Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group v. Secretary of Commonwealth

This is an action brought in the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the enforcement of the county-distribution requirement, embodied in art. 48 of the Amendments to the Constitution of the Commonwealth, General Provisions, II, and read into art. 48, The Initiative, V, § 1, as amended by art. 81, § 2. This requirement restricts the number of signatures that may qualify from any one county on behalf of an initiative or referendum petition to not more than one-quarter of the total number needed to qualify. The plaintiffs question the…