Washington, DC — December 7, 2011

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today announced developments in the MDPetitions.com legal action over whether Maryland voters will have the opportunity to directly consider “tuition benefits” for illegal alien students. Pursuant to a Joint Stipulation signed on December 5, 2011, Casa de Maryland and illegal alien activist plaintiffs will no longer challenge the “sufficiency and number of the petition signatures” collected by MDPetitions.com to place the repeal of the illegal alien tuition benefits policy on the November, 2012 Maryland ballot.The plaintiffs will continue to maintain that the Maryland DREAM Act cannot legally be subject to referendum. However, as MDPetitions.com argues in its court filings, Maryland voters are merely exercising their rights under Article XVI, Section 2 of the Maryland Constitution, which unambiguously states:

The people reserve to themselves power known as The Referendum, by petition to have submitted to the registered voters of the State, to approve or reject at the polls, any Act, or part of any Act of the General Assembly, if approved by the Governor, or, if passed by the General Assembly over the veto of the Governor.

The Maryland DREAM Act was enacted by the Maryland General Assembly and signed by Governor Martin O’Malley on May 10, 2011. The law makes certain illegal aliens eligible to pay reduced tuition rates at Maryland community colleges and public higher education institutions, including the University of Maryland. The MDPetitions.com petition drive collected 132,071 signatures, nearly twice the amount required by law to put the new benefit to voters in a referendum.

Illegal aliens and the activist group Casa de Maryland challenged the petition drive in court to give taxpayer dollar subsidies for college tuition for certain illegal aliens. On October 7, 2011, MDPetitions.com was granted permission to intervene in the lawsuit which seeks to deny voters an up-or-down vote on the Maryland DREAM Act (John Doe, et al., v. Maryland State Board of Elections (No. 02-C-11-163050)). The MDPetitions.com group is represented by Judicial Watch. The chairman of MDPetitions.com is Maryland Assembly Delegate Neil Parrott of Washington County; Delegate Patrick McDonough of Baltimore and Harford Counties is its honorary chairman.

“Now that both sides agree that MDPetitions.com’s petition signatures are sufficient and valid, illegal alien activists are running out of arguments to shield the Maryland DREAM Act from the voters,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This political lawsuit is designed for one purpose: to deny Maryland voters a right to have their voices heard on the issue of taxpayer-funded perks for illegal aliens. We are confident the courts will uphold our client’s petition drive and that democracy will not be subverted.”

Neil Parrott stated, “While Casa de Maryland wanted to throw out literally tens of thousands of valid signatures in an effort to short circuit the democratic process in our state, they simply could not do it. The hard work of Marylanders from the Eastern Shore, to the Baltimore region, to Southern Maryland, to the mountains in Western Maryland paid off, resulting in over 130,000 signatures submitted and over 109,000 validated signatures. These strong numbers, almost twice the required validated signatures, proved to be an obstacle that the opposition could not be overcome. This victory shows that Marylanders do have a voice, and that by working together we can defeat legislation that just doesn’t make sense.”

“This is the People’s Petition and the most historic referendum drive in the state of Maryland. We needed to collect 55,736 valid signatures of registered voters in less than 60 days to send SB 167 to referendum. The citizens submitted over 132,000, and the State Board of Elections validated over 108,000. Today is a great day for the people of Maryland, who are one step closer to voting on the referendum they have clearly asked for and are legally due,” said Delegate McDonough.

Washington, DC — October 27, 2011Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today announced new developments in the MDPetitions.com legal action to ensure voters have the opportunity to consider “tuition benefits” for illegal alien students. These legal developments were among those discussed today at a press conference in Annapolis, the Maryland state capital.On October 7, 2011, MDPetitions.com was granted permission to intervene in a lawsuit that seeks to deny voters an up-or-down vote on the Maryland DREAM Act (John Doe, et al., v. Maryland State Board of Elections, (No. 02-C-11-163050)). The MDPetitions.com group is represented by Judicial Watch.The Maryland DREAM Act was enacted by the Maryland General Assembly and signed by Governor Martin O’Malley on May 10, 2011. The law creates a new taxpayer-subsidized public benefit — the ability to pay reduced tuition rates at Maryland community colleges and public higher education institutions — for certain eligible illegal aliens. The MDPetitions.com petition drive collected nearly twice the amount of signatures required by law to put the new benefit to voters in a referendum.Illegal aliens and the activist group Casa de Maryland challenged the petition drive in court in order to protect taxpayer dollar subsidies for the college tuition for certain illegal aliens.“This important court battle has begun. We will analyze each and every signature now being challenged in court in order to protect the right of the citizens of Maryland to vote on this issue,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “In fact, our initial analysis shows many Maryland citizens, as many as 1,600, have had their petitions improperly rejected. We are confident that the illegal aliens and their allies will not succeed in asking the courts to reject tens of thousands of citizen petition signatures. In the end, the democratic process will not be subverted.”“Over 130,000 people indicated that they wanted to vote on whether their tax dollars should be used to pay for college tuition for adult immigrants illegally in our country. Our legal system must make sure that none of those signers are disenfranchised unnecessarily, and Judicial Watch is the perfect organization to watch over the rights of Marylanders. MDPetitions.com is proud to be a party to this case, and with Judicial Watch leading the legal effort, we will defend each and every one of those signatures. Casa de Maryland, two illegal aliens, and others are suing to stop democracy in action, but MDPetitions.com will defend the rights of Marylanders: the right to referendum as provided in the Maryland Constitution,” said Delegate Neil Parrott.“I am deeply grateful that I was able to prevail upon Judicial Watch to intervene on behalf of the citizens of Maryland and protect their voting rights against a challenge promoted by illegal aliens,” said Delegate Pat McDonough.The chairman of MDPetitions.com is Maryland Assembly Delegate Neil Parrott of Washington County; Delegate Patrick McDonough of Baltimore and Harford Counties is its honorary chairman.

