Meyer v. Grant’s Empirical Analysis
1988
Citation profile
325 federal appellate · 157 district · 230 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,101 later decisions (41 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Rav v. City of St Paul Minnesota (1992), Leila Jeanne Hill Audrey Himmelmann Everitt Simpsons v. Colorado (2000)
325 federal appellate · 157 district · 230 state decisions — followed in 31 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedGrant v. Meyer (from Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Buckley v. Valeo · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. Y Button · Roth v. United States · Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc. · Thornhill v. Alabama
Cited together with Victoria Buckley, Secretary of State of Colorado, v. American Constitutional Law Foundation, Inc. · Buckley v. Valeo · Anderson v. Celebrezze · McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission · Burdick v. Takushi
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 1,101 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The circulation of an initiative petition of necessity involves both the expression of a desire for political change and a discussion of the merits of the proposed change. Although a petition circulator may not have to persuade potential signatories that a particular proposal should prevail to capture their signatures, he or she will at least have to persuade them that the matter is one deserving of the public scrutiny and debate that would attend its consideration by the whole electorate. This will in almost every case involve an explanation of the nature of the proposal and why its advocates support it. Thus, the circulation of a petition involves the type of interactive communication concerning political change that is appropriately described as “core political speech.””
49 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“[t]he First Amendment protects [individuals'] right not only to advocate their cause but also to select what they believe to be the most effective means for so doing.”
24 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“First, it limits the number of voices who will convey appellees’ message and the hours they can speak and, therefore, limits the size of the audience they can reach. Second, it makes it less likely that appel-lees will garner the number of signatures necessary to place the matter on the ballot, thus limiting their ability to make the matter the focus of statewide discussion.”
22 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.