A judge in Lancaster County, Nebraska, is allowing portions of a lawsuit challenging two medical cannabis legalization petitions to proceed, while dismissing other claims. According to a report by WOWT, Judge Susan Strong ruled last week that while the petitions met the state’s “single-subject” rule and included sufficient information about their sponsors, the claim that Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen failed to strike duplicate signatures will move forward in court.
The lawsuit, filed earlier this month by John Kuehn, a former State Board of Health member, veterinarian, and staunch opponent of cannabis legalization, seeks to invalidate the petitions on several grounds. Kuehn argues that the petitions are flawed, particularly in how they were handled by the Secretary of State’s office. Although the judge dismissed several key elements of the lawsuit, including claims about the petitions violating the single-subject rule, she noted that the issue of duplicate signatures is important enough to warrant further review.
Judge Strong emphasized that while Nebraska law allows some clerical or technical errors in petition signatures to be overlooked if they can be inferred from other parts of the petition (like the signing date), it is essential to determine whether the alleged errors involving duplicate signatures fall under this category. The case will now move to the argument stage on the issue of whether duplicate signatures were improperly counted.
Crista Eggers, a representative for Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, responded to the decision in a statement, expressing gratitude for the dismissal of the single-subject and sponsor sufficiency claims. She affirmed the group’s commitment to continue pursuing all legal avenues in defense of the petitions.
“We are grateful for the court’s decision to dismiss these baseless claims against our ballot initiatives and remain focused on fighting for the will of the people of Nebraska,” Eggers said. “We will continue to exercise all legal options to move this initiative forward.”
The petitions in question aim to place medical cannabis legalization on the state ballot, a hotly contested issue in Nebraska for years. Despite significant public support for medical cannabis, the state has seen repeated legal challenges and efforts to block the initiatives from reaching voters.
With the case now moving forward on the issue of signature validity, advocates are continuing their push to make medical cannabis a legal option for Nebraskans.
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