UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 13-2170 

THE GREENVILLE COUNTY REPUBLICAN PARTY EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, 

a/k/a The Greenville County Republican Executive Committee; 

WILLIAM MITCHELL, a/k/a Billy Mitchell,

Plaintiffs – Appellants,

and

THE SOUTH CAROLINA REPUBLICAN PARTY; BETTY S. POE, in her 

official capacity as the Chairman of the Greenville County 

Republican Party Executive Committee,

Plaintiffs,

v.

GREENVILLE COUNTY ELECTION COMMISSION; GREENVILLE COUNTY 

BOARD OF REGISTRATION; BILLY WAY, JR., in his official 

capacity as the Chairman of the South Carolina State 

Election Commission,

Defendants – Appellees,

and

WAYNE GRIFFIN; REGINALD GRIFFIN; BRETT A. BURSEY; ALAN 

OLSON; THE SOUTH CAROLINA INDEPENDENCE PARTY; THE SOUTH 

CAROLINA CONSTITUTION PARTY; THE PROGRESSIVE NETWORK 

EDUCATION FUND, INCORPORATED; THE COMMITTEE FOR A UNIFIED

INDEPENDENT PARTY, INCORPORATED, d/b/a 

IndependentVoting.org; TERRY ALEXANDER, member of the Black 

Legislative Caucus of the South Carolina House of 

Representatives District 59; KARL B. ALLEN, member of the 

Black Legislative Caucus of the South Carolina House of 

Representatives District 25; JERRY N. GOVAN, JR., member of 

the Black Legislative Caucus of the South Carolina House of 

Representatives District 95; CHRIS HART, member of the 

Black Legislative Caucus of the South Carolina House of 
2

Representatives District 76; LEON HOWARD, member of the 

Black Legislative Caucus of the South Carolina House of 

Representatives District 76; JOSEPH JEFFERSON, JR., member 

of the Black Legislative Caucus of the South Carolina House 

of Representatives 102; JOHN RICHARD C. KING, member of the 

Black Legislative Caucus of the South Carolina House of 

Representatives District 49; DAVID J. MACK, III, member of 

the Black Legislative Caucus of the South Carolina House 

Representatives District 109; HAROLD MITCHELL, JR., member 

of the Black Legislative Caucus of the South Carolina House 

of Representatives District 31; JOSEPH NEAL, member of the 

Black Legislative Caucus of the South Carolina House of 

Representatives District 44; ANNE PARKS, member of the 

Black Legislative Caucus of the South Carolina House of 

Representatives District 12; RONNIE SABB, member of the 

Black Legislative Caucus of the South Carolina House of 

Representatives District 101; ROBERT WILLIAMS, member of 

the Black Legislative Caucus of the South Carolina House of 

Representatives District 62,

Intervenor/Defendants – Appellees,

and

CITY OF GREENVILLE MUNICIPAL ELECTION COMMISSION,

Defendant,

and

THE COLUMBIA TEA PARTY, INC.,

Intervenor/Defendant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

South Carolina, at Greenville. J. Michelle Childs, District 

Judge; Mary G. Lewis, District Judge. (6:10-cv-01407-JMC-MGL)

Argued: October 29, 2014 Decided: March 17, 2015

Before MOTZ, KING, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.
3

Affirmed in part and dismissed in part by unpublished per curiam 

opinion.

ARGUED: Samuel Darryl Harms, III, HARMS LAW FIRM, PA, 

Greenville, South Carolina, for Appellants. Harry M. Kresky, 

LAW OFFICE OF HARRY KRESKY, New York, New York; Andrew 

Lindemann, DAVIDSON & LINDEMANN, PA, Columbia, South Carolina, 

for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Fletcher N. Smith, Jr., Greenville, 

South Carolina, for Appellees Terry Alexander, Karl B. Allen, 

Wayne Griffin, Reginald Griffin, Brett A. Bursey, Committee for 

a Unified Independent Party, Incorporated, Chris Hart, Leon 

Howard, Joseph Jefferson, Jr., John Richard C. King, David J. 

Mack, III, Harold Mitchell, Jr., Joseph Neal, Alan Olson, Anne 

Parks, Progressive Network Education Fund, Incorporated, Ronnie 

Sabb, South Carolina Independence Party, South Carolina 

Constitution Party, Robert Williams, and Jerry N. Govan, Jr.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
4

PER CURIAM:

The Appellants — the Greenville County Republican Party 

Executive Committee (the “Committee”) and William Mitchell —

seek relief from the district court’s rejection of their 

constitutional challenges to certain South Carolina election 

procedures. The Appellees — the Greenville County Election 

Commission (the “County Election Commission”), the Greenville 

County Board of Registration (the “Board”), and Billy Way, Jr., 

as Chairman of the South Carolina State Election Commission (the 

“State Election Commission”) — urge us to sustain the decisions 

of the district court, which were predicated on lack of standing 

to sue and other grounds. See Greenville Cnty. Republican Party 

Exec. Comm. v. Way, No. 6:10-cv-01407 (D.S.C. Mar. 30, 2011), 

ECF No. 54 (the “First Opinion”); Greenville Cnty. Republican 

Party Exec. Comm. v. Way, No. 6:10-cv-01407 (D.S.C. Aug. 30, 

2013), ECF No. 181 (the “Second Opinion”).1 Before we can reach 

 1 There are several Intervenors in this appeal, including 

South Carolina voters, legislators, and entities that the 

district court authorized to intervene as defendants on March 3, 

2011. They include Wayne Griffin, Reginald Griffin, Brett A. 

Bursey, Alan Olson, the South Carolina Independence Party, the 

South Carolina Constitution Party, the Progressive Network 

Education Fund, Incorporated, the Committee for a Unified 

Independent Party, Incorporated, Terry Alexander, Karl B. Allen, 

Jerry N. Govan, Jr., Chris Hart, Leon Howard, Joseph Jefferson, 

Jr., John Richard C. King, David J. Mack, III, Harold Mitchell, 

Jr., Joseph Neal, Anne Parks, Ronnie Sabb, and Robert Williams. 

The Appellees and Intervenors made joint submissions in this 

appeal, and their appellate contentions are thus the same. The 

(Continued)
5

the merits of this appeal, we must address and resolve 

jurisdictional issues. First, we must determine whether the 

appeal is at least partially moot as a result of a municipal 

ordinance enacted in May 2014 by the City of Greenville (the 

“City”).2 Pursuant to the ordinance, the City no longer conducts 

its municipal elections by the partisan nomination procedures 

being challenged in this case. Second, we must decide whether 

the Appellants have standing to pursue any non-moot 

constitutional claims. 

As explained below, the recently enacted ordinance renders 

this appeal substantially moot. With respect to the balance of 

their claims, the Appellants lack standing to sue. As a result, 

we affirm in part and dismiss in part.

I.

A.

1.

Under South Carolina law, municipalities must adopt by 

ordinance either a nonpartisan or a partisan method of 

 

Columbia Tea Party, Inc., intervened as a defendant in the 

district court but is not a party to this appeal. 

2 The City is a municipality in Greenville County, South 

Carolina.
6

nominating candidates for public office in municipal elections. 

See S.C. Code Ann. § 5-15-60. In non-municipal elections, such 

candidates may be nominated by use of a partisan method. See

id. § 7-11-10. In utilizing the partisan method, candidates for 

office are nominated through one of three possible procedures —

a party primary, a party convention, or a petition. See id.

§§ 5-15-60(3), 7-11-10.3 The selection of which procedure to 

utilize is made by a certified political party — such as, in 

this case, the South Carolina Republican Party (the “State 

Party”). See, e.g., id. § 7-9-10; see also S.C. Libertarian 

Party v. S.C. State Election Comm’n, 757 S.E.2d 707, 708 (S.C. 

2014).4 The Committee — the primary Appellant here — is an 

 3 Section 5-15-60 of the South Carolina Code provides, in 

pertinent part, that “[e]ach municipality in this State shall 

adopt by ordinance one of the following alternative methods of 

nominating candidates for and determining the results of its 

nonpartisan elections,” including, inter alia, in section 5-15-

60(1) “[t]he nonpartisan plurality method prescribed in 

[section] 5-15-61.” Section 5-15-60(3) provides, in pertinent 

part, that “[i]f nonpartisan elections are not provided for, 

nomination of candidates for municipal offices may be by party 

primary, party convention or by petition.” Meanwhile, section 

7-11-10 — which applies to non-municipal elections — specifies 

that candidates may be nominated “by political party primary, by 

political party convention, or by petition.” That provision was 

amended during the pendency of the proceedings in the district 

court, but the amendments have no bearing on this appeal. See

Act of June 13, 2013, No. 61, § 1, 2013 S.C. Acts 244. 