Washington, DC — October 26, 2011

Update: Oct 26, 2011, 2:31 p.m. – event location changed due to weather forecast

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced it will host a press conference regarding new developments in the MDPetitions.com legal action to ensure voters have the opportunity to consider “tuition benefit” for illegal alien students.

Date: Thursday, October 27
Time: 2:30 p.m. EDT
Location: House of Delegates Building, Judiciary Committee Room #100
6 Bladen Street
Annapolis, Maryland

The DREAM Act was enacted by the Maryland General Assembly and signed by Governor Martin O’Malley on May 10, 2011. The law creates a new taxpayer-subsidized public benefit — the ability to pay reduced tuition rates at Maryland community colleges and public higher education institutions — for certain eligible illegal aliens. The petition drive was perhaps the most successful in Maryland history. It collected nearly twice the amount of signatures required by law to put the new benefit to voters in a referendum.The chairman of MDPetitions.com is Maryland Assembly Delegate Neil Parrott of Washington County; Delegate Patrick McDonough of Baltimore and Harford Counties is its honorary chairman.

Judicial Watch, the public interest organization that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has filed a “Motion to Intervene” on behalf of MDPetitions.com, the organization that sponsored the petition drive to place the Maryland DREAM Act on the ballot for the November 2012 elections. The Motion to Intervene was filed in response to a lawsuit that seeks to deny voters an up-or-down vote on the Maryland DREAM Act (John Doe, et al., v. Maryland State Board of Elections, (No. 02-C-11-163050)). The chairman of MDPetitions.com is Maryland Assembly Delegate Neil Parrott of Washington County; Delegate Patrick McDonough of Baltimore and Harford Counties is its honorary chairman.The DREAM Act was enacted by the Maryland General Assembly and signed by Governor Martin O’Malley on May 10, 2011. The law creates a new taxpayer-subsidized public benefit — the ability to pay reduced tuition rates at Maryland community colleges and public higher education institutions — for certain eligible illegal aliens. The petition drive was perhaps the most successful in Maryland history. It collected nearly twice the amount of signatures required by law to put the new benefit to voters in a referendum. As stated in MDPetitions.com’s filing:

As the sponsor of this overwhelmingly successful petition, MDPetitions.com obviously has a compelling interest in ensuring that voters across the State of Maryland have the opportunity to vote on the Maryland DREAM Act in the November 2012 election.MDPetitions.com represents not only its leaders and organizers and the hundreds of volunteers who worked to make the successful petition possible, but also the 108,923 confirmed registered voters who signed the petition in the exercise of their rights under Article XVI, Section 2 of the Maryland Constitution. In addition, as the creator of a web-based computer program that as many as 28,860 confirmed registered voters used to generate, print, sign, and mail in clear and accurate petition pages,MDPetitions.com has a unique interest in preserving the availability of this…tool for use by registered voters in future petition drives. MDPetitions.com seeks intervention… to protect these…interests against the unfounded allegations of the [lawsuit]… 

The filing also included an “Answer of Intervener MDPetitions.com to Plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief,” which responds point-by-point to the allegations of the plaintiffs, who include two illegal aliens and the advocacy group CASA de Maryland.“CASA de Maryland and the illegal alien lobby are attempting to throw out over 100,000 validated voter signatures and ignore the will of the people,” said Delegate Neil Parrott. “It appears that those who oppose the referendum process are doing so because they know how unpopular this bill is and, fearing that they will lose at the ballot box, have mounted this lawsuit to prevent Marylanders from exercising their constitutional right to decide the issue on their own. Marylanders across the state have worked hard to bring this bill to referendum, because they know Maryland cannot afford to subsidize college tuition for illegal aliens and they want to see our existing immigration laws enforced. Maryland’s referendum process has worked, and now Marylanders should have their voices heard at the ballot box.”“It is a great asset to the voters of Maryland to have Judicial Watch help to make sure that Marylanders will have an opportunity to vote on this important issue in November of 2012,” said Delegate Patrick McDonough. “As Honorary Chairman I know the volunteers worked hard to make this petition campaign the most successful in the history of the state. This is the people’s petition and the voters have the right to exercise their power on this key issue.”“MDPetitions.com followed the letter of the law in its overwhelmingly successful petition drive, and there is no question that the Maryland DREAM Act should be put to a referendum. The illegal immigration lobby simply wants to keep Maryland voters from having their say on the issue of taxpayer-funded tuition benefits for illegal aliens,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The illegal immigration lobby knows that the American people are fed up with bankrolling perks for illegal aliens. Given Maryland’s devastating budget crunch, now is not the time to spend taxpayer dollars by paying for the education of illegal aliens who can’t legally work in Maryland or anywhere else in the United States.”Contact Delegate Neil Parrott: 410-774-0121, mdpetitions@gmail.comContact Delegate Pat McDonough: (410) 238-0025, patmcdee@comcast.net