http://www.insidedenver.com/blake/0813blake.shtml
Anti-gun initiative faces yet another court challenge
Peter Blake
The initiative closing the gun-show loophole may not yet be safely on the November ballot after all.
Paul Grant, attorney for Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, says he will file a suit within a week or two alleging that 40,000 to 50,000 of the 110,000 signatures submitted were gathered before the Colorado Supreme Court finally cleared the measure on July 3.
That, he says, violates a statute, 1-40-107(4), which says no petition "shall be circulated nor any signature thereto have any force or effect which has been signed before the titles, submission clause and summary have been fixed and determined." And according to another part of the law, says Grant, a petition isn't "fixed and determined" until the high court has ruled on it.
Grant's clients challenged the initiative earlier on grounds that it violated the single-subject rule, but the high court ruled against them in the July 3 decision. Nevertheless, Grant maintains the signature gathering couldn't start until that date.
Bill Hobbs of the secretary of state's office concedes there is "some ambiguity" in the law regarding starting dates and it has never been tested in court. His office warns initiative leaders that they gather signatures at their own risk prior to a Supreme Court ruling.
The secretary of state declared the measure on the ballot last Wednesday, just days after the signatures were submitted. An extrapolation from a random sampling of 5,433 signatures indicated that more than 85,000 signatures were valid, she said.
Even if pre-July 3 signatures are thrown out, SAFE Colorado, the initiative sponsor, could still have as many as 70,000 signatures left. But it needs 62,438 valid ones, and according to the secretary of state, about 21 percent of the random sample proved to be invalid. Rocky Mountain Gun Owners would do its own checking to make sure that the total number of valid signatures falls short.
There's a certain irony in Grant taking the challengers' side in an initiative case. An expert on, and an advocate of, the right to petition, he helped convince the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1980s — before he even finished law school — that Colorado's law barring the use of paid petition circulators was unconstitutional. Later he convinced lower federal courts to throw out other state restrictions on circulators, such as forcing them to wear badges.
So what's he doing trying to cripple an initiative this time? "I'm fighting for the right to keep and bear arms," he replied,
"which is a right of precedence."
If the initiative survives the latest challenge and is approved by voters, Grant hinted his clients will be back in court one more time. They'll argue it violates the state constitution's version of the Second Amendment, which says the right to bear arms "shall not be called in question."
"What is a background check but calling in question?" he argues.
[comments on local politics deleted]
Peter Blake's column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. You can reach him at (303) 892-5119 or pblake2@aol.com
© Copyright, Denver Publishing Co.
Anti-gun initiative faces yet another court challenge
Peter Blake
The initiative closing the gun-show loophole may not yet be safely on the November ballot after all.
Paul Grant, attorney for Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, says he will file a suit within a week or two alleging that 40,000 to 50,000 of the 110,000 signatures submitted were gathered before the Colorado Supreme Court finally cleared the measure on July 3.
That, he says, violates a statute, 1-40-107(4), which says no petition "shall be circulated nor any signature thereto have any force or effect which has been signed before the titles, submission clause and summary have been fixed and determined." And according to another part of the law, says Grant, a petition isn't "fixed and determined" until the high court has ruled on it.
Grant's clients challenged the initiative earlier on grounds that it violated the single-subject rule, but the high court ruled against them in the July 3 decision. Nevertheless, Grant maintains the signature gathering couldn't start until that date.
Bill Hobbs of the secretary of state's office concedes there is "some ambiguity" in the law regarding starting dates and it has never been tested in court. His office warns initiative leaders that they gather signatures at their own risk prior to a Supreme Court ruling.
The secretary of state declared the measure on the ballot last Wednesday, just days after the signatures were submitted. An extrapolation from a random sampling of 5,433 signatures indicated that more than 85,000 signatures were valid, she said.
Even if pre-July 3 signatures are thrown out, SAFE Colorado, the initiative sponsor, could still have as many as 70,000 signatures left. But it needs 62,438 valid ones, and according to the secretary of state, about 21 percent of the random sample proved to be invalid. Rocky Mountain Gun Owners would do its own checking to make sure that the total number of valid signatures falls short.
There's a certain irony in Grant taking the challengers' side in an initiative case. An expert on, and an advocate of, the right to petition, he helped convince the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1980s — before he even finished law school — that Colorado's law barring the use of paid petition circulators was unconstitutional. Later he convinced lower federal courts to throw out other state restrictions on circulators, such as forcing them to wear badges.
So what's he doing trying to cripple an initiative this time? "I'm fighting for the right to keep and bear arms," he replied,
"which is a right of precedence."
If the initiative survives the latest challenge and is approved by voters, Grant hinted his clients will be back in court one more time. They'll argue it violates the state constitution's version of the Second Amendment, which says the right to bear arms "shall not be called in question."
"What is a background check but calling in question?" he argues.
[comments on local politics deleted]
Peter Blake's column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. You can reach him at (303) 892-5119 or pblake2@aol.com
© Copyright, Denver Publishing Co.