BANGOR, Maine (Legal Newsline) - A Maine federal judge has entered judgment for a political group that challenged the state's petition circulation law.
Two years after issuing a preliminary injunction against the law, which required petition circulators to be registered voters in the state, Judge John Woodcock on Feb. 9 entered judgment for We The People PAC in its lawsuit against Maine election officials like Secretary of State Shenna Bellows.
Out-of-state circulators can submit to personal jurisdiction in Maine for purposes of any investigation or prosecution of alleged violation. They must maintain up-to-date contact information with the Secretary of State's office and must be responsive to requests from information from that office.
The State also has to pay $92,189.32 of the challenger's attorneys fees and costs.
Woodcock granted a preliminary injunction Feb. 22, 2021, for We The People, a state lawmaker and a professional circulator who resides in Michigan.
Woodcock wrote the use of federal judicial power to stop state regulation of the ballot initiative process should 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.”
The First Circuit affirmed his injunction last July after the State argued the registration requirement does not impose a severe burden.
"But, they develop no argument in favor of the converse - namely, that if the residency requirement does likely impose a severe burden, the registration requirement does not," the First Circuit wrote.
"Instead, they merely argue that the additional burden imposed by the registration requirement beyond the residency requirement is minimal, such that it does not result in the imposition of a severe burden on core political speech insofar as the residency requirement itself does not."
We The People wanted to circulate a petition that targets a ban on non-citizen voting but had to challenge the Maine circulationlaw to do so.
“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,” Woodcock wrote in 2021.
“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.”