I had not been aware of this upcoming case nor of the possible referendum about same-sex marriage.
Perhaps I might feel differently if I studied this issue in more detail, but as a staunch advocate for ‘privacy’ and as an equally strong champion of the rights of the individual, my first reaction is to think that the Times editors are wrong. Indeed, why must I divulge my identity as a prerequisite for attempting to effect a change in the law (or, more accurately perhaps, for attempting to create a vehicle that might lead to a change in the law)? What matters with respect to a referendum such as described above, is that it is a ‘citizen’ who signs it. Whether said citizen chooses to reveal his/her name is irrelevant and should be decided only by that citizen.
If fear of fraud is a concern (e.g. ensuring that only citizens sign, and only sign once at that), signatories identification can (and should) be checked at the time/place they sign, but the default must be that their identity is kept confidential.
Obviously, when I vote, my choices are kept confidential. Why should that same standard not also apply to petitions seeking to create a means of changing laws?
Who should do this checking? If it is done by those circulating the petition, how can opponents of the measure challenge the signatures? If potential signers are required to appear at a government office to identify themselves and sign, the burden on those circulating the petition are increased and the chance of success go down.
I might sign a petition if you knock on my door. I’m probably not going to go stand in line on my lunch hour to sign it.
On the one hand, we do have a tradition, dating at least back to the pseudonymous Publius of the Federalist Papers, of important political speech taking place by anonymous speakers. Our First Amendment generally proscribes coerced speech, including disclosure of one’s identity.
On the other hand, this isn’t just speech but a form of legislation. Nobody is saying that these petition-signing could not advocate anonymously. Now it is true that the right to petition is another First Amendment freedom, but the Constitution gives no guidance as to how it should be implemented (a point I shall return to presently). Plenty of important personal and political acts—marriage, divorce, birth, campaign contributing—require public disclosure. Others, like voting, do not.
Surely you wouldn’t disagree that the state legislature could pass vote-disclosing rules for its membership. As it happens, the traditional parliamentary rule is for unrecorded voice voting, but our Constitution (and I imagine the rules of order of most state legislatures) provide for roll call votes on the demand of a minority of the members present (in the case of Congress, one-fifth). I doubt anyone considers this an invasion of members’ privacy interests.
Ultimately, we do have a system for settling these questions of procedure: our elected legislatures, which regulate the matters assigned to them by the Constitution and not otherwise preempted by that document. I think this matter of the passage of laws, whether by the legislature or by referendum, falls in this category. When the state passed its laws about the passage of other laws, it was not targeting any particular cause or proposed legislation. At that time, the people’s representatives obviously believed that publicizing the identities of the petition-signers was in the best interests of the body politic. I see no reason for the judicial branch to upset that conclusion.
The NYT editorial didn’t specify, but I believe that it’s referring to Referendum 71 (which had to do with domestic partnership, not same-sex marriage).
As I understand it, the issue is the nature of the beast. One side holds that someone who signs an initiative or referendum is acting in the same capacity as a legislator, whose actions are not subject to privacy protection; the other holds that the signature is equivalent to a vote, which is protected.
The fact that the subject matter is highly volatile adds to the furor. More than a few people who signed the petitions have expressed fear of retaliation at the hands of “gay activists.” The nature of this perceived retaliation is somewhat vague: the only thing I’ve heard is that a gay rights organization has stated that it will publish the names on a web page.
(Personally, I think that the petitions themselves should be posted in the courthouse, like they uster do. Sometimes the old ways are preferable.)
So, I should tell you and everyone else how I vote in every election, on every referendum?
Again, without having given it much thought, I’d say that possibly it could be done in a way akin to what’s done when you enter a polling (voting) station.
No one (except maybe Brown Eyed Girl) wants us to have out voting choices made public. In my opinion, signing a petition is rather similar to voting. You’re voting in the affirmative by signing it. Not signing it, or maybe starting an opposing petition, is tantamount to voting against it. And I would want my ‘vote’ kept confidential.
(I feel compelled to add that my position here has, of course, nothing to do with my stance and feelings about GLBT rights, which I vehemently support).
Well, I’m not sure this is true. My point is that when we (or our elected officials) set ourselves to the task of coming up with a system to implement our right to petition/lawmaking by referendum, the system we came up with involved publicizing the identities of petition-signers.
If you think that sentiment has changed, the way to go about it would be lobbying the legislature for a change in the referendum law.
I’d also point out that there is no general constitutional right to a secret ballot (see, for example, states that hold their primaries via caucusing or various New England town meetings).
Did I ask how you vote? And if I did, which I won’t because I don’t really care, there’s no law prohibiting you from telling me or anyone else. Whether you *should *tell me is entirely up to you. What difference does it make?
Guess what? I’ve voted for Obama, McCain, and Perot. :smack: Make of it what you will.
I don’t really understand why the U.S. Supreme Court is getting involved in this aspect of government. I mean, it’s currently up to individual states to determine:
[list=“1”]
[li] If they want to allow initiatives/referendum by petition[/li][li] How signatures are collected and verified[/li][li] What quantity of signatures are needed for the initiative/referendum to become legit[/li][li] …all sorts of other things[/li][/list]
I guess I’m just wondering, how can the Supreme Court dictate how the privacy of signatures on a petition is handled, if it doesn’t even care whether these petitions exist in the first place?
If a referendum appears on the ballot, the privacy of one’s vote on it is protected.
Not necessarily. I have, in fact, signed petitions to get ballot initiative questions, or for that matter candidates, added to ballots, in cases where I was undecided as to what my own actual vote would be. I was simply supporting the notion that the question, or the candidate, deserved to stand or fall before the voters.
I’m with Alessan here. A petition hopes for majority support, & is non-anonymous by nature. If you are too afraid of your neighbors to sign the petition, you’re probably gonna lose anyhow.
I should have been clearer. I was trying to say that I am ‘voting’ in the affirmative with respect to whether the referendum should be held (and not how I was voting or would vote in the referendum itself).
I understood what you meant, and you were incorrect to think of this as a “vote.”
If it were a vote, then there would have to be a corollary list of people who did not want to see the matter on the ballot; if the second list got more names, the issue would be blocked from appearing.
That’s not how it works. (Even a counter-petition that did get more names wouldn’t matter; the threshold for ballot questions is simply a minimum level of support for letting the matter go forward. It is even possible to have two opposed ballot measures appear on the same ballot at the same time.)
I think the Court got it right. Also, I think existing laws can be used to punish/prevent violence against or harassment of those who sign unpopular petitions.