Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-19-16308/USCOURTS-ca9-19-16308-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

WILLIAM PRICE TEDARDS, JR.;

MONICA WNUK; BARRY HESS;

LAWRENCE LILIEN; ROSS TRUMBLE,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

DOUG DUCEY, Governor of Arizona, 

in his official capacity; MARTHA 

MCSALLY,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 19-16308

D.C. No.

2:18-cv-04241-

DJH

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Arizona

Diane J. Humetewa, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted November 13, 2019

Pasadena, California

Filed February 27, 2020

Before: MILAN D. SMITH, JR., ERIC D. MILLER,

and DANIEL P. COLLINS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr.;

Concurrence by Judge Collins

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2 TEDARDS V. DUCEY

SUMMARY*

Civil Rights

The panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal of an 

action, brought following the death of Arizona Senator John 

McCain in 2018, challenging the constitutionality of an 

Arizona statute that governs appointments and elections in 

the aftermath of a vacancy in the United States Senate.

Senator McCain died on August 25, 2018, three days 

before the primary election. Over four years remained in his 

Senate term. Consistent with the requirements of Arizona 

Revised Statute § 16-222(D), as amended, Governor Doug 

Ducey (Republican) issued a writ of election to fill Senator 

McCain’s vacant seat in November 2020, and appointed a 

temporary Senator until the winner of the November 2020 

election assumed office. The panel noted that by that time, 

Arizona will have had a temporary appointee, currently 

Senator Martha McSally, chosen by the Governor, for over 

two years. Plaintiffs, Arizona voters and a would-be Senate 

candidate, alleged that the November 2020 vacancy election 

date and the 27-month interim appointment duration violated 

the time constraints implicit in the Seventeenth Amendment 

and impermissibly burdened their right to vote, as protected 

by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Plaintiffs further

challenged Arizona’s statutory mandates that the Governor 

must make a temporary appointment and must choose a 

member of the same party as the Senator who vacated the 

office.

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It 

has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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TEDARDS V. DUCEY 3

The panel noted that in 1913, the Seventeenth 

Amendment fundamentally changed the structure of the 

national government by providing that United States 

Senators be “elected by the people.” Prior to the adoption of 

the Seventeenth Amendment, the Constitution gave the 

power of choosing Senators to the state legislatures. The 

original provision also empowered a State Governor, in the 

event of a vacancy arising during a legislative recess, to 

make a “temporary” appointment pending the next 

legislative session. The Seventeenth Amendment retained 

this vacancy and appointment provision in modified form, 

and it is that portion of the Amendment which the panel 

addressed.

The panel first considered plaintiffs’ Seventeenth 

Amendment challenge to the November 2020 vacancy 

election date and the 21-month duration of appointed 

representation. The panel noted that the meaning of the 

Seventeenth Amendment has seldom been litigated, and no 

body of doctrine provided robust guidance as to its proper 

interpretation. The panel therefore used multiple modes of 

analysis and sources of authority to decipher the 

Amendment’s meaning. The panel concluded that the text 

of the Seventeenth Amendment conferred some discretion 

upon the States as to both the timing of an election to fill a 

vacancy and the duration of an interim appointment, and that 

the text was ambiguous as to the outer bounds of this 

discretion. The panel did not find that related constitutional 

provisions placed any precise temporal limitations upon 

vacancy elections or appointments under the Seventeenth 

Amendment. The panel’s review of the historical context 

led it to disfavor any interpretation that permitted 

excessively long vacancies, but the panel noted that the 

context did not reveal any precise constraints. The 

legislative history did not provide a clear view of the textual 

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4 TEDARDS V. DUCEY

interpretation possessed by the members of Congress who 

voted in favor of the Seventeenth Amendment. The state 

statutes enacted after the Seventeenth Amendment’s 

ratification favored, but did not compel, an interpretation of 

the Seventeenth Amendment that left States broad discretion 

to schedule a vacancy election up until the next general 

election preceded by some reasonable period of time in 

which to hold the election.

The panel next turned to the four prior cases that have 

interpreted the Seventeenth Amendment’s Vacancy Clause 

at any length, and concluded that plaintiffs’ challenge was 

foreclosed by binding precedents. Thus, the panel noted that 

the Supreme Court had spoken to the meaning of the relevant 

Seventeenth Amendment provisions in two cases. First, the 

panel noted that in Valenti v. Rockefeller, a three-judge 

district court, in considering a 29-month Senate seat vacancy 

following Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination, had conducted 

a detailed analysis of the relevant Seventeenth Amendment 

provisions in both a majority and a dissenting opinion, and 

had dismissed plaintiffs’ complaints. The Supreme Court 

then summarily affirmed the majority’s dismissal. 292 F. 

Supp. 851 (W.D.N.Y. 1968), summarily aff’d, 393 U.S. 405 

(1969) (per curiam). Second, in Rodriguez v. Popular 

Democratic Party, the Supreme Court opined on a related 

constitutional question in part based on a particular 

interpretation of the result it had summarily affirmed in 

Valenti, and also endorsed some of the reasoning of the 

Valenti three-judge district court majority. 457 U.S. 1, 10–

12 (1982). The panel concluded that it was bound by 

Rodriguez’s 29-month interpretation of the binding result of 

Valenti. The panel further interpreted Rodriguez to endorse 

only a State’s discretion to postpone a vacancy election until

a general election.

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TEDARDS V. DUCEY 5

Turning to the challenged Arizona law, the panel held

that the timing provision of A.R.S. § 16-222(D) as applied 

to the McCain vacancy was a permissible exercise of the 

State’s discretion under the Seventeenth Amendment. 

Accordingly, neither Governor Ducey’s writ of election nor 

Senator McSally’s appointment was a violation thereof. The 

panel therefore affirmed the district court’s dismissal of 

Counts I and II of plaintiffs’ amended complaint to the extent 

that those counts related to the timing of the vacancy election 

and the duration of appointed representation under the 

Seventeenth Amendment.

Addressing plaintiffs’ First and Fourteenth Amendment 

challenges, the panel assumed, without deciding, that 

regulation of the timing of a vacancy election was at least a 

“burden” for purposes of review under Burdick v. Takushi, 

504 U.S. 428 (1992). However, because the panel held that 

the Seventeenth Amendment authorized at least as long of 

an interval before the vacancy election as was challenged 

here, it concluded that the burden thereby posed was 

necessarily a “reasonable” one. The panel held that plaintiffs 

failed to plausibly allege that the timing of the vacancy 

election was not justified by “important” state interests. 

Given that the burden of this timing on plaintiffs’ right to 

vote was “reasonable” and “nondiscriminatory,” the 

“important” state interests were sufficient to affirm the 

dismissal of plaintiffs’ First and Fourteenth Amendment 

challenges.

The panel held that plaintiffs lacked standing to 

challenge the appointment mandate and same-party 

restrictions in A.R.S. § 16-222(D). The panel held that given 

that Arizona’s legislature empowered the state governor to 

make temporary appointments, Governor Ducey 

unquestionably had the authority to appoint Martha McSally 

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6 TEDARDS V. DUCEY

as a temporary replacement for Senator McCain. Plaintiffs 

alleged no facts rebutting Governor Ducey’s statement on 

appeal that he would have appointed Senator McSally 

regardless of the requirement that he name an interim 

Senator and regardless of the requirement that the appointee 

share Senator McCain’s political party. Accordingly, the 

panel held that plaintiffs suffered no injuries from the 

appointment of Senator McSally that were fairly traceable to 

§ 16-222(C), and suffered no injury attributable to the mere 

existence of § 16-222(C) since it had not affected them. This 

lack of traceability was fatal to standing.

Concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, 

Judge Collins agreed with the majority that the district court 

properly dismissed plaintiffs’ various constitutional 

challenges to the Arizona statute governing the filling of 

senatorial vacancies, but in Judge Collins’s view the issues 

raised in this case could be readily resolved under existing 

precedent. Judge Collins therefore did not join the analysis 

as to the meaning of the Seventeenth Amendment in 

section I(A) of the “Analysis” section of the majority’s 

opinion. Instead, he joined only Parts I(B), II, and III of the 

“Analysis” section, and concurred in the judgment.

COUNSEL

Michael P. Persoon (argued) and Thomas H. Geoghegan, 

Despres Schwartz and Geoghegan Ltd., Chicago, Illinois; 

Michael Kielsky, Udall Shumway, Mesa, Arizona; for 

Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Dominic E. Draye (argued), Greenberg Traurig LLP,

Phoenix, Arizona; Anni Lori Foster, General Counsel, 

Office of the Governor, Phoenix, Arizona; Brett W. Johnson 

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TEDARDS V. DUCEY 7

and Colin Ahler, Snell & Wilmer LLP, Phoenix, Arizona; 

James E. Tyrrell III, Venable LLP, Washington, D.C.; for 

Defendants-Appellees.

Spencer G. Scharff, Scharff PLLC, Phoenix, Arizona, for 

Amici Curiae Vox Populi Foundation and Arizona 

Advocacy Network Foundation.

Theresa Amato and Carlton Mosley, Shearman & Sterling 

LLP, Washington, D.C., for Amici Curiae Professors Erwin 

Chemerinsky, Helen Hershkoff, Alexander Keyssar, 

Lawrence Lessig, and Sanford Levinson.

Michael A. Curtis, Law Offices of Michael A. Curtis, 

Phoenix, Arizona; Robert S. Lynch and Caroline G. Lynch, 

Robert S. Lynch & Associates, Phoenix, Arizona; for Amici 

Curiae Irrigation and Electrical Districts’ Association of 

Arizona (IEDA) and Arizona Municipal Power Users’ 

Association (AMPUA).

OPINION

M. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

In 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment fundamentally 

changed the structure of our national government by 

providing that United States Senators be “elected by the 

people.” U.S. Const. amend. XVII para. 1. Prior to the 

adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment, the Constitution 

gave the power of choosing Senators to the state legislatures. 

Id. art. I, § 3 (amended 1913). The original provision also 

empowered a State Governor, in the event of a vacancy 

arising during a legislative recess, to make a “temporary” 

appointment pending the next legislative session. Id. The 

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8 TEDARDS V. DUCEY

Seventeenth Amendment retained this vacancy and 

appointment provision in modified form, and it is that 

portion of the Amendment with which we are primarily 

concerned in this case. The relevant portion of the 

Amendment reads as follows:

When vacancies happen in the representation 

of any State in the Senate, the executive 

authority of such State shall issue writs of 

election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That 

the legislature of any State may empower the 

executive thereof to make temporary 

appointments until the people fill the 

vacancies by election as the legislature may 

direct.

U.S. Const. amend. XVII para. 2.

Arizona Senator John McCain died in August 2018, 

leaving vacant one of Arizona’s two U.S. Senate seats. 

Pursuant to Arizona law, the people of Arizona will fill the 

vacancy by election in November 2020. By that time, 

Arizona will have had a “temporary” appointee, currently 

Senator Martha McSally, for over two years. Plaintiffs, 

Arizona voters and a would-be Senate candidate, challenge 

the constitutionality of the Arizona statute that governs 

appointments and elections in the aftermath of a Senate 

vacancy.

First, Plaintiffs argue that the November 2020 vacancy 

election date and the 27-month interim appointment duration 

violate the time constraints implicit in the Seventeenth 

Amendment. The district court dismissed this challenge for 

failure to state a claim, finding no authority for invalidating 

a state statute on this basis. We affirm. Although we find 

Plaintiffs’ interpretation a possible one based on the text and 

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TEDARDS V. DUCEY 9

history of the Seventeenth Amendment, we conclude that it 

is foreclosed by binding precedents.

Second, Plaintiffs argue that the November 2020 

vacancy election date impermissibly burdens their right to 

vote as protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. 

The district court also dismissed this challenge for failure to 

state a claim, finding that important State regulatory interests 

justify what is a reasonable and nondiscriminatory 

restriction on Plaintiffs’ right to vote. We agree, and affirm.

Third and finally, Plaintiffs challenge Arizona’s 

statutory mandates that the Governor must make a temporary 

appointment and must choose a member of the same party as 

the Senator who vacated the office. Plaintiffs argue that the 

appointment mandate violates the Seventeenth 

Amendment’s specified separation of State powers, as well 

as the Fourteenth Amendment and the Elections Clause. The 

district court dismissed this challenge for failure to state a 

claim, rejecting Plaintiffs’ interpretation of the relevant 

Seventeenth Amendment language. Plaintiffs argue that the 

same-party restriction violates the Qualifications Clauses in 

the Seventeenth Amendment and other constitutional 

provisions, as well as the First Amendment and the Elections 

Clause. The district court dismissed this challenge for lack 

of standing. The district court found no harm on the basis of 

representation by a Republican and no redressability where 

the Republican Governor would appoint a Republican 

anyway. We affirm both of these dismissals for lack of 

standing.

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10 TEDARDS V. DUCEY

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

I. Factual Background

In November 2016, the people of Arizona reelected 

Senator John S. McCain III (Republican) to a sixth term in 

the United States Senate. In July 2017, doctors diagnosed 

Senator McCain with an aggressive brain tumor whose 

victims have only a fourteen-month average survival time.1

In May 2018, Governor Ducey signed into law an 

amendment to Arizona’s congressional vacancy statute, 

Arizona Revised Statutes (A.R.S.) § 16-222. See 2018 Ariz. 

Sess. Laws 2308. Pursuant to the amended law, if a Senate 

seat becomes vacant 150 days or fewer before the next 

primary election (or between the primary and the general 

election), the people of Arizona will not fill the vacancy by 

election until the following general election two years later. 

See A.R.S. §§ 16-222(A), (D).2 The Governor must 

1 Susan Scutti, Sen. John McCain has brain cancer, aggressive 

tumor surgically removed, CNN (July 20, 2017), 

https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/19/health/gupta-mccain-glioblastoma/

index.html.

