Martin v. Read

Issue: Whether ORS 251.255(2)(a) — which conditions inclusion of an argument in Oregon's statewide Voters' Pamphlet on either payment of a $1,200 fee or timely submission of 500 "wet ink" signatures — violates the First Amendment's Free Speech Clause, the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, or Title II of the ADA as applied to an indigent, wheelchair-bound plaintiff when an unusual compression of statutory deadlines renders both alternative pathways practically unavailable to her.

Plaintiff Mary Martin, a 73-year-old disabled widow on a fixed income, sought a TRO to prevent Oregon's Secretary of State from enforcing ORS 251.255(2)(a) and thereby excluding her written argument on Measure 120 from the statewide Voters' Pamphlet ahead of the May 19, 2026 primary. The compressed timeline resulted from the legislature's late enactment of SB 1599A moving the referendum vote from November to May, leaving only days for public submissions. Applying the Ninth Circuit's sliding-scale preliminary injunction standard, the court found serious questions on the merits of the as-applied First Amendment, equal protection, and ADA Title II claims — distinguishing Ninth Circuit precedent in *Kaplan* and *NAACP v. Jones*, which rejected only facial challenges — and found irreparable harm and a balance of equities tipping sharply in plaintiff's favor, while expressly limiting relief to the named plaintiff alone given the absence of a provisional class certification motion.

The decision carves out a potentially novel as-applied theory under which an otherwise facially constitutional voters'-pamphlet fee-or-signature regime may be constitutionally or statutorily defective when government action effectively forecloses both alternative access pathways for indigent or disabled speakers, raising unsettled questions about the intersection of First Amendment forum doctrine, ADA Title II obligations, and government-controlled public-election speech channels.