It’s been a long road for medical cannabis in Nebraska, and after years of fighting, activists have repeatedly encountered roadblocks in getting a legalization measure before voters on the ballot. Now, supporters of medical cannabis in the state are launching a legal challenge to the state’s requirement that 5% of registered voters in at least 38 counties sign a petition to place the measure before voters.
Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana joined the ACLU of Nebraska to file the federal civil rights lawsuit in the U.S. District Court, requesting a decision by July 7 on whether the requirement is constitutional. The organizations also requested a court order to suspend the requirement by that date, which is also the deadline for petitioners to submit their collected signatures for the measure.
“Today we made HUGE progress toward getting on the ballot by filing a lawsuit that would end a requirement that violates Nebraskans’ rights and hurts everyone by making it harder for Nebraskans to engage in direct democracy,” Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana posted on their Facebook account. “Millionaires should not be the only people in our state who can petition their government.”
The post added that the current requirements are unconstitutional and limit the ability for Nebraskans to petition their government.
“Every Nebraskan deserves equal say in our state’s ballot qualification process,” the organization wrote.
Currently, Nebraskans are able to try to add, change or repeal laws by collecting a certain number of signatures. For Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, this means 87,000 signatures for each of its two related petitions. This is in addition to meeting a geographical requirement. If petitioners cannot obtain signatures from 5% of registered voters in at least 38 counties (or two-fifths of the state’s 93 total counties), the issue will not be added to the ballot.
The lawsuit states that the requirement violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of free speech and the 14th Amendment’s equal protection and due process clauses. Because the state’s counties have a wide variance in population, the requirement gives “disproportionate influence to voters in sparsely populated countries,” according to the lawsuit.
One example shows that a single voter in Arthur County carries as much power as 1,216 Douglas County voters surrounding whether or not respective counties will meet the signature threshold. This structure ultimately dilutes the votes of residents in urban areas, according to the groups.
Echoing the sentiments of the group’s Facebook post, the lawsuit also raises a First Amendment claim, honing in on the burdens of cost and the additional hindrances the current structure puts on campaigns.
Crista Eggers is a plaintiff in the lawsuit and the statewide campaign coordinator for Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana. Eggers said that the current regulations make it “so prohibitive for Nebraskans without massive bank accounts to change our laws,” even on popular issues, where she references opening access to medical cannabis to “people who are suffering in Nebraska.”
Eggers has been at the forefront of Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana’s fight for years. She also has a 7-year-old son, who has suffered from severe epileptic seizures since he was two years old, and has been vocal in the past about the amount of others in the state in need of care without means or the desire to move states.
State Senator Adam Morfield, and co-chair of the medical cannabis campaign, also spoke out and said that courts have struck down similar requirements in other states like Idaho, Utah and Wyoming.
“In every other state where a federal or state court has reviewed a similar requirement they have struck it down as unconstitutional – finding that it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the United States. Other geographic schemes have been found constitutional,” Morfield said on Twitter.
ACLU of Nebraska Attorney Daniel Gutman also said in a statement that Nebraskans have the right to an “unencumbered petition process.” While states can require that petitions must have support from certain geographic areas of the state, he said “the Constitution is clear that it has to be done in a way in which everyone has equal say. The current system violates Nebraskans’ rights and hurts everyone by making it harder for Nebraskans to engage in direct democracy.”
