Pubdate: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 Source: Denver Post (CO) Copyright: 1999 The Denver Post Website: http://www.denverpost.com/ Contact: Howard Pankratz PETITION CURBS STRUCK DOWN Jan. 13 - Unconstitutional restrictions have improperly stymied Colorado's citizen initiative process, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. The restrictions strike at the heart of free political speech and disenfranchise many people from participating in the political process, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote. The court struck down state requirements that petition circulators be registered voters and wear name badges, and that monthly reports be filed by ballot proponents naming paid circulators and the amounts paid to them. Ginsburg said the First Amendment requires the court to "guard against undue hindrances to political conversations and the exchange of ideas.'' The restrictions "significantly inhibit communication with voters about proposed political change.'' For example, she wrote, Colorado's requirement that signature gatherers be registered voters "drastically reduces the number of persons, both volunteer and paid, available to circulate petitions,'' and it restricts political speech. The decision was hailed by those who call the initiative process a grassroots way to bring about political change. Bill Orr, executive director of the American Constitutional Law Foundation, which challenged the restrictions in a 1993 lawsuit, called the ruling a "huge decision.'' "They basically said the state of Colorado is wrong,'' Orr said. Orr contended that in recent years there has been an effort to exclude the little guy from the initiative process. "There has been an ongoing effort for the last decades to cripple this process in the so-called holy name of avoiding fraud,'' Orr said. "The net effect of these so-called rules and regulations is to make the process virtually impossible for volunteer organizations. The number of petitions on the Colorado ballot over the last seven years has precipitously declined from the days prior to these regulations. "We believe that this decision will go a long way in erasing that trend,'' Orr said. Douglas Bruce, one of the state's biggest proponents of the initiative system, said he felt particularly vindicated. He said the Legislature implemented the restrictions "to prevent any kind of tax limitation or other limited-government effort'' from ever being on the ballot. Bruce said legislators were essentially telling voters: "We are going to make the process so restrictive and so difficult that you can never put anything on the (ballot) that we don't like.'' The state argued that the restrictions were necessary to prevent fraud. Attorney General Gale Norton, who left office Tuesday, had told the high court "there is every indication that without some reasonable regulation . . . fraud and abuse could increase.'' Deputy Attorney General Maurice Knaizer said Tuesday that was the experience of the state in 1992 when a federal judge temporarily stopped Colorado from enforcing the registered voter provision. "We found a tremendous increase in the number of complaints about circulators either misrepresenting the petitions or making false statements about the petitions,'' Knaizer said. "There was really no way we could track that because we couldn't tie in a particular petition to a particular circulator. We really had no way of tracking that down.'' This is not the first time Colorado's initiative rules have been struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1988, the court struck down a restriction that prohibited ballot sponsors from paying signature gatherers. Denver lawyer Paul Kenneth Grant had challenged the restriction. Grant, also involved in Tuesday's case, said the restriction requiring circulators to wear badges violated "a long-standing American tradition, which is the right to engage in anonymous political speech.'' Grant predicted that Tuesday's ruling would bring a strong reaction from state legislators in the form of more restrictions. - --- MAP posted-by: Rolf Ernst