Lawsuit Seeks to Invalidate Nebraska Medical Cannabis Legalization Petitions

A former Nebraska state senator last week filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the two petitions related to legalizing medical cannabis in the state, the Nebraska Examiner reports. The two petitions – one to legalize medical cannabis and one to regulate the industry – were approved for November ballots earlier this month.  

The lawsuit, filed by John Kuehn, who is a former State Board of Heath member, veterinarian and rancher who has opposed any form of cannabis legalization, argues that the proposal violates federal law and the state constitution. 

Kuen, who is represented in the lawsuit by attorneys Steven E. Guenzel, Cameron E. Guenzel and Andrew La Grone, also a former state senator, makes seven total arguments: 

• Delays from the Nebraska Secretary of State’s Office in making copies of signatures available for public inspection upon request, arguing that Secretary of State Bob Evnen has a duty to ensure that “any diligent challenger has a meaningful opportunity to exercise their right to seek review and appeal” before he certifies the ballot. 
• Insufficient valid signatures for ballot access. 
• Evnen failed to strike duplicative signatures. 
• An invalid sponsor statement from State Sen. Anna Wishart. 
• A violation on both petitions of the state’s constitutional “single subject” rule that requires all measures to contain only one subject. 
• An unlawful delegation of power to a proposed Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission that would oversee regulation of medical cannabis. 
• Preemption of federal laws that classify cannabis as a Schedule I drug. 

The lawsuit bases its claims on a review of the petitions by Kuehn that found many of the petition signatures were invalid and “unlawfully accepted by the secretary.” The lawsuit contends that the petitions contain signatures from people who were not registered voters, whose date of birth didn’t match their voter registration or who did not include an address when they signed, duplicative signatures, signatures collected before petition circulation officially began last year or that were collected after a July 3 deadline, and other fraudulent forms of signature collection, including false notarization. 

The lawsuit does not provide evidence for the claims because the state has not provided the signature pages. The campaign seeking to put the issue on ballots submitted more than 114,000 signatures July 3 for each of its two petitions.