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November 24, 2006
John D. Hanify
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November 24, 2006 (Boston) - Today, a complaint was filed in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court by 11 citizens, including Governor Romney individually, to force the state legislature to reconvene the Constitutional Convention and record a vote on the initiative petition to amend the Massachusetts constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. If the legislature does not reconvene for a vote, the complaint asks the SJC to direct the Secretary of State to place the initiative amendment on the ballot in 2008.
"Regrettably, this follows a pattern of legislative stonewalling on citizen initiative petitions that began in 1982. The legislature has consistently let them die without taking a vote. This practice is directly in violation of Article 48 of the Massachusetts constitution which requires that legislators take a substantive vote on the merits of these propositions. There is no other recourse at this time than to file this action and ask the SJC to enforce the specific terms of Article 48," said John D. Hanify, lead attorney for the plaintiffs.
In 2005, a record 170,000 signatures were collected and filed with the Secretary of State in support of an initiative to amend the Massachusetts constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, the "Marriage Initiative." This filing and the subsequent certification of more than 126,000 of those signatures required the legislature to convene the Constitutional Convention and to vote on the initiative.
Last summer and again this fall, when the Constitutional Convention assembled, Senate President Robert Travaglini chose to recognize a motion to recess the Convention without taking any action on the Marriage Initiative. Article 48 affirmatively requires the legislators to vote "yea" or "nay" on the initiative. They have no option to ignore it without violating their constitutional duties.
Although the Massachusetts Constitution gives most of its law-making authority to the General Court, in Article 48 the citizens of the Commonwealth have reserved to themselves the power to submit constitutional amendments, so-called "initiative amendments," directly to the voters. This reservation is supposed to provide a means for the people to move forward on measures that they believe are important without the danger of their will being thwarted by legislative action or inaction. To move such an initiative onto the ballot requires two consecutive session votes of only 25% of the legislators sitting in joint session. Although recessed twice already this session, the leaders of the legislature have never allowed the joint session to vote on this or other initiatives. Indeed, over the past twenty years other important initiatives that implicated sensitive or highly politicized issues have seen the same fate.
Plaintiffs:
C. Joseph Doyle
Raymond L. Flynn
Richard F. Guerriero
Bronwyn E. Loring
Roberto S. Miranda
Philip D. Moran
Joseph R. Nolan
Jossie E. Owens
Richard W. Richardson
Mitt Romney
Philip Travis
The complaint was filed on behalf of the plaintiffs by Hanify & King, PC of Boston.
