In response to the lawsuit filed yesterday, Basic Rights Oregon responds - as does the Secretary of State.

Basic Rights Oregon Executive Director John Hummel said that a lawsuit filed by anti-gay activists in a gambit to revive a failed referendum on Oregon's new domestic partnership law is completely without merit.

"This lawsuit demonstrates our opponents' commitment to dismantling Oregon's anti-discrimination laws," Hummel said in a statement today. "We have to be vigilant, and prepared to meet them at every turn. We are confident that this case will be dismissed."

The complaint filed in Federal Court by out of state attorneys alleges that Oregon's Secretary of State and a dozen county clerks erred by not creating special procedures to reinstate the signatures of people who said they had signed the petition, but whose signatures were found to be invalid using well established criteria.

Basic Rights Oregon has monitored the signature verification process on many occasions over the years. The process we observed on these petitions was consistent with what we have seen year after year, Hummel said. "The Secretary of State's job is to ensure the uniform and efficient administration of elections, and we're confident that all of the proper rules and regulations were followed as usual.

In early October, Oregon's Secretary of State certified the results of the referendum effort and found that that the petitions fell short of the number of required signatures to force a referendum on the domestic partnership law. The law takes effect on January 1, 2008.

Hummel said the lawsuit’s chance's of success are slim to none. “On January 1st, same sex couples in committed, caring relationships will have the legal recognition they need to take care of each other," he said. "Nothing is going to prevent this law from going into effect."

"What it comes down to is there are statutes that govern how signatures on initiative petitions are verified and those statues were applied in exactly the same way as every other initiative petition that's delivered to this office. The law is applied fairly and neutrally across the board," says Scott Moore, chief of communications for the Secretary of State. "To bend the rules to allow for an exception in this case would be granting special privileges to a select group."

Labels: domestic partnership, HB 2007, lawsuit, oregon, referendum

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 04, 2007 at 5:39 PM. Want to discuss? Leave a comment below.