Semple v. Griswold

Summary

The Tenth Circuit reversed a permanent injunction against Colorado's Amendment 71, which requires ballot initiative proponents to collect signatures from 2% of registered voters in each state senate district. The court held that the requirement does not violate the Equal Protection Clause because Colorado's senate districts are equally populous in total population, and *Evenwel v. Abbott* permits states to use total population rather than registered-voter population for such signature thresholds. The court also rejected First Amendment challenges, ruling that the signature-distribution requirement is a permissible process law that does not regulate speech, and that the failure of an initiative is not a government penalty supporting a compelled-speech claim.

Holdings

1. Evenwel v. Abbott controls and defeats the equal protection claim because Colorado's state senate districts are equally populous in total population, and the equal protection clause does not require equalization of registered voter populations.
2. Section 2.5 is a process requirement that does not regulate communicative conduct and therefore does not implicate the First Amendment under Walker.
3. The failure of a ballot initiative is not an adverse government action sufficient to establish compulsion element of a compelled speech claim.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Section 2.5 of Amendment 71 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment under the one-person-one-vote principle.
2. Whether Section 2.5 violates the First Amendment by unduly burdening the initiative process.
3. Whether Section 2.5 compels speech in violation of the First Amendment.

Disposition

reversed