Peace Groups Seek Court Action To Put War Referendum on Ballot

Two Cambridge peace groups have gone to court to force anti-war proposals onto the City's November 7 ballot.

Vote on Vietnam and The Cambridge Neighborhood Committee on Vietnam are asking the Middlesex Superior Court to overrule the City Solicitor's decision that the issue is irrelevant to the City and cannot be placed on the ballot.

Judge George P. Ponte yesterday requested attorneys for the City and the anti-war groups to file their arguments by October 10. He also combined the previously separate cases of the two groups. According to Hans F. Loeser, attorney for the CNCV, it is likely that the Superior Court will not issue a ruling on the cases but will pass it directly to the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth for a decision.

Early this month, CNCV and Vote on Vietnam submitted differently-worded petitions calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam. Each petition carried over 7000 signatures. Under Massachusetts statutes, initiative petitions signed by eight per-cent of a city's voters (3600 signatures for Cambridge) must be adopted by the City Council or placed on the ballot.

On September 18, Cambridge City Solicitor Andrew T. Trodden advised the Cambridge Election Commission to bar the petitions from the ballot, deeming them beyond the legal scope of action of the city.

Attorneys for the anti-war groups say they will argue that the initiative privilege should include any subject of in-interest to the voters. The City Council itself has, the attorneys note, passed several pro-war resolutions in recent months.

The California Supreme Court last week similarly ordered such an anti-war proposal onto the San Francisco ballot on the basis of similar arguments.