The U.S. District Court of Oregon ruled Wednesday that prohibiting ballot petition circulators from being paid for each signature they gather is constitutional.
In a case that challenged Measure 26, which Oregonians voted in by a two-to-one margin in November 2002, the plaintiffs said the law restricts free speech rights and the right to petition for grievances.
The law seeks to prevent fraud in the gathering of signatures on petitions. Under the law, petitioners can still be paid an hourly wage.
The plaintiffs, three Oregonians involved in the petition process, said the law restricts their right to political speech by making the petition process prohibitively expensive, inefficient and subject to a higher rate of falsified signatures, according to the judge’s opinion statement.
The plaintiffs could not be reached for comment, but they are expected to file an appeal.
Judge Ann Aiken relied heavily on evidence of fraud in signature gathering in her decision, focusing in particular on testimony and cases showing that paying people by the number of signatures they gather is a strong incentive for forging names.
The strong public support for the measure was also evidence that there was an “interest in restoring public confidence” in the ballot measure process, Aiken wrote in her decision.
“This was a very challenging case for the state,” said Kevin Neely, spokesman for state Attorney General Hardy Myers. He added that the decision, in which the state was the defendant, was “a very important victory.”
“The initiative process has the capacity to create enormous change within the state and our society, and any effort to interfere with that process can have exceptional consequences,” he said. “I think the voters decided it was more important to ensure the integrity of that process than a free speech assertion.”
He added that the state asserts the law prevents fraud and doesn’t necessarily infringe of free speech.
University Professor Garrett Epps, an expert in constitutional law, said that the case was potentially a landmark one, though he wasn’t sure Aiken’s decision would stand up on appeal.
“There is, in fact, a matter of free speech,” he said.
Epps said he believed and wrote when the measure was passed that it was unconstitutional, saying it involves a “very serious First Amendment interest.”
The law is a First Amendment issue because it deals with the way that people spread their political message, he said.
Epps added that the case required what is called a balancing test.
“What the court has to do is balance the interest in free speech … against the state interest on the other hand to prevent fraud and overreaching by signature gatherers,” he said.
Epps said there have been several cases throughout the nation involving restrictions on petition-gathering and free speech issues which fell on both sides of the fence as to whether such restrictions were unconstitutional, though none of the cases involved laws exactly like Oregon’s.
“It’s not the end of the story by a long shot,” Epps said. “This could definitely go on to the Supreme Court.”