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JOSHUA LYNSEN
Friday, July 18, 2008
A judge will soon decide whether Montgomery County’s contested transgender rights law will stand or must be ratified by voters.
Circuit Court Judge Robert Greenberg last week heard final arguments from Equality Maryland and Lambda Legal attorneys who are fighting to stop the law from facing a November referendum. A ruling could come at any time.
“He wants to rule quickly,” said Carrie Evans, Equality Maryland’s policy director. “He appreciates the preciousness of the time frame here.”
Passed unanimously by Mont-gomery County Council members last year, the law bars “discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, cable television service and taxicab service on the basis of gender identity.”
It was set to go into effect five months ago, but was suspended after opponents collected more than 32,000 signatures to force a referendum. That effort was led by Citizens for a Responsible Government.
Equality Maryland and Lambda Legal fought during a three-day trial to stop the referendum.
“The fact that he had three full days for counsel to put forth arguments demonstrates that he really wants to make a thorough and thoughtful decision on this,” Evans said. “It’s never a bad thing when a court takes its time.”
But the judge has given little indication as to how he will rule.
During the trial’s first phase last month, Greenberg said Equality Maryland and Lambda Legal missed a key deadline to challenge many of the signatures collected to force the referendum. He also rejected arguments that the petition’s language was misleading.
“That was unfortunate because there were people who really were duped,” Evans said. “Some people did submit affidavits to that effect, but clearly the judge didn’t feel they were sufficiently misleading to stop it.”
At the trial’s second phase last week, though, Greenberg indicated that Montgomery County officials might have undercounted the number of signatures that were needed to force a referendum.
Jonathan Shurberg, an Equality Maryland attorney, said the county neglected to count inactive voters when determining the number of necessary signatures. The more inclusive count shows referendum supporters fell about 700 signatures short of their goal.
Shurberg said it’s important that inactive voters are included in the required tally because inactive voters were allowed to sign the petition challenging the law.
The trial, originally scheduled to end June 26 but delayed and wrapped up on July 9, could soon yield a ruling from the judge.
“And then,” Evans said, “both sides will make a decision as to whether an appeal will happen.”
Evans said Equality Maryland has not yet decided whether it will appeal a ruling that goes against its case.
“We would want to see if there are issues that could be appealed and if they would be winnable,” she said. “It costs a lot of money to do an appeal, so we have to make sure it’s something worth that.”
In the meantime, Evans said Equality Maryland is preparing to defend the law, if necessary, with a voter education campaign.
“We’re operating from a standpoint of full steam ahead,” she said. “If we wait until the judge’s ruling, we’ll be months behind.”
Basic Rights Montgomery aims to popularize the law that voters could approve or reject in November. The campaign has drawn $20,000 donations each from the Human Rights Campaign and National Gay & Lesbian Task Force.
Evans said fundraising and other preliminary campaign work is ongoing while Equality Maryland searches for a campaign manager, who will draft and direct the overall effort.
“We want to make this the campaign manager’s vision as much as possible,” she said. “We really envision him or her really doing the rollout and public presentation of that campaign.”
Evans said Equality Maryland expects to hire the campaign manager in August.
More information about the campaign is available online at www.basicrightsmontgomery.org.
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