4 Section 7-9-10 of the South Carolina Code explains that a 

political party “desiring to nominate candidates for offices to 

be voted on in a general or special election shall, before doing 

so, have applied . . . for certification as such.” That 

(Continued)
7

affiliate of the State Party and the Greenville County 

Republican Party, but it is not a certified political party. 

Accordingly, the Committee has no statutory authority to select 

one of the partisan nomination procedures. 

If a certified political party designates a party primary 

as its preferred nomination procedure, South Carolina requires 

that it be an open primary (the “open primary system”). The 

open primary system authorizes all registered voters, regardless 

of their party affiliations, to vote in any party primary in 

South Carolina. See Drawdy v. S.C. Democratic Exec. Comm., 247 

S.E.2d 806, 808 (S.C. 1978) (“Our election laws do not preclude 

a member of one political party from voting in . . . the primary 

. . . conducted by a different political party.”).5

 

provision further explains methods of certification and that 

certified political parties have the authority to select the 

means by which their candidates will be nominated in partisan 

elections. 

5 No single provision of the South Carolina Code directly 

mandates the open primary system. Rather, that system arises 

from the interworking of several Code provisions. Persons who 

are citizens of South Carolina and the United States, and who 

satisfy specific age, residency, and registration requirements, 

are entitled to vote at all local municipal elections, see S.C. 

Code Ann. § 7-5-610, and all non-municipal party primaries, id.

§ 7-9-20, provided that those persons properly register, id.

§ 7-5-110. The State Election Commission must “establish and 

maintain a statewide voter registration database.” Id. § 7-5-

186(A)(1). With respect to party primaries, “[i]mmediately 

preceding” those elections, “the board of voter registration and 

elections” shall furnish “two official lists of voters . . . 

(Continued)
8

Alternatively, a certified political party may nominate its 

candidates for public offices by a party convention or by 

petition. In order to utilize the convention method, however, 

South Carolina requires a party to secure a three-fourths 

majority vote of the membership of the party’s state convention 

(the “supermajority requirement”). See S.C. Code Ann. § 7-11-

30.6 

2.

Prior to May 2014, the City utilized the partisan method of 

nominating and electing candidates for its municipal elections. 

 

containing in each the names of all [voters] entitled to vote at 

each precinct.” Id. § 7-5-420. Further, although nothing in 

the Code provides that a voter’s political party affiliation 

bears on his right to vote in a given primary election, the Code 

does provide that “[n]o person shall be entitled to vote in more 

than one party primary election held the same day.” Id. § 7-13-

1040. 

6 Section 7-11-30 of the South Carolina Code contains 

requirements pertaining to partisan nominations by convention, 

and that Code provision has been amended twice since 2013. The 

version in effect during the events at issue provided that “[n]o 

convention shall make nominations for candidates for offices 

unless the decision to use the convention method is reached by a 

three-fourths vote of the total membership of the convention, 

except the office of state Senator and of member of the House of 

Representatives.” See S.C. Code Ann. § 7-11-30 (2012). The two 

amended versions of section 7-11-30 — effective July 3, 2013 and 

June 2, 2014 — each retain the supermajority requirement, but 

further require that the convention nomination process be 

approved by a majority of voters in the party’s next primary 

election. See Act of June 13, 2013, No. 61, § 3, 2013 S.C. Acts 

246-47; Act of June 2, 2014, No. 196, § 6, 2014 S.C. Acts 2209-

10. 
9

Since the 1980s, the State Party has nominated its candidates 

for partisan municipal and county elections by the open primary 

system. As a result, the State Party could not nominate its 

candidates by convention unless it satisfied the supermajority 

requirement. 

The Committee paid for and conducted the 2011 Republican 

municipal open primary in the City. In the past, the Committee 

has also paid for and conducted other such primaries. 

B.

1.

