Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog reports on the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of those who wanted to keep their signatures on a petition shielded from public scrutiny:
By a broad eight-to-one majority in an opinion by the Chief Justice, the Supreme Court today held in Doe v. Reed that signatories of referendum petitions generally do not have a constitutional right – i.e., a right that would trump state open government laws – to keep their identities private. But the Court held – again, by the same broad majority – that courts should consider in any given case whether a particular referendum presents sufficiently unique circumstances that anonymity is required. It therefore permitted the claim to anonymity in this case, which involves a referendum on gay rights, to proceed in the lower courts. But their chances of prevailing appear very slim, as five members of the Court either expressed significant doubts about their claim or expressly rejected it.
Read more on SCOTUSblog. The opinion is online on the Supreme Court’s web site, here (pdf).