Immigrant group to meet first legal deadline in suit against state election board over tuition referendum

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By Glynis Kazanjian
Glynis@marylandreporter.com

Petitions T-shirtCasa de Maryland is expected to submit tens of thousands of contested Maryland Dream Act referendum signatures to the Office of the Attorney General today (Friday). This marks the first deadline imposed by the courts since the immigrant advocacy group sued the State Board of Elections in early August.

Casa, along with eight plaintiffs including two illegal immigrants, is hoping to disqualify enough petition signatures to keep the new law allowing undocumented residents to receive in-state college tuition rates from appearing on the 2012 general election ballot.

The State Board turned over the names, addresses and signatures of all petition signers in July to Casa in response to a Public Information Act request. The request followed the State Board’s certification of 108,000 signatures — more than twice the number required — clearing the way for the issue of in-state tuition for illegal immigrants to be placed on the ballot the following year.

The clock will now start ticking for what will likely be one the most contentious legal battles in Maryland throughout this year and next.

“It’s really quite an extraordinary circumstance where you have people unlawfully here trying to prevent a democratic process from moving forward,” said Tom Fitton, President of Judicial Watch, a non-partisan government accountability education foundation based in Washington, D.C.

Judicial Watch, who will also receive the list of signatures from Casa, is representing MDPetitions.com, an organization named in the lawsuit that produced the state’s first computer generated online petition forms.

“Whose side are we going to be on here?” Fitton asked. “Citizens who want a say in how their tax dollars are spent, or the illegal aliens who want to prevent citizens from being the final arbiters of how their tax money is spent?”

About 60,000 signatures likely to be challenged

Assistant Attorney General Jeff Darsie said it is likely Casa will challenge about 60,000 signatures of the 108,000 the State Board certified. Specifically Darsie said the group will contest petition pages that have bill language stapled to them, rather than printed on the signature forms.

At the beginning of the signature collection process last April, State Board spokeswoman Donna Duncan said stapled petition forms were acceptable, but Darsie said the issue could still be vulnerable to a legal challenge.

Another way Casa could try to stop the referendum, Darsie said, is by disqualifying enough signatures required for the first benchmark on May 31, when one-third of the required signatures —  18,579 — were due.

“It’s possible you could have multiple levels of challenge, as well,” Darsie said, indicating that one petition signature could have more than one issue.

The trio, Casa, Judicial Watch and the Office of the Attorney General, will have until November 21 to work out an amenable list of petition signatures that will be submitted to court in the form of a Joint Stipulation – a summary of all agreed upon petition names categorized by complaint.

“At a minimum, we’re going to try to figure out what is the number of signatures at issue on each different legal challenge. What they don’t agree upon, may be a separate [list].”

Darsie said he expects Casa’s list of petition signatures to match the amended complaint submitted by Casa September 1 which states, “The total number of invalid signatures identified by Plaintiffs is 67,326.”

Casa will also challenge that the DREAM Act cannot be put to referendum because it is an appropriations law — although neither the House bill nor the Senate bill which eventually passed went through an appropriations committee.

Washington, D.C.-based law firms Sandler, Reiff, Young and Lamb, P.C. and Arnold and Porter, LLP are representing the plaintiffs.

Arguments will be made in late January before Judge Ronald Silkworth of the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court, Darsie said.

Casa of Maryland did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

About The Author

Len Lazarick

len@marylandreporter.com

Len Lazarick was the founding editor and publisher of MarylandReporter.com and is currently the president of its nonprofit corporation and chairman of its board He was formerly the State House bureau chief of the daily Baltimore Examiner from its start in April 2006 to its demise in February 2009. He was a copy editor on the national desk of the Washington Post for eight years before that, and has spent decades covering Maryland politics and government.

5 Comments

  1. Anonymous

    What is most disturbing about this story is the fact that Casa still receives taxpayer funding to promote their fight against MD voters who disagree with this law. O’Malley & the Democratic controlled legislature cares little about the taxpayers of MD. It’s social engineering that has only begun. Maryfornia here we come, brought to you by the Dems in Annapolis.

  2. Anonymous

    I find it impossible to justify that moneys forcibly wrested (through INCOME and Property Taxation)

    from United States/Maryland citizens (particularly in view of the fact our governor and legislature are patently incapable or unwilling to live within Maryland tax revenues, due to their additions to profligate spending)

    could legally be allocated to discretionary purposes to benefit illegal invaders and such as DC charities. This is not to mention the sums spent for the petition process and now its litigation.

    If Maryland voters are so misled and deluded to support such unprincipled politicians and their legislation, hopefully the Nation will elect candidates/incumbents to office who will be principled and responsible officials. Who will leave such foolish “Blue Staters” to drown in the oceans of debt of their own making.

    • Anonymous

      Unfortuately not every MD taxpayer agrees with the direction of this law. Both Dems & Rep voters signed the petition to place it on referendum. That we didn’t swallow this latest tax grab without protesting doesn’t sit too well in the State Capital halls.They’ve forgotten that they were elected, not anointed.

  3. amr

    Out of anger, typing too fast to check spelling, so . . .
    Only in America can people who are illegally in our country sue to stop a constitutional process which allows citizens to contest their legislature’s and governor’s decisions.  We are on a path of national suicide when the rule of law tilts to the extreme to protect the rights of those who by their actions have limited their non-citizen rights.  The idea of the consent of the governed is now apparently passe’.

  4. Amr

    Only in America can people who are illegally in our courty sue to stop a constitutional process which allows citzens to contest their legislature’s and governor’s decisions.  We are on a path of national sucide when the rule of law tilts to the extreme to protect the rights of those who by their actions have limited their non-citizen rights.  The idea of the consent of the governed is now apparently passe’.

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