UPDATED: Oregon’s Domestic Partnerships in Court Right Now

Right this second sides are arguing before a three judge panel in downtown Portland on whether or not a failed signature gathering attempt by out-of-state anti-gay groups will fly or not. They lost the first round and are on their appeal. Just Out is busy at the courthouse live blogging. We’re going to give them mad props and post some of the discussion between the judges and counsel.

Austin Nimocks of Alliance Defense Fund is up in Lemons v. Bradbury, presenting his prosecution case.

He opens his argument with a story about an Oregonian named Peter O’Brien, 81 years of age, who Nimocks says suffered a stroke and therefore is unable to write well, which “prevented him from participating in Referendum 303,” because the signature he provided on his voter registration card many years ago no longer matches his current signature.

A judge jumps right in: “If you’re right, every signer of a petition has a right to challenge their signature. You’re attacking the sampling process.”

“We are not challenging the stastical process,” Nimock rebuts. “The sample is the referendum; they’re using an arbitrary standard that is indefinable. The state is still not able to define what a match or a non-match is.” Nimocks raises the spectre of Bush v. Gore (as he has done previously) in his arguments.

“As all of us grow older, our signatures deteriorate,” Nimocks says. One of the judges makes light of this comment. Nimocks goes on to make a central argument: that signers of petitions whose signatures are deemed “un-matching” should be allowed to come in and challenge that decision. “This is something the state already does in vote-by-mail,” he says.A judge disagrees, saying “there’s really no comparison” between vote-by-mail and initiative petitions.

“I don’t think it’s a question it’s a fundamental right” to sign an initiative petition, a judge says, adding “clearly the state has an interest in making sure the signatures are legitimate and avoiding fraud.”

“You’re disqualifying a group, not an individual… if there’s an error on the petition gatherer’s part, the whole sheet is thrown out,” and all of those signatures are disqualified, a judge says. “Everything’s an approximation in this process.”

“When you have people running around getting a dollar or two dollars a signature, people coming out of a supermarket and being accosted, saying ‘do you believe in equality, sign this,’ and they don’t know what they’re signing,” another judge adds.

The above brought to you via Stephen Marc Beaudoin at Just Out

UPDATE: The pro-equality side has their 20 minutes in front of the judges. Click here to go over to Just Out’s blog and see the rest of the arguments.

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