On October 17, U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin H. Settle ordered Washington state to release the names and addresses of people who signed the 2009 referendum petition on civil unions for same-sex couples. Here is the 34-page decision in Doe v Reed, 3:09-cv-05456.

The people who circulated Referendum R-71 had originally filed this lawsuit in 2009, hoping to retain privacy for the people who had signed their petition. They had won the first round, in U.S. District Court in 2009, but the Ninth Circuit had then reversed the decision. Then the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case, and ruled that whether the names and addresses should be released depends on whether there is a likelihood that the signers would be harassed if their names were made public. The U.S. District Court then reviewed the evidence and in its October 17, 2011 decision, concluded that the signers have little to fear. The decision reviews the testimony of several people who were on the side of secrecy, and noted that they themselves didn’t seem to have any fear of being publicly identified. The decision also notes that much of the evidence in favor of secrecy was actually not from Washington state at all, but from California, where a somewhat similar ballot measure had been on the ballot in 2008. Finally, the judge noted that a list of people who gave money to support the referendum was already public knowledge, and it didn’t seem that people who had given money for the referendum had been harassed. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.