Speaking to the lawyer challenging a Washington state open-records law, Justice Antonin Scalia said, "The people of Washington evidently think that this is not too much of an imposition upon people's courage — to stand up and sign something and be willing to stand behind it."
Scalia was most vigorous in protesting arguments that Washington residents who signed a petition for a ballot measure against gay legal rights had a right to privacy in their political speech.
"What about just wanting to know their names so you can criticize them?" asked Scalia, prompting laughter in the courtroom. "Is that such a bad thing in a democracy?"
In another vein, Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned whether arguments against public disclosure of names could extend beyond the context of ballot initiatives and possibly hide important government operations from the public.
Most open to the challengers' case was Justice Samuel Alito, who questioned the states' interest in trying to make the signatures public. He worried about people who might be "dissuaded from signing because they fear retaliation."
Alito asked Attorney General Robert McKenna, defending the open-records law, whether a state could require phone numbers, as well as addresses, to be made public, or whether someone's religion could be noted on the petition. McKenna said yes on phone numbers but no on religion.
