Protect Girls Sports in Maine, A Registered Ballot Question Committee v. Shenna Bellows, Maine Secretary of State, et al.

This case presents a question arising from a hot social topic pervading girls’ and women’s sports, namely the right of citizens to put forward initiatives or referenda banning transgender persons from girls’ and women’s sports. Petitioner’s case concerns the exercise of their right to participate in the legislative process authorized by Maine’s initiative and referenda amendments. Me. Const. art. IV, pt. 3, §§ 17-22 (the “Initiative Amendments”). In 2022, art. IV, pt. 3, § 20 of Maine’s Constitution and 21-A M.R.S. §903-A, banning out-of-state circulators from circulating petitions for citizen initiatives and referenda, was adjudicated as violative of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution in We the People PAC v. Bellows, 519 F. Supp. 3d 13 (D. Me. 2021), aff’d, 40 F. 4th 1 (1st Cir. 2022). Neither the Maine legislature, nor the electors in Maine, have amended art. IV, pt. 3, § 20 of the Maine Constitution or 21-A M.R.S. §903-A, and they remain unconstitutional and unenforceable. However, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court issued a final decision, holding that a Consent Order and Judgment entered in the We the People PAC v. Bellows, infra., is state law and, the Secretary can impose unenacted legal standards to invalidate otherwise valid elector signatures on petitions circulated by out-of-state circulators who do not comply with the terms of the We the People PAC Consent Order and Judgment. The questions presented are: Whether a federal district court’s Consent Order and Judgment can modify, amend, or narrow an inseverable provision of a state’s Constitution and statute? And, Whether Maine’s unenacted standard found in a federal district court’s Consent Order and Judgment to require out-of-state petition circulators to submit to the jurisdiction of the State of Maine by checking a jurisdictional box, violates the First and Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution?