Justia Election Law Opinion Summaries

VRLC is a non-profit corporation and VRLC-FIPE is a political committee formed under Vermont law. VRLC challenged three disclosure provisions of Vermont's election laws as unconstitutionally vague and violating freedom of speech. The court concluded that the Vermont statutory disclosure provisions concerning electioneering communications and mass media activities are constitutional and did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment's due process guarantee due to vagueness nor the First Amendment's free speech guarantee; Vermont's "political committee" definition did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment's due process guarantee because of vagueness nor violate the First Amendment's free speech guarantee; and Vermont may impose contribution limits on VRLC-PC, an entity that makes contributions to candidates, and the statute's contribution limits were constitutionally applied to VRLC-FIPE, which claims to be an independent-expenditure-only PAC. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants. View "Vermont Right to Life Committee v. Sorrell, et al." on Justia Law

This case arose from a political battle concerning labor unions. Chula Vista Citizens and the Associations sought to place an initiative on the Chula Vista municipal ballot. The City of Chula Vista requires that initiative proponents be electors (the elector requirement). Because Cal. Elec. Code 9202(a) requires proponents to sign a notice of intent, the effect of Cal. Elec. Code 9207 is that the identities of official proponents are disclosed to would-be signatories of the petition (the petition-proponent disclosure requirement). Plaintiffs filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the elector and petition-proponent disclosure requirements, both facially and as applied, violated the First Amendment. Determining that the elector requirement was properly before the court because it implicated the chilling of expression and because the parties had not indicated that there were many pending actions in the California courts, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants as to the elector requirement where the Associations did not have a First Amendment right to serve as official proponents of local ballot initiatives. The court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants as to the petition-proponent disclosure requirement where the requirement was unconstitutional because they require official initiative proponents to identify themselves on the face of initiative petitions. View "Chula Vista Citizens v. Norris" on Justia Law

At issue in this case was a law providing that citizens who appear in person to vote must present photographic proof of their identity. The statute authorized a photographic identification card issued by the State as a valid form of identification. Plaintiffs were two residents who attempted to vote in the primary election using photographic identification cards issued by the City of Memphis Public Library. The residents and City filed a declaratory judgment action arguing (1) the photographic identification requirement violated constitutional protections, and (2) the City qualified as an entity of the State authorized to issue valid photographic identification cards through its public library. The trial court denied relief. The court of appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding (1) the photographic identification requirement did not violate constitutional principles, and (2) the photographic identification cards issued by the library complied with the statute for voting purposes. On appeal, the Supreme Court held (1) the issue pertaining to the library cards as photographic identification was moot because a change in the law precluded the use of photographic identification cards issued by municipalities or their libraries for voting purposes; and (2) the photographic identification requirement met constitutional scrutiny. View "City of Memphis v. Hargett" on Justia Law

Appellees in this case were seventeen-year-olds who would have been eighteen by the 2008 general election. After exhausting their administrative remedies, Plaintiffs filed separate complaints in the circuit court against the Maryland State Boar of Elections (MSBE), alleging that the MSBE violated several provisions of the Election Law Article by prohibiting seventeen-year-olds who would be eighteen by the next general election from casting any votes in non-partisan primary elections for county school boards. The circuit court concluded that the voter eligibility requirements of the Maryland Constitution did not apply to non-partisan elections for Boards of Education, municipal elections, and local ballot questions not mandated by the Constitution. The Court of Appeals vacated the circuit court and held that seventeen-year-olds who will turn eighteen by close of voter registration before the next general election were constitutionally and statutorily entitled to vote in primary elections, whether partisan or non-partisan, subject to all other provisions of the Constitution and statutory election law. Remanded.View "State Bd. of Elections v. Snyder" on Justia Law

The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, impose base limits, restricting how much money a donor may contribute to a particular candidate or committee, and aggregate limits, restricting how much money a donor may contribute in total to all candidates or committees, 2 U.S.C. 441a. In the 2011–2012 election cycle, McCutcheon contributed to 16 federal candidates, complying with all base limits. He alleges that the aggregate limits prevented him from contributing to additional candidates and political committees and that he wishes to make similar contributions in the future. McCutcheon and the Republican National Committee challenged the aggregate limits under the First Amendment. The district court dismissed. The Supreme Court reversed, with five justices concluding that those limits are invalid. Regardless whether strict scrutiny or the “closely drawn” test applies, the analysis depends on the fit between stated governmental objectives and the means selected to achieve the objectives. The aggregate limits fail even under the “closely drawn” test. Contributing to a candidate is an exercise of the right to participate in the electoral process through political expression and political association. A restriction on how many candidates and committees an individual may support is not a “modest restraint.” To require a person to contribute at lower levels because he wants to support more candidates or causes penalizes that individual for “robustly exercis[ing]” his First Amendment rights. The proper focus is on an individual’s right to engage in political speech, not a collective conception of the public good. The aggregate limits do not further the permissible governmental interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption or its appearance. The justices noted the line between quid pro quo corruption and general influence and that the Court must “err on the side of protecting political speech.” Given regulations already in effect, fear that an individual might make massive unearmarked contributions to entities likely to support particular candidate is speculative. Experience suggests that most contributions are retained and spent by their recipients; the government provided no reason to believe that candidates or committees would dramatically shift their priorities if aggregate limits were lifted. Multiple alternatives could serve the interest in preventing circumvention without “unnecessary abridgment” of First Amendment rights, such as targeted restrictions on transfers among candidates and committees, tighter earmarking rules, and disclosure. View "McCutcheon v. Fed. Election Comm’n" on Justia Law