2 As amended, A.R.S. § 16-222(A) provides that “[w]hen a vacancy 

occurs in the office of United States senator . . . , and except as provided 

in subsection D of this section, the vacancy shall be filled at the next 

general election.” 2018 Ariz. Sess. Laws 2308 (emphasis added). 

A.R.S. § 16-222(D) provides that:

If a vacancy in the office of United States senator 

occurs one hundred fifty days or less before the next 

regular primary election date, . . . the vacancy [will be]

filled at the second regular general election held after 

the vacancy occurs . . . .

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TEDARDS V. DUCEY 11

“appoint a person to fill the vacancy” in the interim,3 who is 

“of the same political party as the person vacating the 

office.” Id. § 16-222(C). At the time the legislature passed 

this amendment, the August 2018 primary was already fewer 

than 150 days away. Senator McCain was still serving as 

Senator at that time.4

Id. at 2308–09. In 2018, Arizona law provided for regular primary 

elections “[o]n the tenth Tuesday prior to a general . . . election.” 2009 

Ariz. Sess. Laws 1268, amended by 2019 Ariz. Sess. Laws Ch. 246 

(current version at A.R.S. § 16-201). The 2018 general election was 

scheduled nationally for November 6, 2018. See 2 U.S.C. §§ 1, 7. 

Therefore, Arizona’s primaries were held on August 28, 2018. 

Subtracting 150 days from August 28, 2018, yields a date of March 31, 

2018, which is slightly more than seven months before November 6, 

2018. Arizona has since amended its primary election schedule to make 

the primaries fall earlier in August. See A.R.S. § 16-201 (amended 

2019).

Prior to the May 2018 amendment, A.R.S. § 16-222 contained no 

special provision for vacancies occurring within a particular time period 

before the next election. A.R.S. § 16-222(A) provided only that “[w]hen 

a vacancy occurs in the office of United States senator . . . , the vacancy 

shall be filled at the next general election.” 2012 Ariz. Sess. Laws 2543, 

amended by 2018 Ariz. Sess. Laws 2308. In the event of a vacancy 

occurring “after the close of petition filing” for the primary, a related 

statute gave the power of candidate nomination to the political party of 

the vacating Senator. A.R.S. § 16-343 (last amended by 2017 Ariz. Sess. 

Laws 959).

3 As amended, A.R.S. § 16-222(C) provides that, “except as 

provided in subsection D of this section, [the appointee] shall serve until 

the person elected at the next general election is qualified and assumes 

office.” 2018 Ariz. Sess. Laws 2308 (emphasis added).

4 Bill Hutchinson, Sen. John McCain showing ‘maverick’ spirit even 

as he battles brain cancer, ABC News (May 6, 2018), 

https://abcnews.go.com/ABCNews/sen-john-mccain-showing-maverickspirit-battles-brain/story?id=54974427.

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12 TEDARDS V. DUCEY

Senator McCain died on August 25, 2018, three days 

before the primary election.5 Over four years remained in 

his Senate term. Consistent with the requirements of § 16-

222(D), as amended, Governor Doug Ducey (Republican) 

issued a writ of election to fill Senator McCain’s vacant seat 

in November 2020. Consistent with the requirements of 

§ 16-222(C), Governor Ducey appointed former Arizona 

Senator Jon Kyl (Republican) to serve as Senator until the 

winner of the November 2020 election assumed office. 

Senator Kyl made clear that he would not personally seek 

election in 2020.6

At the time of these developments, the contest for 

Arizona’s other Senate seat was already on the ballot for 

November 2018. Competing to replace Senator Jeff Flake 

(Republican), who had decided not to seek reelection, were 

Representative Kyrsten Sinema (Democrat) and 

Representative Martha McSally (Republican). 

Representative Sinema won the election with 50.0% of the 

vote compared to Representative McSally’s 47.6%.7

In mid-December 2018, Senator Kyl announced that he 

would resign at the end of the year so that a subsequent 

appointee could serve the full two years of the 116th 

5 Robert D. McFadden, John McCain, War Hero, Senator, 

Presidential Contender, Dies at 81, N.Y. Times (Aug. 25, 2018), 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/25/obituaries/john-mccain-dead.html.

6 Jonathan Martin & Danny Hakim, Jon Kyl, Former Senator, Will 

Replace McCain in Arizona, N.Y. Times (Sept. 4, 2018), 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/us/politics/arizona-senatemccain.html.

7 Green Party candidate Angela Green, who officially endorsed 

Sinema days before the election, received 2.4% of the vote.

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TEDARDS V. DUCEY 13

Congress and seek election in 2020.8 Days later, Governor 

Ducey announced that he had appointed Representative 

McSally to succeed Senator Kyl.9

At present, Senators Sinema and McSally represent 

Arizona in the United States Senate.

II. Procedural Background

In late November 2018, five registered Arizona voters—

two Democrats, one Independent, one Libertarian, and one 

Republican—filed suit against Governor Ducey and Senator 

Kyl pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Plaintiffs alleged that the 

Governor’s implementation of A.R.S. § 16-222 violated 

their constitutional rights under the Seventeenth 

Amendment and several other provisions of the U.S. 

Constitution. Their amended complaint challenged the 

November 2020 date of the vacancy election (Count I),10 the 

8 Sean Sullivan & John Wagner, Kyl plans to resign Arizona Senate 

seat, clearing the way for another GOP appointment, Wash. Post (Dec. 

14, 2018), https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/kyl-plans-toresign-arizona-senate-seat-clearing-the-way-for-another-gop-appointment/

2018/12/14/12bae21e-ffb1-11e8-83c0-b06139e540e5_story.html.

9 Press Release, Office of Governor Ducey, Governor Ducey 

Appoints Martha McSally to U.S. Senate (Dec. 18, 2018), 

https://azgovernor.gov/governor/news/2018/12/governor-ducey-appointsmartha-mcsally-us-senate.

10 Count I alleged that the “delay[]” of the vacancy election until 

November 2020, being “significantly greater than a year” after the 

occurrence of the vacancy, violates Plaintiffs’ right to fill the vacancy by 

election under the Seventeenth Amendment. Count I also alleged that 

this delay, by encompassing more than a “reasonable and brief interim 

period[] necessary to hold an orderly election,” violates Plaintiffs’ right

to continuous direct representation under the Fourteenth Amendment 

Privileges or Immunities Clause. Count I further alleged that this delay, 

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14 TEDARDS V. DUCEY

27-month duration and mandatory nature of the interim 

appointment (Count II),11 and the same-party restriction on 

the interim appointee (Count III).12 Plaintiff Hess later 

alleged that he sought to be considered for the interim 

appointment, but was barred from consideration as a 

registered Libertarian.

In late December 2018, Plaintiffs filed a motion for 

preliminary and permanent injunction. Plaintiffs sought an 

order directing that the election to fill the vacancy be held 

“as soon as practicable, and not longer than one year from 

being “just too long” and a “de facto denial of a special election,” 

severely burdens Plaintiffs’ right to vote in violation of the First 

Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause.

11 Count II alleged that, by “mandating” that the Governor make an 

interim appointment, § 16-222(C) violates the Seventeenth 

Amendment’s provision that the state legislature may only “empower” 

the Governor to make an appointment. Count II further alleged that, by 

providing that the people will have appointed representation for 

approximately 27 months, § 16-222(D) violates Plaintiffs rights under 

the Seventeenth Amendment to be subject only to “temporary” 

appointments. Count II also alleged that the 27-month appointment 

duration violates Plaintiffs’ rights under the Fourteenth Amendment 

Privileges or Immunities Clause to have elected representation at all 

times “except for the brief interim periods necessary to conduct an 

orderly election.”

12 Count III alleged that, by restricting the Governor’s appointment 

discretion to a person of the same political party as the vacating Senator, 

§ 16-222(D) exceeds the state legislature’s authority under the 

Seventeenth Amendment, the Elections Clause, and the Qualifications 

Clause. Count III further alleged that the same-party restriction violates 

Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights by “giving the imprimatur of state law 

to . . . a particular partisan viewpoint.”

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TEDARDS V. DUCEY 15

the date the vacancy arose.” Defendants, by then Governor 

Ducey and Senator McSally, moved to dismiss.13

In June 2019, after full briefing and oral argument, the 

district court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss. The 

court dismissed Counts I and II for failure to state a claim. 

The court disagreed that the Seventeenth Amendment 

constrains state discretion as Plaintiffs had alleged with 

regard to the date of the vacancy election, the duration of 

appointed representation, or the mandate that the Governor 

make an appointment. The court also concluded that the 

November 2020 vacancy election date was a reasonable 

burden on Plaintiffs’ First and Fourteenth Amendment right 

to vote and was justified by important state interests. The 

court dismissed Count III for lack of standing. The court 

concluded that any harm attributable to representation by a 

Republican was too speculative to constitute a cognizable 

injury. The court further concluded that redressability was 

lacking because Governor Ducey could keep Senator 

McSally in place even without the statutory same-party 

requirement. Since it found no viable claims, the court 

denied Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary and permanent 

injunction.

13 Defendants argued that the Constitution gives States broad 

discretion to establish procedures for filling Senate vacancies and that 

§ 16-222 complies with the “plain language” of the Seventeenth 

Amendment. They argued that binding precedent allows at least a 29-

month Senate appointment. They also argued that Arizona’s procedure 

for holding a vacancy election is reasonable, nondiscriminatory, and in 

furtherance of important state interests. Alternately, Defendants argued 

that this case presents a nonjusticiable political question. As to the sameparty requirement, Defendants argued that the requirement is 

constitutional under both the First Amendment and the Qualifications 

Clause, and that Plaintiffs lack standing to challenge it.

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16 TEDARDS V. DUCEY

Plaintiffs timely appealed, and thereafter moved to 

expedite this appeal. We granted Plaintiffs’ motion to 

expedite.

JURISDICTION AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We 

review de novo a district court’s grant of a motion to dismiss 

and all constitutional questions. Mahoney v. Sessions, 871 

F.3d 873, 877 (9th Cir. 2017).

ANALYSIS

I. Seventeenth Amendment Challenge to Vacancy 

Election Date and Duration of Appointment

We begin with Plaintiffs’ as-applied Seventeenth 

Amendment challenges to the November 2020 vacancy 

election date and the 27-month duration of appointed 

representation. We consider these two challenges together 

because both require an analysis of what, if any, implicit 

time constraints exist within the Seventeenth Amendment. 

The meaning of the Seventeenth Amendment has seldom 

been litigated, and no body of doctrine provides us with 

robust guidance as to its proper interpretation. We therefore 

undertake here to decipher the Amendment’s meaning using 

multiple modes of analysis and sources of authority. After 

reaching a conclusion regarding that meaning, we turn to the 

law challenged in this case.

A. Meaning of the Seventeenth Amendment

The parties hold very different views of the extent to 

which the Seventeenth Amendment restricts state discretion 

regarding the timing of a vacancy election and the duration 

of an interim appointment. Plaintiffs argue that the 

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TEDARDS V. DUCEY 17

Seventeenth Amendment gives States very little 

discretion—that it requires a State to hold a vacancy election 

as quickly after the occurrence of a vacancy as the State 

holds a general election after petition filing. Plaintiffs argue 

that in most cases this means that a vacancy election will be 

held within, and an interim appointment will last no longer 

than, one year. Defendants argue that the Seventeenth 

Amendment gives States very broad discretion—that it does 

not carry any time constraint on vacancy elections or interim 

appointments at all beyond the deadline imposed by the end 

of the vacant term.

The Supreme Court has spoken to the meaning of the 

relevant Seventeenth Amendment provisions in two cases. 

First, in Valenti v. Rockefeller, a three-judge district court 

conducted a detailed analysis of the relevant provisions in 

both a majority and a dissenting opinion, and the Supreme 

Court summarily affirmed the majority. 292 F. Supp. 851 

(W.D.N.Y. 1968), summarily aff’d, 393 U.S. 405 (1969). 

Second, in Rodriguez v. Popular Democratic Party, the 

Supreme Court opined on a related constitutional question in 

part based on a particular interpretation of the result it had 

summarily affirmed in Valenti, and also endorsed some of 

the reasoning of the Valenti three-judge district court 

majority. 457 U.S. 1, 10–12 (1982).

Normally, a summary affirmance binds us to the precise 

result affirmed, yet it remains incumbent upon us to give full 

consideration to the issues and articulate our own 

independent analysis. See Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 

780, 784–85 & n.5 (1983); Washington v. Confederated 

Bands and Tribes of the Yakima Indian Nation, 439 U.S. 

463, 476 n.20 (1979). In this instance, the Supreme Court 

has provided some additional analysis of its own, see 

Rodriguez, 457 U.S. at 10–12, but in an opinion that “did not 

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18 TEDARDS V. DUCEY

. . . purport to be a thorough examination” of the Seventeenth 

Amendment. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 

623 (2008). We therefore undertake a full analysis here, but 

we do not reach any dispositive interpretive conclusions 

until we come to Rodriguez and consider our analysis in light 

of the reasoning therein.

Our analysis proceeds as follows, taking inspiration from 

the method by which the Supreme Court analyzed the 

meaning of the then little-litigated Second Amendment in 

District of Columbia v. Heller14: We begin with a close 

14 In Heller, the Supreme Court announced its first “thorough 

examination of the Second Amendment.” 554 U.S. at 623. Writing for 

the majority, Justice Scalia began with a textual analysis aiming to 

identify the meaning of the Second Amendment as it “would . . . have 

been known to ordinary citizens in the founding generation.” Id. at 576–

77. In the process of analyzing the text, he considered the natural and 

logical reading of the text on close examination; other uses of identical 

language elsewhere in the Constitution; founding-era dictionary 

definitions; other uses of similar language in such founding-era sources 

as The Federalist Papers and State constitutions; and the historical 

circumstances motivating the founders to codify the Second Amendment 

in the Constitution. Id. at 576–600.

