bachmann represents, suffered the highest foreclosure rates in the state in 2008 (estimated at 5,227) and 2009. Nevertheless, the congresswoman has voted against all but one measure aimed at foreclosure relief during her time in office, including: the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which included provisions to help struggling homeowners, signed into law by former President George W. Bush; the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act; the Neighborhood Stabilization Act, intended to provide funds to communities to buy and rehabilitate foreclosed homes; and the Expand and Preserve Home Ownership Through Counseling Act, the goal of which was to improve homeowners’ financial literacy.

In February 2009, Bachmann talked about the national foreclosure crisis on her blog in a way that did not reflect the sympathy she was trying to convey to women during Tuesday’s presidential debate:

When President Obama released his plan this week to prevent home foreclosures, the point he wanted to get across to everyone watching was that money from folks who have been making their payments on time will not just be handed over to those folks who got in over their heads and bought a house they knew they couldn’t afford.

It’s estimated that around four million homeowners are in danger of foreclosure, and in order to help them out, part of the President’s plan creates a $75 billion program that would go towards reducing a homeowner’s monthly mortgage payment. That breaks down to about $18,750 per home.

Now, we can debate whether this is the right thing to do as it may seem that you’re rewarding the irresponsible while punishing those who have been playing by the rules.

Watch snippets from last night’s debate, including Bachmann’s statements on foreclosures and her promise to moms, produced by HuffPost Politics:

SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser went on CNN’s In the Arena on Thursday and said there was “vagueness” when it comes to the abortion-rights positions of Huntsman, as well as Mitt Romney and Herman Cain, who both also refused to sign SBA’s pledge.

“We don’t know what we don’t know,” Dannenfelser said in response to the host’s insistence that all three candidates had stated their commitment to “pro-life” agendas.

Despite his refusal to sign pledges in general, Huntsman was the first presidential hopeful to respond to a presidential “Family 2012″ challenge from the South Carolina Focus on the Family affiliate Palmetto Family Council, saying in a letter that he would make restricting abortion rights a prominent part of his campaign.

GOP presidential hopefuls Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), Newt Gingrich, Rep. Ron Paul (Texas), Tim Pawlenty, Rick Santorum and Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (Mich.) have attached their names to a promise to nominate federal judges that do not “legislate from the bench” as the SBA List puts it; to appoint only “pro-life” cabinet members, particularly those who would head the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Justice and the Department of Health & Human Services; to advance “pro-life” legislation and defund Planned Parenthood; and to sign into federal law the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.”

Asked if the pledge “marginalizes this as a wedge issue when so many people are focused on jobs and the economy,” Dannenfelser responded:

[W]hat this does is to put to rest to the extent that it needs to be where each of the Republican candidates, and any candidate, where they sit in terms of the pro-life position. Once we know — and the voters deserve to know what their position is — then it can be weaved into the context of all the other issues that America is talking about right now. When it is a problem is when there is vagueness.

During the brief interview, Dannenfelser also explained the SBA List’s legislative strategy behind the wording of the pledge, specifically in the insistence that candidates commit to appointing people with anti-abortion rights views to specific cabinet positions:

What anybody who is a pro-life president will do is advance pro-life legislation. Once that legislation is passed and signed into law, an attorney general, who is a team member’s job will be to defend that once it has been enjoined, which almost all of it will surely be enjoined by pro-choice activists and it is an attorney general’s job also to vet judges. And abortion comes as a central subject of conversation in almost every federal judge and Supreme Court judge nomination process, so an attorney general is vital in pursuing the pro-life agenda.

Watch the interview:

On the Democratic side, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has announced her desire to be Minority Leader and Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) says he wants to remain whip. According to TPM’s Josh Marshall, the practical effect is that there’s no room for Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.):

The next person down the totem poll is John Larson as Caucus Chairman. According to Roll Call, Pelosi is encouraging (sub.req.) him to run for Caucus Chair again. So Pelosi moves down, Clyburn and Larson remain in place. So there’s no room for Hoyer. He’s standing when the music stops. And he’s got no chair.

The key tell here is that Pelosi seems to be encouraging the people down the totem poll to stay in place. So she’s blocking Hoyer’s ability to perhaps get Clyburn to agree to step down the ladder with him.

I think I remember this scene from The Godfather.

Pelosi hasn’t officially weighed in on the budding Hoyer v. Clyburn battle for Whip, but Marshall is right to note that by not encouraging the rest of her leadership team to move a step down the rung, she’s effectively squeezing Hoyer out.

On the other side of the aisle, Republicans are delicately — or, at times, not so delicately — trying to foil Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-Minn.) bid to challenge Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) for a Republican House leadership position:

“Bachmann will have a tough time convincing anyone that Hensarling isn’t conservative enough,” a House Republican aide told The Daily Caller. “She’ll have an even tougher time convincing the conference that she wouldn’t take our whole team down in flames with her antics.”

Another House Republican staffer aligned with the most conservative elements of the party called Hensarling “literally unbeatable.”

Working in Republicans’ favor is the fact that Hensarling is widely considered to represent that same kind of “constitutional conservatism” (he opposed TARP, etc.) that Bachmann says she could bring to the table. Working against them is the fact that few people outside of his district have ever heard of Hensarling and his nomination could thus be seen as a slight to the budding Tea Party caucus which is just starting to feel its oats.

Angle’s haul, reports the Las Vegas Sun, brings her fundraising numbers nearly on pace with Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.), which says it has raised almost $20 million so far in the six-year cycle that began in 2005. Bachmann’s prowess, meanwhile, will likely turn heads in Congress, notes the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where an average House race winner in 2008 still managed to get by raising a mere $1.4 million during the entire campaign cycle.