This appeal has a somewhat complicated procedural history, 

the relevant aspects of which are described below. On June 1, 

2010, the Appellants, along with the State Party and Patrick

Haddon, the Committee’s then-Chairman (collectively, the 

“Original Plaintiffs”) initiated this litigation in the District 

of South Carolina. Their complaint was lodged against the State 

of South Carolina and John Hudgens, in his official capacity as 

Chairman of the State Election Commission (together, the 

“Original Defendants”).7 The complaint challenged the 

constitutionality of South Carolina’s open primary system, as 

 7 Appellee Way replaced Original Defendant Hudgens as 

Chairman of the State Election Commission in May 2013. As a 

result, Way became a party-defendant in this litigation. See

Fed. R. Civ. P. 25(d). 
10

well as its supermajority requirement for use of a party 

convention. More specifically, the complaint alleged that those 

procedures, facially and as-applied, contravene the First and 

Fourteenth Amendments.8

By its First Amendment contentions, the complaint

maintained that South Carolina’s open primary system and 

supermajority requirement, facially and as-applied, contravene 

the Committee’s right to freedom of association in two respects. 

First, the open primary system unconstitutionally requires the 

Committee to pay for and certify the results of partisan 

municipal primaries in which registered Democrats participate. 

Second, as to county elections, the supermajority requirement 

unconstitutionally regulates the internal processes of a 

certified political party in South Carolina by dictating the 

 8 A facial constitutional challenge to a statute asserts 

either “that no set of circumstances exists under which the law 

would be valid” or that the statute “is overbroad because a 

substantial number of its applications are unconstitutional.” 

Greater Balt. Ctr. for Pregnancy Concerns, Inc. v. Mayor of 

Balt., 721 F.3d 264, 282 (4th Cir. 2013) (en banc) (alterations 

and internal quotation marks omitted). In assessing a facial 

challenge, a reviewing court must examine the “challenged law 

without regard to its impact on the plaintiff asserting the

. . . challenge.” Educ. Media Co. at Va. Tech, Inc. v. Insley, 

731 F.3d 291, 298 n.5 (4th Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). By contrast, an as-applied constitutional challenge 

contends that a statute has been unconstitutionally applied to 

the plaintiff. Id. at 301. That is, an as-applied challenge 

“is based on a developed factual record and the application of a 

statute to a specific person.” Id. at 298 n.5 (internal 

quotation marks omitted). 
11

vote percentage (three-fourths) requirement for the convention 

nomination procedure. 

With respect to the Fourteenth Amendment, the complaint

alleged that the open primary system and the supermajority 

requirement, facially and as-applied, contravene the Equal 

Protection Clause. Mitchell, who resides in the City, 

maintained that the open primary system violates his equal 

protection rights by compelling him to vote in partisan 

municipal elections conducted by a political party rather than 

by an election commission, such as that which conducts 

nonpartisan municipal elections. The Committee alleged that the 

supermajority requirement contravenes its equal protection 

rights by imposing more stringent requirements on a political 

party’s use of the convention nomination procedure in county 

elections than other South Carolina statutes impose on 

nonpolitical organizations, such as churches and businesses. 

The complaint thus sought to enjoin the Original Defendants from 

using and enforcing the open primary system and the 

supermajority requirement in future municipal and county 

elections. The Committee also sought declaratory and monetary 

relief for violations of its First and Fourteenth Amendment 

rights in previous elections. 

In February 2011, after discovery had been completed, the 

parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment with respect to 
12

the facial constitutional challenges being pursued. On March 

30, 2011, by its First Opinion, the district court awarded 

summary judgment to the Original Defendants on each of those 

facial challenges. More specifically, the court ruled that: 

(1) the open primary system does not facially violate a 

certified political party’s freedom of association, as 

alternative partisan nomination procedures are available; 

(2) the supermajority requirement does not facially violate a 

certified political party’s freedom of association, because it 

does not curtail the party’s internal operations; and (3) the 

open primary system and the supermajority requirement do not 

facially contravene a certified political party’s rights under 

the Equal Protection Clause, as those provisions do not 

discriminate among certified political parties. See First 

Opinion 15-22.9 

2.