The California Supreme Court held that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples violated the California Constitution; state voters then passed a ballot initiative, Proposition 8, amending the state constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Same-sex couples who wished to marry filed suit in federal court, challenging Proposition 8. State officials refused to defend the law, so the district court allowed the initiative’s official proponents to intervene, declared Proposition 8 unconstitutional, and enjoined its enforcement. State officials declined to appeal. The intervenors appealed. The Ninth Circuit certified a question, which the California Supreme Court answered: official proponents of a ballot initiative have authority to assert the state’s interest to defend the constitutionality of the initiative when public officials refuse to do so. The Ninth Circuit concluded that petitioners had standing and affirmed. The Supreme Court vacated and remanded, holding that the intervenors did not have standing to appeal. Article III of the Constitution confines the power of federal courts to deciding actual “Cases” or “Controversies.” A litigant must demonstrate a personal and tangible harm throughout all stages of litigation. The intervenors had standing to initiate this case against the California officials responsible for enforcing Proposition 8, but once the district court issued its order, they no longer had any injury to redress and state officials chose not to appeal. The intervenors had not been ordered to do or refrain from doing anything. Their “generalized grievance” is insufficient to confer standing. The fact that a state thinks a private party should have standing to seek relief for a generalized grievance cannot override settled law to the contrary. View "Hollingsworth v. Perry" on Justia Law

The 2010 census showed an enormous increase in Texas' population which required the State to redraw its electoral districts for the United States Congress, the State Senate, and the State House of Representatives, in order to comply with the Constitution's one-person, one-vote rule. The State also had to create new districts for the four additional congressional seats it received. Plaintiffs subsequently brought suit in Texas, claiming that the State's newly enacted electoral plans violated the United States Constitution and section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 1973. The Court held that because it was unclear whether the District Court for the Western District of Texas followed the appropriate standards in drawing interim maps for the 2012 Texas elections, the orders implementing those maps were vacated, and the cases were remanded for further proceedings. View "Perry v. Perez" on Justia Law

The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Act (matching funds provision), Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. 16-940 et seq., created a voluntary public financing system to fund the primary and general election campaigns of candidates for state office. Petitioners, candidates and independent expenditure groups, filed suit challenging the constitutionality of the matching funds provision. The Court held that the matching funds provision substantially burdened the speech of privately financed candidates and independent expenditure groups without serving a compelling state interest where the professed purpose of the state law was to cause a sufficient number of candidates to sign up for public financing, which subjected them to the various restrictions on speech that went along with that program. Therefore, the Court held that the matching funds scheme violated the First Amendment and reversed the judgment of the Ninth Circuit. View "Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC, et al. v. Bennett, et al; McComish, et al. v. Bennett, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner administered and enforced Nevada's Ethics in Government Law, Nev. Rev. Stat. 281A.420, and investigated respondent, an elected official who voted to approve a hotel/casino project proposed by a company that used respondent's long-time friend and campaign manager as a paid consultant. Petitioner concluded that respondent had a disqualifying conflict of interest under section 281A.420(8)(e)'s catch-all provision and censured him for failing to abstain from voting on the project. At issue was whether legislators have a personal, First Amendment right to vote on any given matter. The Court held that the Nevada Ethics in Government Law was not unconstitutionally overbroad where the law prohibited a legislator who had a conflict both from voting on a proposal and from advocating its passage or failure; where a universal and long-established tradition of prohibiting certain conduct created a strong presumption that the prohibition was constitutional; and where restrictions on legislators' voting were not restrictions on legislators' protected speech because the legislator's vote was the commitment of his apportioned share of the legislature's power to the passage or defeat of a particular proposal and the legislative power thus committed was not personal to the legislator but belonged to the people. The Court also concluded that additional arguments raised in respondent's brief were not decided or raised in his brief in opposition and were thus considered waived. Accordingly, the Court reversed the judgment of the Nevada Supreme Court and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Nevada Commission on Ethics v. Carrigan" on Justia Law

Claiming that he was subjected to dirty tricks during his successful campaign to become the police chief of Vinton, La., plaintiff filed a state court suit against the incumbent chief and the town (collectively, "defendant") asserting both state and federal law claims. Defendant removed the case to federal court based on plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. 1983 claims and after discovery, defendant sought summary judgment on the federal claims, which plaintiff conceded were not valid. The District Court accordingly dismissed the federal claims with prejudice and remanded the remaining claims to state court, noting that defendant's attorneys' work could be useful in the state court proceedings. Defendant then asked the federal court for attorney's fees. At issue was whether a court could grant reasonable fees to defendant when plaintiff's suit involved both frivolous and non-frivolous claims. The Court held that, when a plaintiff's suit involved both frivolous and non-frivolous claims, a court could grant reasonable fees to defendant, but only for costs that defendant would not have incurred but for the frivolous claims. The Court concluded that, although the District Court noted the usefulness of the attorneys' work in defending against the state law claims, it failed to take proper account of the overlap between the frivolous and non-frivolous claims; the District Court's reasoning that the close relationship between the federal and state law claims supported the award could not be squared with the congressional policy of sparing defendant from the costs only of frivolous litigation; and the Fifth Circuit did not uphold the award on proper ground where it seemed to think that defendant could receive fees for any work useful to defendant against a frivolous claim, even if his lawyers would have done that work regardless. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings. View "Fox v. Vice" on Justia Law