The numbers put up by these GOP women testify to their popularity within the party, as well as to the fact that even in areas of campaign finance in which individual donations are still strictly limited, like political action committees belonging to candidates, the amount of political spending has been breaking all sorts of records during the present campaign cycle.

The ad in question spends a lot of time criticizing Hagel but is rather short on Sestak’s particular shortcomings. An accompanying website mentions that Sestak once signed a letter asking President Obama to pressure Israel to relax its security measures on the Gaza border. It cites, oddly, a New York Times article that mentions the frustrating and overly burdensome restrictions that were then in place. It also mentions the fact that Sestak gave a keynote speech at an event for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and repeats the claim that CAIR is “a supporter of terrorism.” This claim is based largely on the fact that CAIR was once mentioned as an “unindicted coconspirator” in a terrorism-related trial, which, as the term suggests, means the group was never convicted, nor even indicted, for its any of its actions. It neglects to mention that Gov. Ed Rendell (D-Pa.) and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (D-Pa.) have also attended the CAIR event in Philadelphia in previous years and neither stands accused of hating the state of Israel.

The ad campaign is backed by the Republican Jewish Coalition, whose PAC has thus far spent money this election cycle donating to Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.), Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), and a host of other Republicans. It has less to do with Sestak’s beliefs and more to do with an effort to sow doubts among Pennsylvania’s pro-Israel population by distorting them.

“The decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City and give him all the benefits and perks reserved for American citizens is a slap in the face of the 9/11 victim’s families, the American people, and the men and women who risk their lives to defend our liberties each and every day,” said Bachmann in a statement released after the press conference.

Curiously, many of those protesting the accused terrorists’ trial in federal court repeatedly refer to a federal court trial and its attendant due process rights as being “reserved for U.S. citizens.” At a rally last weekend in New York City, for example, protesters and speakers repeatedly objected that the 9/11 defendants were being given “the same rights as U.S. citizens.”

In fact, the “right” to be prosecuted in a U.S. federal court has never been “reserved” for U.S. citizens at all. It’s historically been a “right” accorded to anyone who commits a crime on U.S. soil. Thus everyone from a U.S.-born citizen to an illegal alien who commits a federal crime in the United States gets tried in federal court. Although the government has just recently created special military commissions to try some crimes against U.S. military targets abroad, we don’t normally create new courts or legal systems to try non-citizens who commit mass murder, mail fraud, or any other crimes that might land them in federal court.

“If President Obama admits that we are a nation at war, then we should act like one,” continued Bachmann in her statement. “Justice for the 9/11 attackers should be swift and conclusive, something that won’t be done when KSM exploits the abundant appeals and legal loopholes he has been inexplicably awarded as a foreign combatant,” said Bachmann.

Bachmann didn’t mention that there have been only three military commission trials since they were created by President George W. Bush because detainees challenged the constitutionality of the military commissions — and won.

The proceedings that began last week under the supposedly new-and-improved military commissions signed into law by President Obama already suggest that we’ll be seeing more of the same.

“What he’s trying to do is boost up the Democrats,” said Bachmann. “The people aren’t listening to him the way that they did before. They were hanging on his every word [before].”

Last week, said Bachmann, was “the first time I felt like we were going to win this thing. I sensed it when the president was in Minnesota. There were a lot of sycophants in that hall. There were not a lot of true believers in that hall.” Republicans were winning over skeptics when they brought “reality-based medicine” into the discussion.

Bachmann, who said last week that Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) “spoke the truth” about illegal immigrants and health care, cited Wilson again when he criticized the White House’s response to the 9/12 march on Washington.

“Probably one of the best lines last week,” she said, “apart from the one that we heard on the house floor, would have been last Friday, when the press asked Robert Gibbs what the White House thought about the Tea Parties on Saturday. I thought it was fascinating. The response was, the White House wasn’t aware of any events on Saturday. And I thought, could there be a more out of touch, politically tone-deaf response than to say we have no idea more than a million people are going to come to our fair city?”

Bachmann cited Wilson again when she reported back on an encounter she had with Democrats at the Minnesota State Fair, when she got up to give a speech on a soapboax.

“The great thing is the Democratic booth was kitty-corner,” she said, “and they came over, and I was answering questions, and they were yelling ‘Liar, liar!’” It was the best town hall meeting that I’ve had.”

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Minnesota Republican congresswoman Michelle Bachmann stirred up a media storm Friday when she told MSNBC’s “Hardball With Chris Mathews” that “the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look — I wish they would — take a great look at the views of people in Congress and find out [if] they [are] pro-America or anti-America.”

Today, a spokesman for Bachmann had no suggestions as to which questions reporters should ask lawmakers to determine if they are pro- or anti-American. “You guys know what kinds of questions to ask,” Bachmann’s spokeswoman, Michelle Marsten, said in a phone interview Monday. “It’s not for us to decide.”

Asked which members of Congress the media should interview, Marsten said her boss had “no one in mind.”

Bachmann’s call for an inquiry into the patriotism of members of Congress, which spread rapidly in the liberal blogosphere, helped her opponent, Elwyn Tinklenberg, to raise more than $650,000 over the weekend. A Democratic poll released last week showed Tinklenberg trailing Bachmann by just four percentage points, 42-38, in a race that until recently was considered safe for the incumbent.

Bachmann told a local TV station this morning that her remarks had been “misread.” While she has enjoyed a high-profile run as Republican spokesman in the fall campaign, her remarks on “Hardball” is the latest gaffe in a series of controversial statements that have marked her tenure in Congress.