Justice Scalia devoted a second section to greater analysis of the 

contemporary State constitutions codifying a similar right. Id. at 600–

03. He next considered the Amendment’s drafting history, though he 

expressed doubt about relying on analysis of prior rejected proposals. Id.

at 603–05. He then considered postratification interpretation, as 

evidenced by commentary, case law, and legislation, both close in time 

to ratification and specifically in the post-Civil War context. Id. at 605–

19. Finally, he considered “whether any of [the Court’s] precedents 

foreclose[d]” the majority’s interpretation. Id. at 619. In that discussion, 

he specifically rejected reliance on United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 

(1939), which “did not even purport to be a thorough examination of the 

Second Amendment,” and in which only one party had (only minimally) 

briefed the Amendment’s history. Id. at 623–24 (discussing).

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examination of the Seventeenth Amendment’s text. In 

subsection 1, we attempt to discern the most natural reading 

of the text standing alone. In subsection 2, we consider the 

text in the context of related constitutional provisions. 

Subsection 3 then considers the text in the context of the 

historical circumstances motivating Congress and the 

ratifying States to amend the Constitution. In subsection 4, 

we consider the interpretations of the Seventeenth 

Amendment provided by the sponsor of the final version in 

the Senate and the author of a materially similar version in 

the House. In subsection 5, we consider the interpretations 

evidenced by state legislative enactments in the immediate 

aftermath of the Seventeenth Amendment’s ratification. 

Finally, in subsection 6, we analyze prior cases interpreting 

the relevant portion of the Seventeenth Amendment, 

including and especially Valenti and Rodriguez, and come to 

our ultimate conclusion.

1. Text

We begin with the text of the Seventeenth Amendment 

standing alone. The second paragraph of the Seventeenth 

Amendment (hereinafter the Vacancy Clause) comprises 

two subclauses. We refer to the first as the principal clause:

When vacancies happen in the representation 

of any State in the Senate, the executive 

Writing for four dissenting Justices, Justice Stevens likewise 

focused on “the most natural reading of the Amendment’s text and the 

interpretation most faithful to the history of its adoption.” Id. at 638 

(Stevens, J., dissenting). He nevertheless reached a different conclusion 

from the majority, which he argued was required by Miller. Id. at 637–

40.

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authority of such State shall issue writs of 

election to fill such vacancies: . . .

U.S. Const. amend. XVII para 2. We refer to the second as 

the proviso:

. . . Provided, That the legislature of any State 

may empower the executive thereof to make 

temporary appointments until the people fill 

the vacancies by election as the legislature 

may direct.

Id.

The principal clause begins with a trigger: “When 

vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the 

Senate, . . . .” This trigger does not expressly invoke the 

discretion of the state legislature or any other decisionmaker. 

We read the word “when” to denote both “immediately 

after” and “every time that.” Thus, every vacancy 

immediately triggers the Vacancy Clause when it happens. 

The trigger gives no express guidance as to the types of 

events that cause a vacancy to “happen,” but no ambiguity 

on that point is before us. We have no doubt that the death 

of a Senator causes a vacancy to happen.

The principal clause then directs that “. . . the executive 

authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill 

such vacancies: . . . .” We assume “executive authority” 

refers to a state’s Governor, but we need not consider 

whether a Governor could delegate the relevant authority to 

an executive agency or other executive officer. We interpret 

the word “shall” as imposing a mandatory obligation on the 

Governor. See Zachary D. Clopton & Steven E. Art, The 

Meaning of the Seventeenth Amendment and a Century of 

State Defiance, 107 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1181, 1202 n.79 (2013) 

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(canvassing uses of the word “shall” in the Constitution, all 

of which are obligatory); accord Judge v. Quinn, 612 F.3d 

537, 547 (7th Cir. 2010) (Judge I), amended by 387 F. App’x 

629 (7th Cir. 2010) (Judge II), cert. denied sub nom. Quinn 

v. Judge, 563 U.S. 1032 (2011).

A writ of election is the traditional device for initiating a 

popular election. Id. at 552 (collecting evidence regarding 

writs of election from the Glorious Revolution, the Founding 

period, the Seventeenth Amendment era, and the present 

day). A writ of election “plays the important administrative 

role of authorizing state officials to provide for the myriad 

details necessary for holding an election (printing ballots, 

locating voting places, securing election personnel, and so 

on).” Id. At the time the Seventeenth Amendment was 

drafted, “it was settled that the state executive’s power to 

issue a writ of election carried with it the power to establish 

the time for holding an election, but only if the time had not 

already been fixed by law.” Id. (citing, inter alia, George 

W. McCrary, A Treatise on the American Law of Elections

166 (2d ed. 1880)). The “writ of election” reference thus 

appears to allow some discretion on the part of the State 

Governor or legislature to choose the date on which the 

election will be held.

We interpret the phrase “writs of election to fill such 

vacancies” also as a cross-reference to the Seventeenth 

Amendment’s first paragraph, which states that Senators 

shall be “elected by the people” of each state, and which 

provides the qualifications for electors. U.S. Const. amend. 

XVII para 1. We thus understand the Vacancy Clause to 

require a writ of election that orders an election by the 

people, where “the people” is composed of those individuals 

having the requisite qualifications to vote in a Senate 

election.

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We read “to fill such vacancies” to refer to the election 

of a Senator who will represent the state for the remainder of 

the term in which the vacancy occurred. This language 

appears to assume that a non-de minimis period of time 

remains in the term, and that an orderly election is capable 

of filling it. That is, the duty to call an election might not 

apply if the vacancy happens so late in the term that it is not 

feasible to hold an orderly election quickly enough that the 

elected Senator will serve for more than a de minimis period 

of time. Cf. ACLU v. Taft, 385 F.3d 641, 648 (6th Cir. 2004) 

(citing Jackson v. Ogilvie, 426 F.2d 1333, 1336–37 (7th Cir. 

1970)). This language may also suggest that the State should 

leave some non-de minimis period of the vacancy for the 

people to fill by election to the extent it is within the State’s 

discretion to do so.

The proviso begins with the authorization, “Provided, 

That the legislature of any State may empower the executive 

authority thereof to make temporary appointments . . . .” 

This language appears to give the legislature discretion as to 

whether the State will utilize the mechanism of temporary 

appointments.15 We interpret the phrase “make temporary 

appointments,” by reference to the Senate vacancy invoked 

by the principal clause, to mean appoint a person to serve, 

temporarily, as Senator in the vacant seat.

The key issue here is the word “temporary.” On its face, 

the term “temporary” is vague. In context, however, we are 

15 We decline to address here whether the state legislature’s 

discretion extends so far as to encompass mandating that the executive 

make appointments, or defining the qualifications of appointees. We 

therefore also do not address how much, if any, discretion regarding 

appointments the proviso preserves for the state executive. As we 

explain in section 0, infra, we find that Plaintiffs lack standing to raise 

these arguments.

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able to discern some meaning. First, we think the term must 

be read in relation to the six-year term of a Senator stated in 

the preceding paragraph. We would have difficulty reading 

it to approach anything nearing that full six-year term.

Second, the proviso concludes with language placing a 

specific limit on the duration of “temporary”: “. . . until the 

people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may 

direct.” The tenure of a Governor’s appointee is thus limited 

by the timing of a popular election to fill the vacancy. 

Without more context, however, this language does not 

establish the precise amount of time that may elapse before 

the Seventeenth Amendment compels an election by the 

people to fill the vacancy. Indeed, this language expressly 

grants the state legislature some degree of discretion 

regarding that timing.

Contrary to the Third Circuit in Trinsey v. Pennsylvania, 

941 F.2d 224 (3d Cir. 1991), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 1014 

(1991), we do not read the proviso’s two express references 

to state legislative discretion—“the legislature of any State 

may empower” and “as the legislature may direct”—as 

creating state legislative discretion over the whole of the 

Vacancy Clause. See id. at 234. Rather, we read these grants 

of discretion as modifying the specific terms they 

immediately relate to within the proviso. Cf. Barnhart v. 

Thomas, 540 U.S. 20, 26 (2003) (explaining the “‘rule of the 

last antecedent,’ according to which a limiting clause or 

phrase . . . should ordinarily be read as modifying only the 

noun or phrase that it immediately follows”). Thus, the first 

grant confers discretion as to whether a state legislature 

“empower[s]” the Governor “to make temporary 

appointments.” The second grant confers discretion as to the 

“direct[ing]” of a vacancy “election.” To read either grant 

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of discretion more broadly would render the other grant 

superfluous.

Instead, we agree with the Seventh Circuit in Judge I that 

“as the legislature may direct” does not modify the principal 

clause’s mandate that a Governor issue a writ of election 

when a vacancy happens. See 612 F.3d at 549. We further 

agree with the Seventh Circuit that the proviso acts as a 

qualifier on the principal clause, rather than as an alternative 

option for responding to Senate vacancies. See id. at 551.

In sum, the text of the Seventeenth Amendment confers 

some discretion upon the States as to both the timing of an 

election to fill a vacancy and the duration of an interim 

appointment. The text is ambiguous as to the outer bounds 

of this discretion.

2. Constitutional Context

We now consider other constitutional provisions closely 

related to the Seventeenth Amendment. Portions of the 

Seventeenth Amendment Vacancy Clause appear in, or 

cross-reference, sections 2, 3, and 4 of Article I of the 

unamended Constitution. The meaning of identical, similar, 

or explanatory language in these provisions has the potential 

to bring the meaning of the Vacancy Clause into sharper 

focus.

The Seventeenth Amendment Vacancy Clause 

specifically replaced the following language from Article I, 

section 3, of the unamended Constitution:

. . . and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, 

or otherwise, during the Recess of the 

Legislature of any State, the Executive 

thereof may make temporary Appointments 

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until the next Meeting of the Legislature, 

which shall then fill such Vacancies.

U.S. Const. art. I, § 3, cl. 2, amended by U.S. Const. amend. 

XVII (hereinafter the Unamended Vacancy Clause). The 

Seventeenth Amendment Vacancy Clause nevertheless 

retains much of this language.16

Most notably for our purposes, both Vacancy Clauses 

contain temporal limitations, including specifically that 

appointments be “temporary.” The Unamended Vacancy 

Clause provided two other express limitations: the trigger is 

limited to vacancies that happen “during the Recess of the 

Legislature of any State,” and the appointment lasts only 

“until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then 

fill such Vacancies.” The Seventeenth Amendment Vacancy 

Clause, however, provides just one other express limitation: 

the appointment lasts only “until the people fill the vacancies 

by election as the legislature may direct.” The Seventeenth 

Amendment Vacancy Clause thus has a broader reach than 

16 We provide a blackline for easy comparison:

. . . and if When Vacancies happen by Resignation, or 

otherwise in the representation of any State in the 

Senate, during the Recess of the Legislature of any 

State, the executive authority of such State shall issue 

writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That 

the legislature of any State may empower the 

Executive thereof may to make temporary 

Appointments until the next Meeting of the 

Legislature, which shall then people fill such the

Vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

See U.S. Const. amend. XVII para. 2; id. art. I § 3, cl. 2 (additions in 

underline, omissions in strikethrough) (capitalization differences 

omitted).

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the Unamended Vacancy Clause, in that it applies 

throughout a Senate term. It is also more ambiguous than 

the Unamended Vacancy Clause, in that meetings of the state 

legislature occurred on regular schedules, whereas a popular 

vacancy election would not necessarily coincide with a 

regularly scheduled event.

Plaintiffs argue that the Seventeenth Amendment’s 

reference to “temporary appointments” invokes a precise 

temporal meaning that this phrase had in the Unamended 

Vacancy Clause. Under the Unamended Vacancy Clause, a 

“temporary” appointment lasted no longer than the 

maximum interval between state legislative sessions. At the 

time that the Unamended Vacancy Clause was drafted, it 

appears that States held legislative sessions at least once a 

year. See Clopton & Art, supra, at 1211 n.119 (collecting 

state constitutions). As the Framers understood the 

provision, the maximum duration of a “temporary” 

appointment was thus one year.17 See, e.g., S. Rep. No. 33-

385, at 1–2 (1854) (concluding that an appointed Senator’s 

right of representation had expired upon the closing of the 

next legislative session following appointment). However, 

at the time that the Seventeenth Amendment was drafted, 

17 Indeed, delegates to the Philadelphia Convention doubted whether 

it was wise to entrust a Senate appointment power to State Governors at 

all, but their concerns were assuaged by assurances of this time 

constraint. See James Madison, Notes on the Debates in the Federal 

Convention, Aug. 9, 1787 (“Mr. WILSON objected to vacancies in the 

Senate being supplied by the Executives of the States. It was unnecessary 

as the Legislatures will meet so frequently. It removes the appointment 

too far from the people . . . . Mr. RANDOLPH thought it necessary in 

order to prevent inconvenient chasms in the Senate. In some States the 

Legislatures meet but once a year. As the Senate will have more power 

& consist of a smaller number than the other House, vacancies there will 

be of more consequence. The Executives might be safely trusted he 

thought with the appointment for so short a time.”) (emphasis added).

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TEDARDS V. DUCEY 27

many States held legislative sessions only every other year. 

Valenti v. Rockefeller, 292 F. Supp. 851, 864 (W.D.N.Y. 

1968), summarily aff’d, 393 U.S. 405 (1969). The maximum 

duration of a “temporary” appointment then, assuming the 

permissible duration evolved with changing practice,18 was 

therefore two years. These discrete time limits (one year or 

two years) are potential interpretations of the term 

“temporary” in the Seventeenth Amendment.19

However, the Seventeenth Amendment’s omission of the 

very language from the Unamended Vacancy Clause that 

18 The duration of actual interim appointments did grow longer. See 

Valenti, 292 F. Supp. at 864 (finding that 32 of 179 appointees between 

1789 and 1913 served for more than one year); Clopton & Art, supra, at 

1211 n.120 (reporting based on “the aid of modern technology and more 

accurate sources” that only 21 pre-Seventeenth Amendment appointees 

served longer than one year, only one of whose tenure occurred during 

the first fifty years after the unamended Constitution was ratified).

19 Plaintiffs also invite us to also interpret the term “temporary” to 

invoke a functional analogy between the Unamended Vacancy Clause’s 

reference to the “next Meeting of the Legislature,” and the Seventeenth 

Amendment Vacancy Clause’s reference to “the people fill[ing] the 

vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.” That is, the term 

“temporary” could carry over an implication that the election by the 

people to fill the vacancy must take place at the popular-election 

equivalent of the “next Meeting of the Legislature.” Plaintiffs argue that 

the people are always in session. Thus, the State must hold the vacancy 

election as quickly as it is able to hold an orderly special election. Other 

functional interpretations are also possible, however, such as that the 

people meet when they vote in elections. Thus, the State must hold the 

vacancy election no later than the next election at which the people of 

the state are voting, which is to say any statewide election, including a 

special election or odd-year election. Or, the people meet in their federal 

political capacity when they vote for congressional representatives. 

Thus, the State must hold the vacancy election no later than the next 

congressional election, which is to say the next even-year November 

election.

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gave the term “temporary” a precise temporal meaning 

suggests to us that such meaning was not retained. We think 

it more likely that the meaning retained by “temporary” was 

simply that an appointment does not definitively resolve a 

vacancy, but rather lasts only until the event that actually 

“fill[s]” the vacancy.

Plaintiffs invite us to find further meaning in the 

language of the Seventeenth Amendment Vacancy Clause 

that duplicates language in the vacancy clause governing the 

House of Representatives (the House Vacancy Clause). The 

House Vacancy Clause states:

When vacancies happen in the 

Representation from any State, the Executive 

Authority thereof shall issue Writs of 

Election to fill such Vacancies.

U.S. Const. art. I, § 2, cl. 4. The Seventeenth Amendment 

materially replicates this language in the principal clause.20

The House Vacancy Clause does not specify the amount 

of time that may permissibly elapse between the happening 

of a vacancy and the vacancy election. Given the two-year 

term of a Representative, however, we can deduce that any 

20 We provide a blackline for easy comparison:

When vacancies happen in the Representation from of 

any State in the Senate, the Executive Authority 

thereof of such State shall issue Writs of Election to 

fill such Vacancies.: Provided . . .

See U.S. Const. amend. XVII para. 2; id. art. I, § 2, cl. 4 (additions in 

underline, omissions in strikethrough) (capitalization differences 

omitted).

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TEDARDS V. DUCEY 29

vacancy election must occur within a timeframe shorter than 

two years, and generally earlier than the next congressional 

election.21 We note the judgment implicit in this 

requirement, that a special election is practicable on this 

shorter timeframe, and that a special election is worthwhile 

notwithstanding the limited duration of the remaining 

vacancy. Accord Valenti, 292 F. Supp. at 878 (Frankel, J., 

dissenting).

However, we do not think the Seventeenth Amendment 

Vacancy Clause should be interpreted as referencing the 

precise time constraints that apply in the House context, for 

two reasons. First, the effect of a House vacancy is different 

from that of a Senate vacancy. When a vacancy occurs in 

the House, the affected district has no representation in the 

House until the State certifies a winner of the special 

election. The House Vacancy Clause contains no provision 

for an interim appointee. By contrast, when a vacancy 

happens in the Senate, the affected state is normally still 

represented by a second elected Senator, as well as 

potentially by an interim appointee. The election of a 

replacement Representative is thus in some sense more 

urgent than the election of a replacement Senator. Accord 

21 Plaintiffs’ reliance on Jackson v. Ogilvie, 426 F.2d 1333 (7th Cir. 

1970), and ACLU v. Taft, 385 F.3d 641 (6th Cir. 2004), for the 

proposition that the House Vacancy Clause requires a special election as 

soon as practicable is misplaced. Both of those cases were concerned 

with whether the House Vacancy Clause mandates a special election at 

all, even with little time left in the vacant term. See Jackson, 426 F.2d 

at 1334; ACLU, 385 F.3d at 644. Both held that it does, so long as the 

remaining time is not truly de minimis. See Jackson, 426 F.2d at 1337; 

ACLU, 385 F.3d at 650. Both held further that the lame-duck session is 

not de minimis. See Jackson, 426 F.2d at 1337; ACLU, 385 F.3d at 649 

n.5. But neither pronounced a time constraint that would require a 

special election earlier than the next general election.

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ACLU, 385 F.3d at 649 n.3; Valenti, 292 F. Supp. at 862–63 

(majority opinion). Conversely, however, the election of a 

replacement Senator is uniquely urgent in the sense that the 

Constitution prizes the equal representation of the States. 

See U.S. Const. art. V (“[N]o state, without its consent, shall 

be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.”).

Second, as a practical matter, most States can likely 

conduct a special election more easily for a single 

congressional district than for an entire state. Most 

congressional districts are smaller than their entire states in 

terms of both geography and population.22 Thus, House 

special elections generally require fewer polling places, 

fewer ballot materials, and a smaller elections staff. There 

may also be a smaller field of candidates, and candidates 

may be able to campaign more quickly. Accordingly, there 

is reason to think the Seventeenth Amendment Vacancy 

Clause may allow a longer interval before the people fill the 

vacancy by election than does the House Vacancy Clause. 

Accord Valenti, 292 F. Supp. at 862–63.

Finally, Plaintiffs argue that the final words of the 

Seventeenth Amendment Vacancy Clause (“as the 

22 Currently, seven states have only one congressional district: 

Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and 

Wyoming. U.S. Census Bureau, Apportionment Population and Number 

of Representatives, by State: 2010 Census, 

https://www.census.gov/population/apportionment/files/Apportionment

%20Population%202010.pdf. When the Seventeenth Amendment was 

ratified, five states had only one congressional district: Arizona, 

Delaware, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Apportionment Act of 

1911, Pub. L. No. 62-5, 37 Stat. 13 (1911). When the original 

Constitution was ratified, two of the thirteen original states were 

apportioned only one congressional district pending the first census: 

Delaware and Rhode Island. U.S. Const. art. I, § 2, cl. 3.

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TEDARDS V. DUCEY 31

legislature may direct”) are a cross-reference to the Elections 

Clause, which states:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding 

Elections for Senators and Representatives, 

shall be prescribed in each State by the 

Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at 

any time by Law make or alter such 

Regulations, except as to the Places of 

chusing Senators.

U.S. Const. art. I, § 4, cl. 1. We need not resolve this 

question, as we would disagree in any event with Plaintiffs’ 

argument that such a cross-reference independently imposes 

a time constraint on the vacancy election. Cf. United States 

v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 311 (1941) (“Pursuant to . . . [the 

Elections Clause] . . . , the states are given, and in fact 

exercise a wide discretion in the formulation of a system for 

the choice by the people of representatives in Congress.”).

In sum, we do not find that related constitutional 

provisions place any precise temporal limitations upon 

vacancy elections or appointments under the Seventeenth 

Amendment.

3. Historical Context

We next reflect upon the broader historical context and 

the public spirit of the moment that motivated the drafting 

and ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment. As drafted 

in 1787, the original U.S. Constitution provided for two 

chambers of the national legislature elected in two different 

ways. While members of the House of Representatives were 

to be elected “by the People,” U.S. Const. art. I, § 2, cl. 1, 

Senators were to be “chosen by the [State] Legislature,” U.S. 

Const. art. I, § 3, cl. 1. The Framers had at least two 

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motivations for designing the Senate in this way: (a) to 

secure the role of state governments in the new federal 

government, and (b) to balance the directly elected House 

with a legislative chamber comprising a more “select 

appointment.” The Federalist No. 62 (James Madison).23

Congressional proposals to amend the Constitution in 

favor of the direct election of Senators began within 

Madison’s lifetime. See Clopton & Art, supra, at 1189 n.17 

(collecting proposals as early as 1826). At least four 

motivations drove the reformers: (1) curbing corrupt 

practices in the choosing of Senators, such as bribery and 

control by party bosses;24 (2) freeing state legislatures from 

the distraction and distorting effects of being responsible for 

choosing national representatives;25 (3) avoiding deadlocks 

23 See also James Madison, Notes on the Debates in the Federal 

Convention, June 6, 1787 (“Mr. SHERMAN: If it were in view to 

abolish the State Govts. the elections ought to be by the people. If the 

State Govts. are to be continued, it is necessary in order to preserve 

harmony between the National & State Govts. that the elections to the 

former shd. be made by the latter.”); George H. Haynes, The Election of 

Senators 1–18 (1906) (canvassing the debates that took place at the 1787 

Philadelphia convention regarding the composition of the Senate, noting 

that the device of election by state legislatures was widely popular and 

was the device by which the delegates had themselves been selected).

24 See, e.g., H.R. Rep. No. 55-125, at 3 (1898) (“The public press for 

years . . . has been teeming with legislative scandals in the election of 

Senators, until bribery and corruption are, we fear, in some localities, 

fast becoming recognized as a part of the legislative function . . . .”) 

(quoting H.R. Rep. No. 52-368, at 3 (1892)); Haynes, supra note 23, at 

169–79; Jay S. Bybee, Ulysses at the Mast: Democracy, Federalism, and 

the Sirens’ Song of the Seventeenth Amendment, 91 Nw. U. L. Rev. 500, 

536–41 (1997).

25 See Haynes, supra note 23, at 180–95.

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that left states unrepresented;26 and (4) giving the people a 

greater voice in their own government.27 This last 

motivation was primary. In the words of then-Professor, 

now Judge Jay S. Bybee:

[W]hile corruption and legislative deadlock 

might have demanded reform, neither 

justified amending the Constitution. . . . In 

the end analysis, . . . the real justification for 

the Seventeenth Amendment was its populist 

appeal, a need to “awaken[] in the Senators 

. . . a more acute sense of responsibility to the 

people.” The people simply wished to elect 

senators themselves, without the mediation 

of their state representatives. William 

Jennings Bryan argued that “[i]f the people of 

a State have enough intelligence to choose 

their representatives in the State legislature 

. . . , they have enough intelligence to choose 

the men who shall represent them in the 

United States Senate.” Whatever the reasons 

for the original mode of selection, the voters 

were “a new people living and acting under 

an old system.” In the proponents’ view, the 

Senate had been “a sort of aristocratic body—

too far removed from the people, beyond 

their reach, and with no especial interest in 

their welfare.” For populists and 

26 See id. at 158–60, 195–96; Bybee, supra note 24, at 541–44.

27 See Haynes, supra note 23, at 131–32, 153–58, 166–69, 200–03; 

Bybee, supra note 24, at 544–47.

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progressives, election by the legislature was 

an anachronism[.]

Bybee, supra note 24, at 544 (footnotes omitted) (first 

quoting H.R. Rep. No. 50-1456, at 2 (1888); second quoting 

26 Cong. Rec. 7775 (1893); third quoting 28 Cong. Rec. 

1519 (1896) (statement of Sen. Turpie); fourth quoting S. 

Rep. No. 54-530, at 10 (1896)).

By the first decade of the twentieth century, a majority 

of state legislatures supported and had to some extent 

already implemented the popular election of Senators. See

Richard Albert, The Progressive Era of Constitutional 

Amendment, 2 Revista de Investigações Constitucionais 35, 

46–48 (2015). Having received House approval numerous 

times in various versions, the soon-to-be Seventeenth 

Amendment finally received Senate approval in 1911. H.J. 

Res. 39, 62d Cong., 47 Cong. Rec. 1879–1925 (1911). The 

House accepted the Senate’s version in 1912, 37 Stat. 646 

(1912), and three quarters of the States had ratified the 

Amendment by mid-1913, 38 Stat. 2049 (1913).

Reading the Seventeenth Amendment Vacancy Clause 

in the context of its primary historical purpose, we think that 

the people are generally more empowered the more of a 

Senate term they are permitted to fill by election. 

Representation by a temporary appointee is some 

representation, but it is indirect representation only, of 

precisely the type the Seventeenth Amendment meant to 

substantially replace. However, the people may also suffer 

a loss of empowerment to the extent the vacancy election 

occurs too close in time to when the vacancy happened, if a 

too-quick schedule means the people are deprived of a 

meaningful choice among candidates. But beyond the 

amount of time that it takes to hold an orderly election, we 

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think that the popular purpose of the Seventeenth 

Amendment counsels interpreting it to minimize the interval 

preceding the vacancy election and likewise the duration of 

appointed representation.

As to the secondary concerns that motivated reformers, 

we note that corrupt practices are a heightened risk where 

there is only one decisionmaker (e.g. the Governor) rather 

than a large body of them (e.g. the State legislature). This 

risk was illustrated recently by Governor Blagojevich’s 

attempt to sell President-elect Obama’s vacant Senate seat. 

See Judge I, 612 F.3d at 541; Monica Davey & Emma G. 

Fitzsimmons, Ex-Governor Found Guilty of Corruption, 

N.Y. Times, June 28, 2011, at A1. Thus, the shorter the 

tenure of an appointee, the shorter may be the time that a 

corruptly appointed Senator serves, and perhaps the less 

attractive will be the appointment to corrupt actors. We 

think the Seventeenth Amendment satisfies the 

overburdened legislature and legislative deadlock concerns 

regardless of the length of a temporary appointment.

Thus, our review of the historical context leads us to 

disfavor any interpretation that permits excessively long 

vacancies, but still does not reveal any precise constraints.

4. Congressional Understanding

Plaintiffs cite remarks by the Senator who proposed the 

final version of the Seventeenth Amendment in the Senate, 

and by the Representative who authored the Vacancy 

Clause’s final text in the context of a previous version of the 

Seventeenth Amendment introduced in the House, as 

supporting their interpretation of the Amendment. We 

disagree. We conclude that the cited reports are ambiguous 

as to the relevant questions.

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Senator Joseph L. Bristow28 proposed the final version 

of the Seventeenth Amendment in the Senate. In his remarks 

on the Senate floor, he briefly explained the drafting of the 

Vacancy Clause. Regarding the principal clause, he 

emphasized that he had “use[d] exactly the same language in 

directing the governor to call special elections for the 

election of Senators to fill vacancies that is used in the 

Constitution in directing him to issue writs of election to fill 

vacancies in the House of Representatives.” 47 Cong. Rec. 

1482–83 (1911). Regarding the proviso, he noted “[t]hat it 

is practically the same provision which now exists in the case 

of such a vacancy. . . . [T]he legislature may empower the 

governor of the State to appoint a Senator to fill a vacancy 

until the election occurs, and he is directed by this 

amendment to ‘issue writs of election to fill such 

vacancies.’” Id. These statements align with our 

conclusions regarding the text and constitutional context 

discussed above. They do not, however, illuminate whether 

legislators understood the final language to require that the 

necessary “special election” must “occur[]” by a particular 

time. Id.

Representative Henry St. George Tucker III29 authored 

an 1892 proposed version of the Seventeenth Amendment, 

28 Senator Bristow (R-Kan.) was a former newspaper editor who 

devoted his political career to progressive reform, particularly with 

respect to popular participation in government. See U.S. Senate, Joseph 

L. Bristow: A Featured Biography, https://www.senate.gov/senators/

FeaturedBios/Featured_Bio_Bristow.htm.

29 Representative Tucker (D-Va.) was a constitutional law scholar 

who would later serve as dean of the law schools of Washington and Lee 

University and George Washington University. See Biographical 

Directory of the U.S. Cong., Tucker, Henry St. George, 

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=T000399.

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TEDARDS V. DUCEY 37

from which the final version of the Amendment borrowed 

the language in the Vacancy Clause (omitting one comma). 

Representative Tucker’s authorship received express 

acknowledgement during the Senate debates on the final 

version. 46 Cong. Rec. 2940 (1911). We therefore find 

Representative Tucker’s explanation of his language to be 

relevant here. In explaining his proposed language, 

Representative Tucker justified the principal clause, under 

which “the governor must order an election to fill the 

vacancy,” as “preserv[ing] the principle of election by the 

people.” H.R. Rep. No. 52-368, at 5 (1892) (emphasis 

added). He justified the proviso as responding to the 

predicament of those States that have “annual elections,” 

where any vacancy would therefore “in most cases not be of 

long duration, and to add another State election would be 

imposing an unnecessary expense on the people.” Id.

(emphasis added). He went on to suggest that:

. . . in a State where there are biennial 

elections the legislature might direct that if a 

vacancy occurred within a year [or any other 

period it might fix] after the election, the 

vacancy should be filled by an election by the 

people; but if the vacancy occurred more than 

a year after the election the vacancy should 

be filled by executive appointment.

Id. (brackets in original). In context, we read this 

explanation to suggest that a state legislature would have 

discretion to direct that any vacancy occurring within the 

“period it might fix” be filled by prompt special election, but

that any vacancy occurring thereafter be filled at the next 

general election, with a temporary appointee serving in the 

interim.

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We conclude that Representative Tucker’s report 

evinces a strong assumption that States would fill most 

Senate vacancies by popular election within one year of their 

occurrence. However, we are less confident that 

Representative Tucker’s report evinces any assumption that 

the proposed Vacancy Clause would require observance of 

this one-year limit. Rather, his report suggests that although 

the principal clause would require a special election (even 

sooner than one year) standing alone, the proviso defeats this 

requirement by leaving some discretion to state legislatures. 

The report does not anticipate the possibility that States with 

biennial elections might direct that a prompt special election 

is never required, postponing the people’s ability to fill the 

vacancy until the next general election no matter how near 

the previous election the vacancy arose. But neither does the 

report offer an interpretation of the proviso that would 

clearly prohibit this.

The legislative history thus does not provide us with a 

clear view of the textual interpretation possessed by the 

members of Congress who voted in favor of the Seventeenth 

Amendment.

5. State Legislature Interpretations

Defendants draw our attention to the Senate vacancy 

statutes enacted by most state legislatures shortly after the 

Seventeenth Amendment’s ratification. Defendants argue 

that these statutes demonstrate that the correct interpretation 

of the Vacancy Clause is one that permits a vacancy election 

at the next even-year election, or the second even-year 

election if the vacancy happens within some months of the 

first one. See Valenti, 292 F. Supp. at 858–59 (where there 

is ambiguity or doubt, contemporaneous and subsequent 

state practice is persuasive evidence of the best 

constitutional construction) (citing McPherson v. Blacker, 

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146 U.S. 1 (1892); Smiley v. Holm, 285 U.S. 355 (1932)). 

We agree that these statutes provide persuasive evidence in 

favor of this conclusion. However, we note several caveats.

Forty States enacted Senate vacancy statutes between 

1913 and 1915. See Valenti, 292 F. Supp. at 857 tbl.1, 871–

75 (App’x B). Nineteen States specifically required—

whether expressly by reference to biennial or congressional 

elections, or implicitly by reference to the state’s general 

elections—that vacancy elections take place at the next 

even-year election.30 Four States required that vacancy 

elections take place at the next even-year election following 

some additional time for nominations.31 Four States 

required that vacancy elections take place at the next annual 

election.32 Eight States required a special election within 

less than one year of the start of the vacancy.33 The 

30 See Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 12-2870 (1913) (but authorizing Governor 

to call special election if this would result in lapse of over six months); 

1913 Cal. Stat. 237 (but requiring vacancy election during any statewide 

special election if sooner); 1913 Fla. Laws 277; 1913 Ga. Laws 135; 

1913 Ill. Laws 307; 1915 Ind. Acts 13; 1914 Ky. Acts 98; 1915 Mich. 

Pub. Acts 261; 1913 Minn. Laws 756; 1915 Mont. Laws 281; 1915 Nev. 

Stat. 83; 1915 N.H. Laws 32; 1915 Okla. Sess. Laws 57; 1915 S.D. Sess. 

Laws 367; 1913 Tenn. Pub. Acts 396; 1915 Utah Laws 54; 1915 Vt. Acts 

& Resolves 70; 1913 Wis. Sess. Laws 825 (but authorizing Governor to 

call special election sooner); 1913 Wyo. Sess. Laws 100.

31 See 1915 N.M. Laws 39 (30 days); 1913 N.C. Sess. Laws 206 (30 

days); 1914 Ohio Laws 8 (180 days); 1913 Pa. Laws 995 (60 days in 

advance of the primary).

32 See 1913 Colo. Sess. Laws 267; 1914 Md. Laws 1337; 1913 N.Y. 

Laws 2419 (plus 30 days); 1914 Va. Acts 252.

33 See 1915 Ala. Laws 364 (60 days, or 4 months if upcoming 

general election); Del. Rev. Code § 1890 (1915) (one year); 1914 La. 

Acts 471 (100 days); 1915 Me. Laws 35 (“forthwith”); 1914 Miss. Laws 

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remaining five States did not set a deadline but appear to 

have left the timing of vacancy elections entirely or 

primarily to the Governor’s discretion.34

The number of state legislatures apparently interpreting 

the Seventeenth Amendment to afford them discretion to 

postpone a Senate vacancy election for up to two years or 

slightly more is persuasive evidence that this interpretation 

reflects the original public understanding. Even the statutes 

providing for special elections within thirteen months or less 

do not necessarily evince an interpretation that the state 

legislature lacked discretion to postpone the election 

longer.35 Nor can we entirely dismiss the interpretations of 

contemporary state legislatures as coming from the political 

bodies that the Seventeenth Amendment had just divested of 

power. The majority of state legislatures supported some 

form of the Seventeenth Amendment, and many had already 

implemented state-level reforms to create de facto direct 

election of Senators. Albert, supra, at 46–48.

But we also do not find the state statutes conclusive as to 

the proper interpretation of the Seventeenth Amendment 

Vacancy Clause. The evidence we have examined in this 

portion of our analysis tells us no more than that twenty192 (90 days, or calendar year of general election); 1914 R.I. Pub. Laws 

65 (“as early . . . as will admit of compliance with . . . law”); 1914 S.C. 

Acts 592 (90 days); 1913 Tex. Gen. Laws 101 (90 days).

34 See 1913 Conn. Pub. Acts 1839; 1913 Mass. Acts 1059; 1915 Mo. 

Laws 280; 1915 Or. Laws 59; 1915 Wash. Sess. Laws 232 (not less than 

25 days from issuance of writ).

35 Indeed, many States that originally provided for prompt special 

elections later amended their statutes to postpone vacancy elections until 

the next even-year election. See Valenti, 292 F. Supp. at 857 tbl.1, 871–

75 (App’x B).

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TEDARDS V. DUCEY 41

three state legislatures enacted statutes in the wake of the 

Seventeenth Amendment’s ratification that postponed a 

vacancy election to the next (or next practicable) even-year 

election. We do not know the extent to which that choice 

represented the state legislatures’ debate or deliberation, as 

opposed to uncontested assumption, regarding the meaning 

of the Seventeenth Amendment. We do not know how state 

or federal courts might have interpreted the Seventeenth 

Amendment if those statutes had occasioned contemporary 

challenges.36 Cf. U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 

U.S. 779, 823 (1995) (“One may properly question the extent 

to which the States’ own practice is a reliable indicator of the 

contours of restrictions that the Constitution imposed on 

States, especially when no court has ever upheld [the 

challenged state practice].”). And we do not know whether 

the state legislatures that enacted speedier special election 

laws may have specifically interpreted the Seventeenth 

Amendment to so require. We do note that we have no 

example within contemporary state practice—or any 

subsequent state practice—of a State attempting to extend a 

vacancy or interim appointment by significantly more than 

the two-year gap between even-year elections.

In sum, postratification state statutes favor, but do not 

compel, an interpretation of the Seventeenth Amendment 

Vacancy Clause that leaves States broad discretion to 

schedule a vacancy election up until the next general election 

preceded by some reasonable period of time in which to hold 

the election.

36 We do know that many state courts had interpreted similar 

vacancy provisions in their own state constitutions to require prompt 

special elections. See Valenti, 292 F. Supp. at 883 (Frankel, J., 

dissenting) (collecting cases).

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6. Precedent

We now turn to the four prior cases that have interpreted 

the Seventeenth Amendment Vacancy Clause at any length. 

We begin with Valenti and Rodriguez, and proceed to two 

related decisions decided by our sister circuits in the interim.

i. Valenti v. Rockefeller

On June 5, 1968, U.S. Senator and presidential candidate 

Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot in the kitchen of the 

Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Pursuant to thenapplicable New York law, the vacancy created by Senator 

Kennedy’s assassination occurred too close to that year’s 

Senate primaries to let the people of New York fill the 

vacancy by election in November 1968. 292 F. Supp. at 853. 

Instead, the law permitted the vacant seat to go unfilled by 

popular election until November 1970—an interval of 29 

months. See id. Multiple plaintiffs challenged New York’s 

Senate vacancy statute and moved for an injunction ordering 

New York to hold a vacancy election in November 1968—

i.e., five months from when the vacancy occurred. Id. In 

Valenti, a divided three-judge district court37 dismissed the 

complaints. Id.

37 At the time of Valenti, Congress required that any case seeking an 

injunction against a state officer to prevent enforcement of an allegedly 

unconstitutional state statute be heard by a special three-judge district 

court. 28 U.S.C. § 2281 (1964) (repealed 1976). One member of the 

specially constituted court had to be a circuit judge. Id. § 2284(1). The 

decision of the three-judge court was directly appealable to the Supreme 

Court. Id. § 1253. See generally 17A Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. 

Miller & Vikram David Amar, Federal Practice and Procedure § 4234

(3d ed., Aug. 2019 update) (tracing history of the three-judge district 

court from Congress’s reaction to Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908), 

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All three judges on the panel agreed that the final words 

of the proviso (“as the legislature may direct”) grants “some 

reasonable degree of discretion” to state legislatures to 

determine the timing of a Senate vacancy election. Id. at 

856; id. at 884 (Frankel, J., dissenting). They also all agreed 

that the word “temporary” could not “faithfully be read to 

allow appointments for anything approaching the full six 

years in the case of a vacancy occurring early in the term.” 

Id. at 881. They nevertheless disagreed regarding the outer 

boundaries of the State’s discretion, as well as regarding 

what evidence is relevant to answer that question.

Writing for the majority, Second Circuit Chief Judge 

Lumbard38 divided the relevant inquiry into two parts: (1) 

whether the Seventeenth Amendment permitted New York 

to skip the upcoming election—i.e., November 1968—and 

(2) whether the Seventeenth Amendment permitted New 

York to skip the next odd-year election—i.e., November 

1969. See id. at 855 (majority opinion). He answered both 

questions in the affirmative. As to the first, he emphasized 

the State’s interest in holding primary elections, which he 

implied outweighed the people’s interest in a prompt special 

election. Id.; see also id. at 861–62 (emphasizing the virtues 

of primary elections). As to the second, he focused on the 

probative value of state statutes enacted shortly after the 

Seventeenth Amendment’s ratification, as we discussed 

above. Id. at 856–59. He also posited three “substantial state 

interests” as justifying a generous interpretation of the 

discretion the Amendment grants to state legislatures: 

to the Supreme Court’s frustration with the practice peaking in the late 

1960s and early 1970s, to the “virtual abolition” of the practice in 1976).

38 Chief Judge Lumbard was joined by Chief District Judge 

Henderson of the Western District of New York.

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(a) capitalizing on maximum voter interest and turnout 

during even-year elections; (b) making it easier for Senate 

candidates to finance their campaigns; and (c) avoiding the 

inconvenience and expense associated with Senate elections 

in back-to-back years. Id. at 859–60.39

39 Dissenting, Judge Frankel of the Southern District of New York

criticized the majority for its “almost total disregard” of the Seventeenth 

Amendment’s primary mandate that Senators be “elected by the people.” 

Id. at 875–76 (Frankel, J., dissenting). He would have held that the 

Amendment contains a “powerful presumption” than an appointment 

ought last no longer than one year, and that “the most impressive kind of 

justification” is necessary to exceed it. Id. at 889 (adding that the 

appointment at issue, substantially exceeding two years, was “patently 

excessive”). In support of this conclusion he drew on textual comparison 

to and historical practice under the Unamended Vacancy Clause. See id.

at 876–77. He also drew on textual comparison to the House Vacancy 

Clause, legislative history, and numerous state court interpretations of 

similar legislative vacancy provisions in those states’ own constitutions. 

See id. at 877–84.

Judge Frankel objected to the majority’s reliance on state practice, 

citing several then-recent Supreme Court decisions that invalidated state 

statutes under newly announced constitutional interpretations despite 

clearly contrary state interpretations at the time of ratification. Id. at 887 

(citing Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962); Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 

533 (1964); Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)).

Judge Frankel further argued that it was perverse to have a 

“substantial state interest” in increased voter turnout lead to an 

interpretation that did not allow anyone to vote for over two years. Id.

He criticized the majority’s arguments about the “expense” of a special 

election, noting, for instance, that such expense could hardly be 

prohibitive. Id. at 888. He argued that Representative Tucker’s report 

interpreted the operative language to justify delay for expense reasons if

and only if the vacancy election would otherwise take place within the 

same year as an already scheduled general election. Id. (citing H.R. Rep. 

No. 52-368, at 5 (1892)).

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On direct appeal, the Supreme Court summarily affirmed 

the Valenti majority. 393 U.S. 405 (1969) (per curiam). 

Accordingly, Valenti binds us as to the result, although not 

the reasoning, of the district court decision. In Anderson v. 

Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780 (1983), the Supreme Court 

explained:

We have often recognized that the 

precedential effect of a summary affirmance 

extends no further than ‘the precise issues 

presented and necessarily decided by those 

actions.’ A summary disposition affirms 

only the judgment of the court below, and no 

more may be read into our action than was 

essential to sustain the judgment.

Id. at 784 n.5 (citation omitted) (quoting Ill. Elections Bd. v. 

Socialist Workers Party, 440 U.S. 173, 182–83 (1979)); see 

also id. at 784–85 (“Then, correctly recognizing the limited 

precedential effect to be accorded summary dispositions, the 

Court of Appeals independently reached the same 

conclusion.”) (footnote omitted); Washington v. 

Confederated Bands and Tribes of the Yakima Indian 

Nation, 439 U.S. 463, 476 n.20 (1979) (“It is not at all 

unusual for the Court to find it appropriate to give full 

consideration to a question that has been the subject of 

previous summary action.”).

The parties dispute the nature of “the precise issues” that 

were “necessarily decided” by the Court’s summary 

affirmance in Valenti. Anderson, 460 U.S. at 784 n.5 

(quoting Ill. Elections Bd., 440 U.S. at 182–83). Plaintiffs 

would have us limit the precedential effect of Valenti to the 

denial of the injunction sought by the Valenti plaintiffs, i.e., 

the five-month timetable. Defendants would have us read 

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the affirmance broadly as authorizing the delay of a popular 

election until November 1970, i.e., the full 29-month 

interval. Our resolution of this dispute turns on our 

interpretation of Rodriguez.

ii. Rodriguez v. Popular Democratic Party

In 1981, Puerto Rico House of Representatives member 

Ramón Muñiz (Popular Democratic Party) died and left 

vacant his seat in the commonwealth legislature. 457 U.S. 

at 3. At the time, Puerto Rico law allowed the vacating 

legislator’s political party to fill the vacancy by appointment 

for the remainder of the term, in this case nearly the full fouryear term. See id. at 3–5 & n.2 (citing P.R. Laws Ann., Tit. 

16, §§ 3206, 3207 (Supp. 1980)). The Governor of Puerto 

Rico, a member of the opposition New Progressive Party, 

instead called a special election open to all qualified voters. 

Id. at 3. In the lawsuit that ensued, the U.S. Supreme Court 

was called upon to decide whether the Puerto Rico vacancy 

law violated the U.S. Constitution. Id. It unanimously held 

that it did not. Id.

The Court interpreted the question before it as whether, 

given that Puerto Rico allows its people to elect legislators 

by popular vote at each general election, the U.S. 

Constitution prevents it from filling vacancies during the 

interim periods only by appointment.40 It rejected 

arguments that either the Qualifications Clause, U.S. Const. 

art. I, § 2, cl. 1 (referencing the “Electors of the most 

numerous Branch of the State Legislature”), the Guarantee 

40 The Court separately addressed the question of whether that 

appointment could be delegated to a political party. See id. at 12–14. It 

affirmed the finding of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico that this “was 

a legitimate mechanism serving to protect the mandate of the preceding 

election.” Id. at 13.

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Clause, U.S. Const. art. IV, § 4 (guaranteeing “to every State 

in this Union a Republican Form of Government”), or the 

Fifth or Fourteenth Amendment equal protection guarantees 

so prohibit. See id. at 8–10 & n.8.

Instead, the Court found support for Puerto Rico’s 

appointment procedure by analogizing to the Seventeenth 

Amendment. See id. at 10–12. The Court observed that in 

Valenti it had “sustained the authority of the Governor of 

New York to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate by 

appointment pending the next regularly scheduled 

congressional election—in that case, a period of over 29 

months.” 41 Id. at 10–11 (citing 393 U.S. 405). The Court 

then reasoned that:

. . . the fact that the Seventeenth Amendment 

permits a state, if it chooses, to forgo a special 

election in favor of a temporary appointment 

to the United States Senate suggests that 

[neither] a state [nor Puerto Rico] is . . . 

constitutionally prohibited from exercising 

similar latitude with regard to vacancies in its 

own legislature.

41 We acknowledge that both sides’ briefing in Rodriguez simply 

assumed that the Court’s summary affirmance of Valenti had endorsed 

the full 29-month delay of a vacancy-filling election. See Brief for 

Appellants at 22 n.14, 457 U.S. 1 (1982) (No. 81-328); Brief for 

Appellees at 23–25, 457 U.S. 1 (1982) (No. 81-328); Reply Brief for 

Appellants at 6–7, 11, 457 U.S. 1 (1982) (No. 81-328). Rather than 

challenging this interpretation, the appellants tried to distinguish Valenti 

as upholding an appointment lasting “less than half” the term, in contrast 

to nearly the entire term as in the case at hand. Brief for Appellants, 

supra, at 22 n.14.

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Id. at 11. The Court also quoted with approval the Valenti

district court’s assessment that the case involved “no 

fundamental imperfection in the functioning of democracy,” 

but “only the unusual, temporary, and unfortunate 

combination of a tragic event and a reasonable statutory 

scheme.” Id. at 11 (quoting 292 F. Supp. at 867).

The parties dispute whether Rodriguez’s discussion of 

Valenti was dicta or holding, given that the Seventeenth 

Amendment does not apply to Puerto Rico and the vacancy 

at issue was not in the U.S. Senate. Even if it is mere dicta, 

however, we do not believe we are free to ignore it. See Zal 

v. Steppe, 968 F.2d 924, 935 (9th Cir. 1992), as amended 

(July 31, 1992) (Noonan, J., concurring in the result in part 

and dissenting in part) (“[D]icta of the Supreme Court have 

a weight that is greater than ordinary judicial dicta as 

prophecy of what that Court might hold. We should not 

blandly shrug them off because they were not a holding.”). 

Moreover, we think that Rodriguez’s discussion of Valenti

has even greater weight, because we cannot say with 

certainty that the Court would have reached the same 

conclusion regarding Puerto Rico’s appointment scheme 

without the analogy to Valenti’s approval of a 29-month 

Senate appointment. Furthermore, an interpretation of the 

Seventeenth Amendment Vacancy Clause that grants States 

as much as 29 months in which to schedule a vacancy 

election at their discretion is not unreasonable in light of our 

foregoing analysis. We therefore conclude that we are 

bound by Rodriguez’s 29-month interpretation of the 

binding result of Valenti.

42

42 Plaintiffs argue that U.S. Term Limits and Cook v. Gralike, 531 

U.S. 510 (2001) herald an intervening doctrinal shift that more narrowly 

circumscribes state discretion. In U.S. Term Limits, the Court prohibited 

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iii. Trinsey v. Pennsylvania

On April 4, 1991, Pennsylvania Senator H. John Heinz 

III’s privately chartered plane collided with a helicopter in 

midair. The aircraft crashed into the yard of an elementary 

school, killing Senator Heinz along with the pilots and two 

first-grade girls who had been at recess.43 Then-operative 

Pennsylvania law required a vacancy election at the next 

general or municipal election occurring at least 90 days after 

the happening of the vacancy, which meant November 1981. 

941 F.2d at 225. In contrast to Pennsylvania’s approach to 

general elections, the law did not provide for primaries 

before the vacancy election, but instead allowed the major 

political parties to nominate candidates in accordance with 

their own party rules. Id. at 225–27. A Philadelphia 

the State of Arkansas from denying ballot access to congressional 

candidates who had served a certain number of terms in Congress. 514 

U.S. at 783. The Court concluded that the Constitution prohibits States 

from imposing congressional qualifications additional to those therein 

enumerated, emphasizing that to allow otherwise would violate the 

“fundamental principle of our representative democracy . . . ‘that the 

people should choose whom they please to govern them.’” Id. at 783, 

793, 795, 819 (quoting Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 547 

(1969)). In Cook, the Court prohibited the State of Missouri from 

attempting to circumvent U.S. Term Limits—under the guise of the 

State’s authority to regulate the “Manner of holding Elections,” U.S. 

Const. art. I, § 4, cl. 1—by printing adverse labels next to the names of 

congressional candidates who had not pledged or taken action to support 

a term limits amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 531 U.S. at 522–26. 

Even assuming these cases represent a doctrinal shift relevant to our 

decision today, it would be the Supreme Court’s prerogative, not ours, to 

resolve potentially conflicting lines of its own doctrine. Rodriguez de 

Quijas v. Shearson/Am. Express, Inc., 490 U.S. 477, 484 (1989); In re 

Twelve Grand Jury Subpoenas, 908 F.3d 525, 529 (9th Cir. 2018).

43 Don Phillips & Michael Specter, Sen. Heinz Dies in Plane Crash, 

Wash. Post, Apr. 5, 1991, at A1.

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developer and would-be Republican Senate candidate sued 

pro se after reading the Seventeenth Amendment in his home 

encyclopedia, arguing that nominations must be made “by 

the people.”44 Id. at 226–27. On appeal of the district court 

judgment for the developer, the Third Circuit reversed. Id.

at 236. The Supreme Court denied certiorari. 502 U.S. 1014 

(1991).

The Third Circuit began by canvassing the Seventeenth 

Amendment’s legislative history for discussion of primary 

elections. See 941 F.2d at 228–31. It concluded that 

Congress had deliberately omitted to require a particular 

process for nominating Senate candidates for general 

elections, but that the record revealed little consideration of 

the issue with regard to vacancy elections. Id. at 230–31. 

Although presented with the “converse” of the situation 

here—essentially, the claim that the State was holding the 

vacancy election too soon—the court then relied heavily on 

Valenti and Rodriguez for the proposition that the 

Seventeenth Amendment confers “a reasonable discretion 

upon the states concerning the timing and manner of 

conducting vacancy elections.” Id. at 233 (quoting Valenti, 

292 F. Supp. at 866).45 Having found nothing in legislative 

44 See David Treadwell, Senate Hopeful’s Suit Puts Pennsylvania in 

Turmoil: Novice says the people, not the parties, must choose 

candidates, L.A. Times (June 20, 1991), https://

www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-06-20-mn-1437-story.html.

The Third Circuit appointed Professor Laura E. Little of Temple 

University School of Law as amicus curiae to “fully and forcefully” 

present the position adverse to that of the State. Trinsey, 941 F.2d at 227.

45 The Third Circuit distinguished two Supreme Court cases 

specifically regarding primary elections, holding that those cases 

governed only citizens’ rights respecting a primary election that the state 

has chosen to hold, and did not establish a right to have the state hold a 

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history or caselaw to support a constitutional requirement 

that States hold primaries before vacancy elections, the 

Third Circuit concluded that no fundamental right was 

infringed by the Pennsylvania statute. Id. at 234. It therefore 

rejected the district court’s application of strict scrutiny, and 

concluded that Rodriguez counsels toward “a more 

deferential standard of review.” Id. Trinsey is generally 

consistent with our foregoing analysis.

iv. Judge v. Quinn

On November 4, 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama was 

elected President of the United States. He resigned his 

Senate seat twelve days later, with nearly two years and two 

months remaining in the term. 612 F.3d at 541. Illinois law 

provided that a Senate vacancy be filled at the next 

congressional election (i.e., November 2010), with the 

Governor making a temporary appointment in the interim. 

Id. Governor Rod Blagojevich appointed former State 

Attorney General Roland Burris to serve as Senator until the 

vacancy was “filled by election as provided by law,” but did 

not issue a writ of election. Id. Shortly thereafter, Governor 

Blagojevich, whose private phone calls the FBI had all the 

while been recording, was impeached, removed from office, 

criminally indicted, and eventually convicted on charges 

including attempting to “obtain personal financial benefits 

. . . in return for his appointment of a United States Senator.” 

Superseding Indictment at 16, United States v. Blagojevich, 

No. 08 CR 888-1 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 2, 2009); see Judge I, 612 

F.3d at 541; Davey & Fitzsimmons, supra, at A1.

primary election. See id. at 231–32 (discussing United States v. Classic, 

313 U.S. 299 (1941), and Tashjian v. Republican Party of Conn., 479 

U.S. 208 (1986)).

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Two registered voters sued the successor Governor for 

an alleged violation of their Seventeenth Amendment rights. 

Judge I, 612 F.3d at 541. As ultimately presented to the 

Seventh Circuit, the plaintiffs challenged the Governor’s 

failure to issue a writ of election fixing any date for the 

people to fill the vacancy. Id. at 543. Without such a writ, 

the November 2010 election would fill only the subsequent 

Senate term beginning in 2011. With a writ, the November 

2010 election could also fill the remaining few weeks (i.e., 

the “lame-duck” session) of the Obama term.

In Judge I, the Seventh Circuit concluded that the 

Seventeenth Amendment makes mandatory the Governor’s 

duty to issue a writ of election. Id. at 555. In Judge II, the 

Seventh Circuit clarified that the district court had authority 

to issue an injunction requiring the Governor to do just that, 

regardless of Illinois statutory law. 387 F. App’x at 630. 

The Supreme Court denied certiorari. 563 U.S. 1032 (2011). 

In Judge III, the Seventh Circuit upheld the district court’s 

injunction ordering the Governor to call a special election on 

election day in November 2010, and to name as candidates 

to fill the lame-duck session of the Obama vacancy the same 

candidates running for the subsequent Senate term. 624 F.3d 

352, 354, 356, 362 (7th Cir. 2010). The Supreme Court 

again denied certiorari. Burris v. Judge, 563 U.S. 1041 

(2011).

Although Rodriguez had interpreted Valenti to authorize 

a State “to forgo a special election in favor of a temporary 

appointment,” 457 U.S. at 11, the Seventh Circuit concluded 

that Valenti did not provide “firm guidance” for its analysis. 

Judge I, 612 F.3d at 548–49. Assuming without deciding 

that the Valenti summary affirmance endorsed the full 29-

month lapse in elected representation, the Seventh Circuit 

concluded that Valenti nevertheless “had nothing to say 

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about” and “could not have decided” the question whether 

the Seventeenth Amendment mandates the issuance of a writ 

of election. Id. at 549 (noting that the Governor of New 

York had already issued a writ of election for November 

1970). We agree with the Seventh Circuit on this point, and 

conclude that the “forgo a special election” language in 

Rodriguez is fairly read to refer to elections falling outside 

the general election cycle, rather than to vacancy elections 

altogether. We add that neither Valenti nor Rodriguez

articulate any rationale for concluding that temporary 

appointments are an alternative to ever holding a vacancy 

election, or that state discretion to “direct” a vacancy 

election encompasses discretion to “forgo” a vacancy 

election. We therefore interpret Rodriguez to endorse only 

a State’s discretion to postpone a vacancy election until a 

general election.

B. Application to A.R.S. § 16-222

We turn at last to the challenged law. Under the schedule 

set by A.R.S. § 16-222(D) and Governor Ducey’s writ of 

election consistent therewith, Arizona’s lapse between the 

occurrence of the vacancy and the vacancy election exceeds 

the full two-year interval between congressional election 

voting days by about two and a half months.46 In Valenti, 

New York’s lapse exceeded the same interval by about five 

months. Because Arizona’s additional lapse does not exceed 

the additional lapse endorsed by Valenti and Rodriguez, we 

hold that the timing provision of A.R.S. § 16-222(D) as 

applied to the McCain vacancy is a permissible exercise of 

46 Although A.R.S. § 16-222(D) provides for as much as seven 

months of additional time, no such vacancy election schedule is before 

us. We therefore need not fully resolve the outer boundaries of the 

Seventeenth Amendment’s permissible schedule.

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the State’s discretion under the Seventeenth Amendment. 

Likewise, then, neither Governor Ducey’s writ of election 

nor Senator McSally’s appointment is a violation thereof.

We therefore affirm the district court’s dismissal of 

Counts I and II of Plaintiffs’ amended complaint to the 

extent that those counts relate to the timing of the vacancy 

election and the duration of appointed representation under 

the Seventeenth Amendment.

II. First and Fourteenth Amendment Burdick Challenge 

to Vacancy Election Date

Plaintiffs raise their right to vote under the First and 

Fourteenth Amendments, as interpreted by Burdick v. 

Takushi, 504 U.S. 428 (1992), as an independent reason to 

find A.R.S. § 16-222 unconstitutional as applied to the 

November 2020 vacancy election date. Burdick prescribes a 

sliding-scale level of scrutiny for evaluating governmental 

actions that burden the right to vote. Id. at 434. At one end 

of the spectrum, “severe” restrictions must be “narrowly 

drawn to advance a state interest of compelling importance.” 

Id. (quoting Norman v. Reed, 502 U.S. 279, 289 (1992)). At 

the other end of the spectrum, “important [state] regulatory 

interests are generally sufficient” to justify “reasonable, 

nondiscriminatory restrictions.” Id. (quoting Anderson, 460 

U.S. at 788). Thus, the burdening of the right to vote always 

triggers a higher level of scrutiny than rational basis review, 

but does not always trigger strict scrutiny.

The parties dispute the severity of the burden at issue 

here. Plaintiffs argue that a 27-month election “delay” is 

plainly a “severe” restriction on the right to vote. 

Defendants argue that the delay of a vacancy election until 

the next general election is not a burden at all. We assume, 

without deciding, that regulation of the timing of a vacancy 

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election is at least a “burden” for purposes of Burdick 

review. However, because we hold above that the 

Seventeenth Amendment authorizes at least as long of an 

interval before the vacancy election as is challenged here, we 

conclude that the burden thereby posed is necessarily a 

“reasonable” one.

“[R]easonable” restrictions on the right to vote may be 

justified by “important” state interests. Burdick, 504 U.S. at 

434 (quoting Anderson, 460 U.S. at 788). Defendants assert 

three state interests. First, they note the cost of holding an 

election that takes place independently of the biennial 

general election. Plaintiffs counter that the cost is relatively 

small, but we have previously found similar interests 

“important” in other Burdick cases. E.g., Dudum v. Arntz, 

640 F.3d 1098, 1116 (9th Cir. 2011); Ariz. Libertarian Party 

v. Reagan, 798 F.3d 723, 733 (9th Cir. 2015).

Second, Defendants argue that Arizona has an important 

interest in maximizing voter turnout, and provides evidence 

that voter turnout in recent Arizona elections was highest at 

biennial general elections. Plaintiffs counter that 

Defendants’ evidence is inapposite because a special 

election for a Senator could have a much higher turnout than 

the special elections Defendants reference. Plaintiffs further 

argue that Defendants offer no basis for what increase in 

turnout qualifies as important, and that the indifference of 

some voters should not preclude others from voting. Despite 

these limitations, we agree that Arizona’s interest in voter 

turnout is important.

Third, Defendants point to the possibility of voter 

confusion engendered by multiple elections. In 2020, 

Arizonans are scheduled to vote in a March presidential 

primary, an August primary, and the November general 

election. We agree that Arizona’s interest in minimizing 

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voter confusion is important and relevant in this context. We 

reject Plaintiffs’ argument that Soltysik v. Padilla, 910 F.3d 

438 (9th Cir. 2018), precludes the voter confusion rationale. 

See id. at 448–49 (holding that a speculative concern of voter 

confusion was insufficient, but also that elaborate empirical 

verification was unnecessary where the burden of a 

restriction is minimal). In Soltysik we were considering the 

potential voter confusion engendered by candidate party 

affiliations on the ballot, a matter we found highly 

speculative. In this case, the potential for voter confusion on 

account of multiple elections is not purely speculative but 

has been validated by other cases. See, e.g., Lynch v. Ill. 

State Bd. of Elections, 682 F.2d 93, 97 (7th Cir. 1982); Vera 

v. Bush, 933 F. Supp. 1341, 1348 (S.D. Tex. 1996) (threejudge court).

Relying on Soltysik more generally, Plaintiffs argue that 

all of Defendants’ arguments fail at the motion to dismiss 

stage because an evidentiary hearing is necessary to apply 

something more than rational basis review. See 910 F.3d at 

446–48. We disagree. This case is distinguishable from 

Soltysik because, compared to the burden at issue here, the 

burden in Soltysik fell higher on the Burdick sliding scale 

between “reasonable, nondiscriminatory” and “severe.” Id.

at 445–46. In Soltysik, we considered a challenge to a 

California law requiring candidates from all but six 

“qualified” parties to state a party preference of “None” on 

the ballot. Id. at 445. The law therefore required a false 

statement regarding political views and clearly 

discriminated against candidates from new and small parties. 

Id. at 445–46. Under these circumstances, we held that 

further development of the evidentiary record was necessary 

to determine whether there were “more precise ways” to 

address the State’s alleged interest in preventing voter 

confusion. Id. at 447.

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We have already explained our conclusion that the 

burden posed by the timing of the vacancy election here is 

necessarily reasonable. To the extent that A.R.S. § 16-

222(D)’s timing provision discriminates (against candidates 

other than the appointee, or parties other than that of the 

appointee, or voters who disfavor the appointee)—based on 

it providing the appointee ample time to gain the advantages 

of running as an incumbent—this discrimination is hardly 

distinguishable from that which occurs when a candidate 

wins an election by the people. Cf. Rodriguez, 457 U.S. at 

12 (finding that the Puerto Rico vacancy statute’s effect 

“d[id] not fall disproportionately on any discrete group of 

voters, candidates, or political parties”). Thus, a higher level 

of scrutiny applied to the discriminatory regulation in 

Soltysik than applies here, and justified holding an 

evidentiary hearing to properly scrutinize the burden.

Plaintiffs have failed to plausibly allege that the timing 

of the vacancy election here is not justified by “important” 

state interests. Burdick, 504 U.S. at 434; cf. Rodriguez, 457 

U.S. at 12 (finding that the Puerto Rico vacancy statute 

“plainly serve[d] the legitimate purpose of ensuring that 

vacancies are filled promptly, without the necessity of the 

expense and inconvenience of a special election”). Given 

that the burden of this timing on Plaintiffs’ right to vote is 

“reasonable” and “nondiscriminatory,” the “important” state 

interests raised above are sufficient to affirm the dismissal 

of Plaintiffs’ First and Fourteenth Amendment challenges. 

Id.

We therefore affirm the district court’s dismissal of 

Count I in its entirety.

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III. Constitutional Challenges to Appointment 

Mandate and Same-Party Restriction

Apart from the timing required by A.R.S. § 16-222(D), 

Plaintiffs challenge the law in two additional respects. They 

challenge the law’s mandate that “the governor shall appoint 

a person to fill the vacancy,” id. § 16-222(C) (emphasis 

added), as a violation of the Seventeenth Amendment’s 

instruction that a state legislature “may empower” the 

Governor to make temporary appointments, U.S. Const. 

amend. XVII (emphasis added). They also challenge the 

law’s further mandate that the “appointee shall be of the 

same political party as the person vacating the office,” 

A.R.S. § 16-222(C), as a violation of the Qualifications 

Clauses as interpreted by U.S. Term Limits, 514 U.S. at 787–

827. Defendants argue that the first challenge fails on the 

merits, and that the second fails for lack of standing. The 

district court agreed. We conclude, however, that Plaintiffs 

lack standing to raise either challenge.

The jurisdiction of Article III courts is limited to “Cases” 

and “Controversies.” U.S. Const. art. III, § 2; see Spokeo, 

Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540, 1546–47 (2016). In order to 

establish that they have the “irreducible constitutional 

minimum” of standing to bring a case or controversy, 

Plaintiffs have the burden of demonstrating that they have 

“(1) suffered an injury in fact, (2) that is fairly traceable to 

the challenged conduct of the defendant, and (3) that is likely 

to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.” Id. at 1547 

(quoting Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 

(1992)). We focus here on the second factor.

Plaintiffs invoke numerous theories to describe the 

injuries they allegedly suffer on account of § 16-222(C)’s 

mandate that the Governor make a temporary appointment 

and choose a member of the same political party as the 

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Senator who created the vacancy. See, e.g., United States v. 

Hays, 515 U.S. 737, 742–45 (1995) (representational harm); 

Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 281 n.14 

(1978) (loss of opportunity to compete); Ariz. Free 

Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, 564 U.S. 

721, 750 (2011) (imposition of state viewpoint); Daniels v. 

Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 339 (1986) (Stevens, J., concurring 

in the judgment) (fundamentally flawed procedure). Even 

assuming Plaintiffs have suffered an injury in one or more of 

these respects, we fail to see how such an injury is traceable 

to A.R.S. § 16-222(C).

Given that Arizona’s legislature “empower[ed]” the state 

governor to make “temporary” appointments, U.S. Const. 

amend. XVII, Governor Ducey unquestionably had the 

authority to appoint Martha McSally as a temporary 

replacement for Senator McCain. Plaintiffs allege no facts 

rebutting Governor Ducey’s statement on appeal that he

“would have appointed Senator McSally regardless of the 

requirement that he name an interim senator and regardless 

of the requirement that the appointee share Senator 

McCain’s political party.” Accordingly, Plaintiffs have 

suffered no injuries from the appointment of Senator 

McSally that are fairly traceable to § 16-222(C), and have 

suffered no injury attributable to the mere existence of § 16-

222(C) since it has not affected them. This lack of 

traceability is fatal to standing. Thus, we need not resolve 

whether the district court could redress Plaintiffs’ alleged 

injuries in the counterfactual where they were traceable to 

§ 16-222(C).

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of 

Count II of Plaintiffs’ amended complaint as it relates to the 

appointment mandate, and of Count III in its entirety, for 

lack of standing.

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CONCLUSION

We interpret the Seventeenth Amendment, in light of 

Valenti and Rodriguez, to confer at least as much temporal 

discretion upon the States as was exercised by Arizona in

A.R.S. § 16-222 as applied to the vacancy created by Senator 

McCain’s death. Given this authorization by the 

Seventeenth Amendment, we further conclude that the 

vacancy election timing challenged here does not 

impermissibly burden the right to vote under the First and 

Fourteenth Amendments. We lack jurisdiction to consider 

Plaintiffs’ additional challenges.

AFFIRMED.

