Coming up against aggressive questioning from several justices, particularly Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, attorney James Bopp – challenging Washington’s disclosure requirements as violating the First Amendment – was almost lectured by Scalia, ”Running a democracy takes a certain amount of civic courage.”

The question before the court was two-fold, with justices first deciding whether the action of signing the Referendum 71 petition was a ”legislative act” or purely ”political speech” and then, depending on that decision, determining whether the state’s disclosure requirements are permissible.

Scalia began the questioning at the court, asking how Washington’s petition signers’ disclosure requirements were different from the campaign finance disclosure rules upheld in the court’s 1976 case of Buckley v. Valeo. Bopp began by answering that the state interests were less significant here than in that case – calling the value of this disclosure ”marginal” at several points – and that the possibility of harassment was at issue in this case.

http://www.metroweekly.com/news/?ak=5133