District Court: Virginia's Republican Primary Field Likely to Expand

by: lowkell

Tue Jan 10, 2012 at 18:17:00 PM EST

The Court finds that there is a strong likelihood that the Court will find the residency requirement for petition circulators [in Virginia] to be unconstitutional.  The authorities make clear that circulating petitions for candidates is a form of protected speech, and that the Commonwealth has a heavy burden to justify the restriction on speech by  showing not only that the limitation achieves a valid state interest but also that the limitation is no broader in scope than necessary to achieve that purpose...For this reason, the Court believes that the plaintiffs have a substantial likelihood of succeeding on the merits, at least on the issue of the validity of the residency requirement.