Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation, Inc.
Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation, Inc.
This chapter examines Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation, Inc (ACLF). It considers a challenge brought by various parties to several of Colorado's restrictions governing the “petition” phase of the direct democratic process, whereby advocates act as “spokespersons” of sorts and work to procure signatures from registered voters in order to qualify propositions for the general election ballot. ACLF, which was essentially a follow-up to Meyer v. Grant—also a Colorado case involving restrictions on signature collection decided by the Supreme Court eleven years before—called for the justices to consider requirements instituted in response to the increased reports of fraud (e.g. phony names, misrepresentation of proposition issues, forged signatures) that came in the wake of the Meyer decision. In evaluating the new provisions (identification badges, more comprehensive disclosure requirements, and voter registration for circulators, among others), the Court found that the state had failed to sufficiently justify such restrictions on the capacity for communication with voters during this phase of the direct democratic process.
Keywords: Colorado, petition, signature campaigns, election law, Meyer v. Grant, direct democratic process, voter registration
Stanford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
