LINCOLN — A federal lawsuit that overturned Nebraska's ban on out-of-state petition circulators will cost the state $275,000 in attorney fees and court expenses, under a settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union.
The ACLU won a legal challenge last year against several Nebraska laws that required petition circulators to be state residents. U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon ruled in August that the ban unfairly infringed on the petition circulators' constitutional rights and made it harder to conduct petition drives.
Elora Mukherjee, the lead ACLU attorney on the case, said the settlement will cover the cost of representing plaintiffs in the lawsuit who could not afford to bring the case on their own.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the nonprofit Citizens in Charge Foundation Inc., which advocates for more direct democracy, along with Nebraska political activists Michael Groene of North Platte and Donald Sluti of Kearney.
Their lawsuit argued that the law made it too difficult to gather enough signatures for ballot initiatives or to get on the Nebraska ballot as an independent candidate. The Libertarian Party of Nebraska later joined the lawsuit.
"The Libertarian Party of Nebraska and others have very, very limited resources," Mukherjee said. "None of these organizations have the resources to pay a large law firm to litigate this kind of case."
The State Claims Board approved the claim in November and forwarded it to the Legislature, which must approve that payout and others. Omaha Sen. Steve Lathrop will present the measure Monday to the Legislature's Business and Labor Committee.
The ACLU filed a claim in September for nearly $303,000 but settled with the state for $275,000, according to State Claims Board records.
The lawsuits argued that changes the State Legislature made in 2007 and 2008 illegally restricted political speech by putting an unfair burden on groups trying to force a vote on an issue and on independent candidates.
The 2007 law doubled the number of petition signatures required to place a candidate on the statewide ballot to 2,000, and required at least 50 signatures from one-third of Nebraska's counties. A 2008 law imposed age and residency requirements.
Although Nebraska's law requiring petition circulators to be state residents was found unconstitutional, several other petition-drive restrictions were upheld. The judge upheld requirements that petition circulators be at least 18 years old and that petitions identify paid circulators. A ban on paying circulators by the signature was also upheld.
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