Doe v. Reed

Doe v. Reed
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 28, 2010 Decided June 24, 2010
Full case name	Doe et al v. Reed, Washington Secretary of State, et al.
Docket nos.	09-559
Citations	561 U.S.___ (2010)
Holding
Disclosure of referendum petitions does not as a general matter violate the First Amendment.
Court membership
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer Samuel Alito · Sonia Sotomayor
Case opinions
Majority	Roberts, joined by Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Alito, Sotomayor
Concurrence	Stevens (in part, and in judgment), joined by Breyer
Concurrence	Scalia (in judgment)
Concurrence	Breyer (in judgment)
Concurrence	Alito (in part)
Concurrence	Sotomayor, joined by Stevens, Ginsburg
Dissent	Thomas
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. I

Doe v. Reed, 561 U.S. ___ (2010), is a United States Supreme Court case which holds that the disclosure of signatures on a referendum does not violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Background

Main article: Washington Referendum 71 (2009)

The Washington State Constitution contains provisions for a referendum system whereby citizens resident in the state may challenge state law. For a challenge to be added to the ballot, a petition must be submitted to the Secretary of State of Washington containing the signatures of registered voters equivalent to 4% of those who voted in the last gubernatorial election. For a signature to be considered valid, the signor must not only be a registered voter but also provide his address as well as the county in which he was registered to vote.

Following a proposed bill to extend the rights afforded to those in domestic partnerships (so that they would be looked upon by the law as if they were married) in Washington, Protect Marriage Washington, an anti-gay marriage group, led a campaign to have the proposal brought forth as a referendum. This effort succeeded, however the referendum narrowly came out in favour of the bill to expand the rights afforded to those in a domestic partnership. Subsequent to this, a number of individuals requested the signature lists used to bring the question to referendum, as these were historically considered matters of public record relating to the passage of legislation. Protect Marriage Washington filed to block the release of these signatures "due to the highly charged nature of the topic." The issue was moved to the Supreme Court when Anthony Kennedy issued a temporary injunction barring the release of the signatures on October 19, 2009. The arguments were heard on April 28, 2010, with the June 24, 2010 decision seeing the constitutionality of the Public Records Act under which the request for signatures had been made in an 8-1 decision, with Thomas dissenting.

Opinion

The court found, with only Clarence Thomas dissenting, that the law in Washington state allowing for public disclosure of petition signatures for ballot initiatives was not an infringement on First Amendment rights because citizens, in signing the petition, were exercising their right to legislate, a process which is generally not protected by secrecy.

Justice Antonin Scalia, in a separate concurring opinion, disagreed with the last assertion, believing that any citizen who exercises his/her right to legislate cannot be protected by anonymity under any condition. "Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed. For my part, I do not look forward to a society which, thanks to the Supreme Court, campaigns anonymously and even exercises the direct democracy of initiative and referendum hidden from public scrutiny and protected from the accountability of criticism."

Related Cases

• NAACP v. Alabama
• Brown v. Socialist Workers ’74 Campaign Committee
• McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission
• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 561

External links

• Who is Publius? or, Who's Afraid of Anonymous Political Speech?, Reason.com (10-18-2010)