Can't wait for the eventual release of the names so I can see if anyone I know wanted to limit my rights! Washington is a great state to live in for equal rights! By the way - Sunday is the Seattle Gay Pride! Can't wait - we have a large group getting together to attend. Let me know if you would like to join us!
Court refuses to keep petitioner IDs private
by Jesse J. Holland
Associated Press
Thursday Jun 24, 2010
People who sign petitions calling for public votes on controversial subjects don't have an automatic right to hide their names, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday as it sided against Washington state voters worried about harassment because of their desire to repeal that state's gay rights law.
The high court ruled against Protect Marriage Washington, which organized a petition drive for a public vote to repeal the state's "everything-but-marriage" gay rights law.
Petition signers wanted to hide their names because of worries of intimidation. But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco refused to keep their names secret. The Supreme Court stepped in and temporarily blocked release of the names until the high court could make a decision.
The court now says disclosing names on a petition for a public referendum does not chill the signer's freedom of speech enough to warrant overturning the state's disclosure law.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing the 8-1 judgment for the court, said it is vitally important that states be able to ensure that signatures on referendum petitions are authentic.
"Public disclosure thus helps ensure that the only signatures counted are those that should be, and that the only referenda placed on the ballot are those that garner enough valid signatures," Roberts said. "Public disclosure also promotes transparency and accountability in the electoral process to an extent other measures cannot."
But Roberts also said that the court's opinion deals with whether disclosure of the names on referendum petitions as a whole violates the First Amendment, not solely the Protect Marriage Washington case.
The intimidation that anti-gay rights supporters fear is not present in other referendum issues like tax policy, revenue, budget or other state law issues, Roberts said. "Voters care about such issues, some quite deeply - but there is no reason to assume that any burdens imposed by disclosure of typical referendum petitions would be remotely like the burdens plaintiffs fear in this case," he said.
But the chief justice added that Protect Marriage Washington could go back to the lower courts and try again on their specific concern in hopes of getting an exemption.
"Upholding the law against a broad based challenge does not foreclose a litigant's success in a narrower one," the chief justice said.
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