Nine months after the First Opinion, on January 6, 2012, 

the Original Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint in the 

district court, primarily to terminate and add certain 

 9 Subsequent to the First Opinion, on April 27, 2011, the 

Original Defendants sought Rule 59(e) relief, filing a motion in 

the district court to alter or amend judgment. That motion was 

denied on July 18, 2011. 
13

defendants.10 More than a year later, on June 7, 2013, the State 

Party, which had been an Original Plaintiff, filed a stipulation 

of dismissal pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41 and

withdrew from the litigation. As a result, the plaintiffs then 

in the case were the Committee, Mitchell, and Betty S. Poe, in 

her official capacity as the Committee’s Chairman.11 Poe did not 

appeal, and the Committee and Mitchell are the only plaintiffs 

(now Appellants) involved herein. The Appellees — the County 

Election Commission, the Board, and Way — are now the only nonintervening defendants. 

In early July 2013, the Appellees sought summary judgment 

on the claims lodged against them in the amended complaint, 

arguing that the Appellants lack standing to sue with respect to 

their as-applied constitutional challenges. The Intervenors, on 

the other hand, filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, 

pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c), also arguing 

 10 The amended complaint abandoned all claims against the 

State of South Carolina as a party-defendant. It named three 

new defendants, however — the County Election Commission, the 

Board, and the since-dismissed City of Greenville Municipal 

Election Commission. The only Appellee who has been a partydefendant over the entire course of the litigation is the 

Chairman of the State Election Commission (initially Hudgens and 

now Way). 

11 In May 2011, Original Plaintiff Haddon was replaced by 

Poe, the new Committee Chairman. Poe resigned during the 

pendency of this appeal, apparently leaving the Chairman seat 

vacant. 
14

that the Appellants lacked standing to sue. On August 21, 2013, 

by its Second Opinion, the district court “dismisse[d] [the 

Appellants’] action for lack of standing” to sue. See Second 

Opinion 22.12 

In its Second Opinion, the district court recognized that 

the Appellants bore the burden on the issue of standing to sue. 

The court then identified the applicable analysis for a standing 

issue, which, as established by the Supreme Court, required the 

Appellants to show that

(1) [they have] suffered an “injury in fact” that is 

(a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or 

imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; (2) the 

injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action of 

the defendant; and (3) it is likely, as opposed to 

merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed 

by a favorable decision. 

Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), Inc., 

528 U.S. 167, 180-81 (2000). Relying on our decision in 

Marshall v. Meadows, 105 F.3d 904, 906 (4th Cir. 1997), the 

 12 The dismissal of a claim for lack of standing to sue is 

typically sought by way of Rule 12(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of 

Civil Procedure, which provides for dismissal for lack of 

subject-matter jurisdiction. In this instance, the district 

court’s judgment order related that “Summary Judgment is granted 

on behalf of [the Appellees].” See Greenville Cnty. Republican 

Party Exec. Comm. v. Way, No. 6:10-cv-01407 (D.S.C. Sept. 6, 

2013), ECF No. 182. The Second Opinion, on the other hand, 

specified that the action was dismissed for lack of standing. 

Notwithstanding this apparent discrepancy, we are satisfied that 

the disposition of the district court was a dismissal for lack 

of standing to sue. Indeed, there are no contentions to the 

contrary. 
15

district court determined that the open primary system was not 

traceable to the Committee’s alleged freedom of association 

injury. That injury, rather, was traceable solely to the State 

Party’s decision to utilize the open primary system of selecting 

its nominees for public office. The court concluded that, 

because the State Party was not a party-defendant, the Committee 

could not satisfy the second, traceability prong of the standing 

analysis. The court also ruled that the Committee was unable to 

satisfy the third prong of that analysis, in that its alleged 

injury was not redressable. As the court explained, it could 

not, as a matter of law, compel the State Party to adopt and 

utilize any particular partisan nomination procedure. 

The Second Opinion also rejected Mitchell’s as-applied

equal protection challenge to the open primary system for lack 

of standing to sue. In so ruling, the district court reasoned 

that Mitchell’s alleged injuries were traceable solely to the 

City’s decision to conduct partisan municipal elections. 

Accordingly, the absence of the City as a party-defendant 

deprived Mitchell of standing to pursue an equal protection 

claim. 