COLLINS, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and concurring 

in the judgment:

I agree with the majority that the district court properly 

dismissed Plaintiffs’ various constitutional challenges to the 

Arizona statute governing the filling of senatorial vacancies, 

but in my view the issues raised in this case can be readily 

resolved under existing precedent. I therefore do not join the 

lengthy excursus on the meaning of the Seventeenth 

Amendment in section I(A) of the “Analysis” section of the 

majority’s opinion, which seems to me unnecessary to our 

decision in this case. Instead, I join only Parts I(B), II, and 

III of the “Analysis” section, and I concur in the judgment.

I

The Seventeenth Amendment expressly authorizes the 

legislature of a state to “empower the executive,” in the 

event of a vacancy in that State’s representation in the United 

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States Senate, “to make temporary appointments until the 

people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may 

direct.” U.S. Const. amend. XVII, para. 2. Arizona’s 

legislature has authorized the state Governor to make such 

temporary appointments, see Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 16-222(C), 

and after the vacancy created by the death of Senator John 

McCain, the Governor (Defendant Doug Ducey) exercised 

that authority by first appointing Jon Kyl and then, after 

Kyl’s resignation, by appointing Defendant Martha 

McSally. Under the plain terms of the amendment, McSally 

therefore may continue to serve temporarily “until the 

people” of Arizona “fill the vacanc[y] by election as the 

legislature may direct.” U.S. Const. amend. XVII, para. 2 

(emphasis added). On its face, the italicized phrase 

unquestionably grants the Arizona legislature “some

reasonable degree of discretion” in setting the date of the 

election that will fill this Senate vacancy and thereby 

terminate McSally’s current “temporary appointment[].” 

Valenti v. Rockefeller, 292 F. Supp. 851, 856 (W.D.N.Y. 

1968) (three-judge district court) (emphasis added), 

summarily aff’d, 393 U.S. 405 (1969); see also 292 F. Supp. 

at 884 (Frankel, J., dissenting) (agreeing that it was 

“acceptabl[e] all around” to “speak of a ‘reasonable 

discretion’ left to the state legislatures”). The Seventeenth 

Amendment question presented here is whether, by fixing 

the date of that election as November 3, 2020—i.e., more 

than 26 months after Senator McCain’s death on August 25, 

2018—the Arizona legislature has transgressed the proper 

boundaries of the discretion conferred by that amendment. 

See Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 16-222(D) (providing that where, as 

here, a vacancy occurs 150 days or fewer “before the next 

regular primary election date, the person who is appointed 

shall serve until the vacancy is filled at the second regular 

general election held after the vacancy occurs”) (emphasis 

added).

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The answer to this question is dictated by the 

precedential effect of the Supreme Court’s summary 

affirmance in Valenti, particularly as construed by the 

Court’s subsequent decision in Rodriguez v. Popular 

Democratic Party, 457 U.S. 1, 10–11 (1982). The threejudge district court in Valenti rejected a similar Seventeenth 

Amendment challenge to New York’s 29-month delay in the 

election to fill the vacancy created by the assassination of 

Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, and the Supreme 

Court’s affirmance of that decision—coupled with 

Rodriguez’s subsequent discussion of that affirmance—

leaves no doubt that we must reject Plaintiffs’ Seventeenth 

Amendment claim here.

In Valenti, a three-judge district court rejected the 

plaintiffs’ constitutional challenges to a New York statute 

that effectively set November 3, 1970 as the date of the 

election to fill the vacancy created by Senator Kennedy’s 

death on June 6, 1968. See 292 F. Supp. at 853.1 After 

rejecting the plaintiffs’ contention “that an election in 1968

is constitutionally required,” the court concluded that it 

“must also answer another question: Does the Seventeenth 

1 Valenti actually involved three separate actions, two of which were 

filed in the Southern District of New York (Phillips v. Rockefeller and 

Backer v. Rockefeller) and one of which was filed in the Western District 

of New York (Valenti). The three actions apparently were not 

consolidated. Instead, to “facilitate prompt disposition of the common 

question, identical three-judge courts were designated in each case” by 

assembling a panel consisting of a Second Circuit judge and a district 

judge from each of the two districts involved. 292 F. Supp. at 854. The 

cases were argued together, see id., and “[d]uplicate originals” of the 

resulting opinion were filed in each district, id. at 868. The plaintiffs in 

each case separately appealed to the Supreme Court, which separately 

affirmed each judgment without opinion. See Phillips v. Rockefeller, 393 

U.S. 406 (1969); Valenti, 393 U.S. at 405; Backer v. Rockefeller, 393 

U.S. 404 (1969).

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Amendment prohibit New York from bypassing its general 

election in 1969 in favor of filling the vacancy in November, 

1970?” Id. at 855 (emphasis added). After an extensive 

analysis, the court answered this question in the negative and 

concluded that the New York legislature had “not 

contravene[d] the powers” conferred on it by the 

Seventeenth Amendment, even though “in the tragic 

circumstances of Senator Kennedy’s death the statutory 

chronology results in a delay of 29 months before the 

election of his successor by the people.” Id. at 867–68.

The Supreme Court summarily affirmed without 

opinion. See 393 U.S. at 404–06. As the majority 

recognizes, see Majority Opinion at 45, we are bound by the 

result, if not the precise reasoning, when the Supreme Court 

summarily affirms a judgment. See Wisconsin Dep’t of 

Revenue v. William Wrigley, Jr., Co., 505 U.S. 214, 224 n.2 

(1992) (citing Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 784 n.5 

(1983)). And because the 26-month delay at issue here is 

shorter than the 29-month delay upheld against a 

Seventeenth Amendment challenge in Valenti, we are bound 

under Valenti to reject Plaintiffs’ challenge here.

Plaintiffs seek to evade Valenti by arguing that the 

“specific relief” sought in the complaints in those cases was 

“an election in November 1968 only and at no other time”; 

that “all the summary affirmance necessarily did was to deny 

an election on that date”; and that the Court therefore did not 

“necessarily uph[o]ld a 29-month delay in filling a Senate 

vacancy.” This contention fails. As an initial matter, 

Plaintiffs’ narrow characterization of the constitutional 

challenges presented in Valenti is belied by the district court 

opinion, which expressly addressed both the plaintiff’s 

“main argument” for a 1968 election date and their 

alternative argument for a 1969 election date. 292 F. Supp. 

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at 855. Thus, while we are not bound by the Valenti district 

court’s reasoning in upholding a 29-month delay until the 

second subsequent congressional election, there can be no 

doubt that the district court’s judgment included a rejection 

of a Seventeenth Amendment challenge to such a delay, and 

we are bound by the precedential effect of the Supreme 

Court’s summary affirmance of that judgment. Anderson, 

460 U.S. at 784 n.5 (“[T]he precedential effect of a summary 

affirmance extends no further than ‘the precise issues 

presented and necessarily decided by those actions.’”).

Moreover, as the Supreme Court has explained, 

“[s]ummary affirmances . . . without doubt reject the specific 

challenges presented in the statement of jurisdiction and do 

leave undisturbed the judgment appealed from.” Mandel v. 

Bradley, 432 U.S. 173, 176 (1977) (per curiam) (emphasis 

added).2 The first question presented in the jurisdictional 

statement filed in the Supreme Court in the Phillips case was 

as follows:

Did New York State’s Legislature in enacting 

Section 296 of the Election Law violate 

Amendment XVII to the Constitution of the 

United States by vesting in the Executive the 

power to make a 29 months “temporary 

appointment” (from June 7, 1968 to 

December 1, 1970) and by vesting in “the 

people” (8,000,000 registered voters) the 

2 Then, as now, the Supreme Court’s rules required that, in cases 

appealed as of right to the Court, the appellants must file a “jurisdictional 

statement” setting forth, inter alia, the questions presented and the basis 

for invoking the Court’s appellate jurisdiction. See S. CT. R. 15 (1967 

ed.); cf. S. CT. R. 18.3 (2019 ed.) (retaining a comparable requirement 

for the much smaller class of cases that remain within the Court’s 

mandatory appellate jurisdiction today).

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right to elect a Senator of their own choosing 

for only 1 month (December 1, 1970 to 

January 3, 1971) where the total unexpired 

term of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy 

was 30 months?

Jurisdictional Statement, Phillips v. Rockefeller, 393 U.S. 

406 (1969) (No. 854), 1968 WL 129208, at *4–5 (emphasis 

added); see also id. at *6 (“[A] judgment by this Court 

reversing the judgment below would make possible an 

election for the Senate seat at the November, 1969 election. 

Or at an earlier special election by order of this Court.”). 

Similarly, the jurisdictional statement in the Backer case 

challenged the district court’s upholding of the November 

1970 date over a November 1969 date. See Statement as to 

Jurisdiction, Backer v. Rockefeller, 393 U.S. 404 (1969) (No. 

852), 1968 WL 112484, at *10 (“The lower court explicitly 

decided . . . the question: Does the Seventeenth Amendment 

prohibit New York from bypassing its general election in 

1969 in favor of filling the vacancy in November, 1970? The 

question was answered in the negative.”). By separately and 

summarily affirming the judgments in Phillips and Backer, 

see 393 U.S. at 404, 406, the Supreme Court “without doubt 

reject[ed] the[se] specific challenges presented in the 

statement of jurisdiction,” and the Court therefore 

necessarily rejected these plaintiffs’ challenges to the 29-

month delay. Mandel, 432 U.S. at 176. We are bound by 

that holding, which requires us to reject Plaintiffs’ 

Seventeenth Amendment challenge here.

In addition, as the majority correctly notes, see Majority 

Opinion at 48, the Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in 

Rodriguez further confirms that Plaintiffs’ narrow reading of 

Valenti is incorrect. In Rodriguez, the Court addressed a 

constitutional challenge to Puerto Rico’s system for filling 

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66 TEDARDS V. DUCEY

vacancies in its commonwealth legislature through 

temporary appointments lasting “only until the next 

regularly scheduled election.” 457 U.S. at 7; see also id. at 

8–12.3 The challengers contended that “qualified electors 

have an absolute constitutional right to vote for the members 

of a state or commonwealth legislature, even when a special 

election is required for this purpose.” Id. at 8–9. In rejecting 

this contention, the Court drew an analogy to its summary 

affirmance in Valenti. Summarizing that ruling, the Court in 

Rodriguez did not refer to Valenti as addressing only a claim 

that the vacancy election had to be held within five months. 

Rather, the Court explained that Valenti had “sustained the 

authority of the Governor of New York to fill a vacancy in 

the United States Senate by appointment pending the next 

regularly scheduled congressional election—in that case, a 

period of over 29 months.” 457 U.S. at 10–11 (emphasis 

added). The Court reasoned that the Rodriguez challengers’ 

insistence on a constitutional right to a special election (i.e., 

an election in advance of the next regularly scheduled 

legislative election in Puerto Rico) was hard to square with 

Valenti: “[T]he fact that the Seventeenth Amendment 

permits a state, if it chooses, to forgo a special election in 

favor of a temporary appointment to the United States Senate 

suggests that a state is not constitutionally prohibited from 

exercising similar latitude with regard to vacancies in its 

own legislature. We discern nothing in the Federal 

Constitution that imposes greater constraints on the 

Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.” Id. at 11. Rodriguez’s 

discussion of Valenti confirms that the Court understood its 

3 In Rodriguez, a person elected to the Puerto Rico House of 

Representatives died shortly after the election, see 457 U.S. at 3, and the 

vacancy was ultimately filled by a member of the same political party 

who was designated after “a primary election in which only [that party’s] 

members were permitted to participate,” id. at 5 n.3.

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summary affirmance as rejecting a Seventeenth Amendment 

challenge to New York’s 29-month delay until the next 

regularly scheduled election that would allow sufficient lead 

time for a primary election.

I therefore agree with the majority’s conclusion that, 

because Arizona’s delay of the vacancy-filling election 

“does not exceed” the delay “endorsed by Valenti and 

Rodriguez,” the “timing provision of A.R.S. § 16-222(D) as 

applied to the McCain vacancy is a permissible exercise of 

the State’s discretion under the Seventeenth Amendment.” 

See Majority Opinion at 53--54. I thus concur in Part I(B) 

of the “Analysis” section of the court’s opinion and concur 

in its judgment rejecting Plaintiffs’ Seventeenth Amendment 

challenge.

II

I agree with the court’s rejection of Plaintiffs’ First and 

Fourteenth Amendment challenges to the date of the 

vacancy-filling election, and I therefore concur in Part II of 

the court’s “Analysis” section. Indeed, Plaintiffs’ arguments 

on this score seem difficult to square with Rodriguez’s 

observation that Puerto Rico’s “choice to fill legislative 

vacancies by appointment rather than by a full-scale special 

election may have some effect on the right of its citizens to 

elect the members of the Puerto Rico Legislature; however, 

the effect is minimal, and like that in Valenti, it does not fall 

disproportionately on any discrete group of voters, 

candidates, or political parties.” 457 U.S. at 12 (emphasis 

added).

III

Lastly, I agree with the court that Plaintiffs lack standing 

to challenge the requirements in Arizona law that (1) the 

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68 TEDARDS V. DUCEY

Governor must make an appointment, and (2) the person 

selected must be from the same political party as the person 

who vacated the office. As the court explains, Plaintiffs 

cannot fairly trace their asserted injuries to these statutory 

provisions, as opposed to the Governor’s independent 

decisions. I therefore join Part III of the court’s “Analysis” 

section. For similar reasons, I believe that Plaintiffs also fail 

the redressability prong of standing. Lujan v. Defenders of 

Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992). Given that Governor 

Ducey has stated that he would have appointed McSally 

regardless of these statutory constraints, see Majority 

Opinion at 59, any judgment invalidating those constraints 

would not redress these Plaintiffs’ alleged injuries.

* * *

For the foregoing reasons, I join Parts I(B), II, and III of 

the court’s “Analysis” section, and I concur in the court’s 

judgment affirming the district court’s dismissal of this 

action.

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