Thread: MD - BREAKING NEWS - Lawsuit to be filed today!!!!!!

Originally Posted by Watson

Form 13909 (August 2007)
Department of the Treasury — Internal Revenue Service
Tax-Exempt Organization Complaint (Referral) Form

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f13909.pdf

Attach evidence showing CASA promotes breaking employment law and anything else you have. Mine went out a month ago.

Thank you!!! Will work on that right NOW!!!!!

Immigrant Advocates File Suit on Petition Signatures
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: August 1, 2011

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Until recently, Maryland stood apart from other states that have passed anti-immigrant legislation.

In April, for example, it passed a law that would allow illegal immigrants to qualify for in-state tuition if their parents paid taxes. But opponents of the bill blocked it last month just before it took effect, gathering enough signatures to put it on the ballot in 2012. Now, a group of students and an immigrant advocacy group have filed suit in Annapolis against the Maryland State Board of Elections for verifying what they say were thousands of invalid signatures.

Lawyers representing nine plaintiffs, including two illegal immigrants and the advocacy group, CASA de Maryland, said many of the signatures were invalid because the voter information on the forms was filled in by a computer program linked to the state’s voter database, and not by the voter, as required under Maryland law.

Joe Sandler, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the suit, which was filed Monday, was a test case for whether petitions for ballot measures that are generated and filled out online would stand in court. Utah and California have wrestled with similar questions recently, he said, but those cases involved the legitimacy of electronic signatures for ballot measures.

“These are some new issues,â€

We all need to stand together as a Nation and support each of the states that have had the courage to stand up!

Originally Posted by strugglingcitizen

We all need to stand together as a Nation and support each of the states that have had the courage to stand up!

Thank you!!!! We need all the support we can get!!!!

.
RELATED:

DREAM Act petition lands in court
Immigrant advocates say referendum violates state constitution
By EARL KELLY, Staff Writer
Published 08/02/11

A group of students and citizens yesterday filed a lawsuit in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court to nullify the referendum drive aimed at putting the DREAM Act on the ballot next year.

Referendum organizers said the plaintiffs are "grasping at straws."

Two of the nine plaintiffs are from Anne Arundel. According to the complaint, they are undocumented immigrants who qualify for in-state tuition, as provided under the law passed earlier this year - a law now suspended pending a referendum.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs said the signature drive that will put the DREAM Act to a popular vote was invalid from the outset, because the law, which would let some illegal immigrants attend college at in-state tuition rates, affects community colleges' budgets.

The state constitution, according to the plaintiffs, prohibits submitting spending bills to public referendum.

"The constitution prohibits that, in an attempt to prohibit this kind of disruption," plaintiffs' attorney Joseph E. Sandler said.

"I feel strongly about this case because I grew up in Baltimore, have lived basically my whole life in Maryland, and believe this law reflects the best of the values most of us have as Marylanders," Sandler said.

"The tea party and others behind this petition drive do not really reflect the views of most of us who are Maryland citizens, voters and taxpayers," he said.

The plaintiffs claim that 44,000 of the roughly 109,000 signatures validated by the State Board of Elections are invalid.

Petition signers used a website - www.mdpetitions.com - that may have allowed illegal signatures, Sandler said.

According to him, anyone who knew a voter's name and date of birth could gain access to voter information and forge a signature.

"If I know your birth date and where you live … I can put in your name, and the computer program will print out a form with everybody's name who lives in that household who is registered to vote," Sandler said. "I can sign your name and have other people sign those other names, and no one would know."

Another 3,800 people signed forms that did not contain a summary of the DREAM Act or the text of the law, as required in the state constitution, according to the plaintiffs.

In all, the plaintiffs claim that 57,000 of the roughly 109,000 signatures approved by the State Board of Elections are invalid.

If the plaintiffs are correct, the referendum organizers would be about 4,000 signatures short of the 55,736 required to put the issue on the ballot. (That number represents 3 percent of all votes cast in the last gubernatorial election.)

The case names Administrator of Elections Linda H. Lamone and Secretary of State John P. McDonough as defendants. A spokesman for state Attorney General Douglas Gansler said his office hasn't seen the complaint and could not comment, except to say the office would be defending against the lawsuit.

The Washington, D.C., law firms of Arnold & Porter and Sandler, Reiff, Young & Lamb are representing the plaintiffs without charge.

The DREAM Act would allow students who are illegal immigrants to pay tuition at in-state rates if they graduate from a Maryland high school and have lived in the state for three years. Also, a student's parents or guardians must be able to prove they have paid state taxes for at least three years.

To qualify under the law passed this year by the General Assembly, students must attend community college first and then, if they qualify academically, transfer to a four-year state college at in-state rates.

One woman in the audience at yesterday's news conference, held outside the Circuit Court in Annapolis, would give her name only as Julisa.

Julisa said she is from Baltimore County and is 18. She has lived in the United States 10 years, she said, and her family came from Peru. Her father works for a catering company and her mother is a stay-at-home mom.

"We own a house. We pay taxes. I own a car, we pay taxes," Julisa said.

"I want to become a doctor. (Paying in-state tuition) … means an opportunity to better my life," she said.

The opposition to the DREAM Act "is just hate, and it is childish," Julisa said.

Julisa said she was not one of the unnamed plaintiffs in the case.

One plaintiff, listed in the pleadings as "John Doe," lives in Brooklyn Park and is 18 years old, according to the complaint. He has lived in Maryland since he was 3, and graduated as valedictorian from a public high school in Baltimore this spring.

If he attends community college as an in-state student, he will pay $3,030 a year, but if the DREAM Act is voted down, he will have to pay $6,690, according to the complaint.

Another plaintiff, "Jane Doe," lives in Glen Burnie. She has lived in the state for 11 years.

Jane Doe graduated from Baltimore City College High School in 2009, and is working in a cafeteria, trying to save enough to attend Baltimore City Community College. She wants to study nursing.

Six other individuals, plus Casa de Maryland, are the plaintiffs, and Progressive Maryland organized yesterday's news conference.

"Our plaintiffs are a diverse group of students, college students and teachers who believe this right (to an education) is fundamental to the betterment of the state," said Charly Carter of Progressive Maryland.

Del. Nic Kipke, R-Pasadena, who led the signature drive in Anne Arundel County, did not return a reporter's call.

Del. Neil Parrott, the Hagerstown Republican who orchestrated the statewide signature petition and organized of the www.mdpetitions.com website, said he will be working with attorneys to fight this case.

"They are grasping at straws, to prevent voters of Maryland from being able to vote on this in November 2012," Parrott said. "I think they know they will lose."



http://www.hometownannapolis.com/news/t ... court.html