A federal judge is delaying the implementation of a voter-oriented law in Main, which aims to stop the electoral law by stopping the foreign government’s expenses on the state referendum race.
US District Judge Nancy Torassen on Thursday released an initial prohibitory orders, a day before the new law came into force, after the men’s two biggest electrical utilities and newspapers and broadcasters representing the cases. Torassen concluded that his arguments had sufficient ability to delay the law until the litigation was completed in the federal court.
The federal law already prohibits foreign influence in candidates elections, but many main voters were earned over a hydroelectric transmission project over 22 million dollars spent by a Canadian utility to fight the state’s referendum. Menrs voted in November to stop pollfols and to ban foreign governments, or 5% or more foreign government -owned companies, from donating from the future referendum.
The plaintiff filed a lawsuit on constitutional grounds. Media outlets stated that they are required for police advertisements for the law and “to a large extent the core is a burden on political speech and freedom of the press.”
But the judge focuses his decision on arguments brought by utilities, both have foreign ownership.
Versent is owned by Enmax, owned by the city of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada. Central Main Power, meanwhile, is a private -owned Spanish utility, a subsidiary of iberdrola, but minority shareholders include two foreign governments, Norway’s Central Bank Niger Bank and Government -owned Qatar Investment Authority.
In its judgment, Torches wrote that 5% of foreign ownership in the law appeared to be an arbitrary, although the state said that the figure has been publicly borrowed from federal requirements for special revelations in business companies.
He suggested that this figure was unlikely to survive due to ruling in the US Supreme Court citizens that the corporations had the first amendment right to engage in political speech, including some expedition expenses.
“I believe that the 5% foreign ownership limit will prohibit sufficient quantity of protected speech,” the judge wrote.