MSC schedules quickie argument for petition font case

The Michigan Supreme Court granted leave to hear arguments in Stand Up For Democracy v. Secretary of State, et al., also known as the petition font case.

Last month, the Court of Appeals ruled that the signatures collected by the plaintiff could be accepted despite a minor imperfection in the font size of the petition, allowing the emergency manager law to be put to public vote in November. In that decision, the panel criticized the decision on which it based its decision, Bloomfield Charter Twp. v. Oakland County Clerk, asking for a special panel to overturn Bloomfield. The court declined to hold the special panel, necessitating the motion for leave to the Supreme Court.

The court has scheduled an expedited hearing for July 25, 2012.

In the leave order, Chief Justice Robert Young Jr. asked the parties to address definitions of “point” and “type” as they were understood in 1954 and 1965, when the Legislature passed and amended the petition requirement  statutes and whether those definitions should control the issue over how the terms were understood when the statutes were amended again in 1993 and 1998. (The terms apparently weren’t altered or redefined in the later amendments.)

Justice Stephen Markman asked the parties to address how the “point” and “type” should be measured (by size of the printer’s block or the actual printed character) and related issues.