BANGOR, Maine (Legal Newsline) – Maine’s desire to keep out-of-state voices out of its political process is trumped by free speech rights, a federal judge has ruled.
Judge John Woodcock granted a preliminary injunction on Feb. 16 against a Maine law that requires petition circulators to be registered voters in the state. The challenge to the law comes from a political action committee, a state lawmaker and a professional circulator who resides in Michigan.
They want to circulate a petition that targets a ban on non-citizen voting. Woodcock’s ruling is a bit of a surprise, since he refused to grant a temporary restraining order only a month ago.
In his latest ruling, he wrote the use of federal judicial power to stop state regulation of the ballot initiative process should be include an evidentiary hearing, which did not happen in this case. He wrote his opinion “as a prelude to a challenge” in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit “for a more authoritative ruling.”
“While the Defendants contend that there are thousands of Maine residents ready and willing to circulate petitions for pay, the record shows the Maine residents the Plaintiffs have hired are not as efficient as professional out-of-state circulators,” Woodcock wrote.
“The fact that in the past five years, there were twelve petition drives using thousands of Maine residents and only one was unsuccessful does not change the conclusion. This evidence merely shows that it is possible to have a successful petition drive, despite the voter registration and residency restrictions.
“The fact that some petition drives have been able to overcome the obstacles the state of Maine has imposed against their success hardly justified the imposition of the obstacles in the first place. The record here demonstrates that signature collection efforts that currently require hundreds of Maine circulators can likely be done faster and more efficiently by a smaller number of professional circulators.”
We the People PAC, Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham and the Liberty Initiative Fund want to use a Michigan petition circulator to help their cause and filed suit challenging the law on Dec. 31.
They are circulating a petition to force the legislature to adopt a proposed ban on all non-citizen voting in the state or to place the issue on the next general election ballot as a direct initiative.
Nicholas Kowalski, a Michigan professional petition circulator, wants to help gather the required 63,067 signatures by Feb. 26 but is forbidden by state law because he is not registered to vote in Maine. The lawsuit challenges both the residency requirement and the voter registration requirement.
There are “serious legal issues” raised in their Dec. 31 complaint, Judge Woodcock ruled a month ago. He changed his opinion after the sides were able to present more of their arguments.
“Regardless whether the Plaintiffs here can collect sufficient signatures by using only Maine residents, the Plaintiffs have shown the inability to use out-of-state petition circulators is a severe burden,” he wrote.
“On the record before it, the Court is satisfied that the Plaintiffs carried their burden to show the inability to use out-of-state petition circulators is a severe burden on the exercise of their First Amendment rights.”
Woodcock hopes his ruling will be subject to appellate review, given the importance of the issue. Either Maine will appeal his order, the parties will freeze the order into a permanent injunction, or they will proceed with an evidentiary hearing on the pending motion for permanent injunction.