Finally, the Second Opinion rejected — also for lack of 

standing to sue — the Committee’s as-applied freedom of 

association and equal protection challenges to the supermajority 

requirement. In that regard, the district court explained that 
16

the State Party — as the entity tasked with selecting the 

procedure by which the State Party selects its nominees for 

office in South Carolina — was the only entity entitled to 

challenge the constitutionality of the supermajority 

requirement. The State Party, however, had abandoned the 

litigation two months earlier, in June 2013, and was no longer a 

party-plaintiff. The court therefore dismissed the Appellants’ 

as-applied constitutional challenges for lack of standing to 

sue. 

Judgment was entered in favor of the Appellees on September 

6, 2013. The Appellants timely noticed this appeal, and we 

possess jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. 

C.

On May 12, 2014, after this appeal was noticed and briefed, 

the City enacted the municipal ordinance that impacts our 

jurisdiction in this appeal. See Greenville, S.C., Ordinance 

No. 2014-25 (2014) (the “Ordinance”). The Ordinance provides, 

in pertinent part, that the City “shall cease operating under 

the partisan method of nominating and electing candidates in

municipal elections.” Id. In place of the partisan method, the 

Ordinance “adopts the nonpartisan plurality [procedure]” 

prescribed by section 5-15-61 of the South Carolina Code. Id. 

Accordingly, the City no longer conducts municipal elections 
17

utilizing the partisan nomination procedures that are challenged 

by the Appellants. 

During oral argument of this appeal, our panel identified 

the Ordinance as potentially creating a jurisdictional problem, 

in that the Ordinance may have mooted the Appellants’ claims. 

As a result, we secured post-argument briefing from the parties 

on the jurisdictional impact of the Ordinance. The Appellees 

therein argued that the Ordinance renders moot each of the 

Appellants’ constitutional claims with respect to future 

partisan municipal elections. The Appellants, by contrast, 

maintained that those claims were not mooted by the Ordinance, 

in that the City could yet again decide to utilize the partisan 

nomination procedures. Notwithstanding their disagreement in 

that respect, the Appellants and the Appellees appear to agree 

that the Ordinance does not moot the Committee’s facial and asapplied freedom of association and equal protection challenges 

to the supermajority requirement, as those challenges apply to 

county — rather than municipal — elections. The parties also 

appear to agree that the Ordinance does not moot the Committee’s 

claims for declaratory and monetary relief with respect to 

previous partisan municipal elections. 
18

II.

When an issue of subject-matter jurisdiction arises, an 

appellate court is obliged to conduct a full inquiry thereon. 

See Dickens v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 677 F.3d 228, 230 (4th Cir. 

2012). We review de novo a district court’s dismissal of a 

complaint for lack of standing to sue. See S. Walk at 

Broadlands Homeowner’s Ass’n, Inc. v. OpenBand at Broadlands, 

LLC, 713 F.3d 175, 181 (4th Cir. 2013). 

III.

The Appellants assert on appeal that the district court, by 

its First Opinion, erroneously awarded summary judgment to the 

Original Defendants on the facial constitutional challenges. 

The Appellants also contend that the court, by its Second 

Opinion, erred in ruling that the as-applied challenges are 

barred for lack of standing to sue. They further maintain, 

invoking the “repetition exception” to mootness, that the 

mootness doctrine does not undermine any of their claims in that

the City could alter the Ordinance. 

Because the Ordinance was enacted during the pendency of 

this appeal, we must assess whether its enactment impacts our 

jurisdiction by rendering any of the claims moot. Indeed, we 

are obliged to address both mootness and standing to sue prior 

to any merits questions. See Warren v. Sessoms & Rogers, P.A., 
19

676 F.3d 365, 370 (4th Cir. 2012) (“As a federal court, we must 

investigate the limits of our subject-matter jurisdiction 

whenever that jurisdiction is fairly in doubt.” (internal 

quotation marks omitted)). 

A.

1.

The doctrine of mootness derives from the requirement of 

Article III of the Constitution that “federal courts may 

adjudicate only [those] disputes involving ‘a case or 

controversy.’” Williams v. Ozmint, 716 F.3d 801, 808 (4th Cir. 

2013). The case or controversy mandate demands that plaintiffs

in a federal lawsuit “continue to have a ‘particularized, 

concrete stake’ in the outcome of the case through all stages of 

litigation.” Id. at 808-09 (quoting Lewis v. Cont’l Bank Corp., 

494 U.S. 472, 479 (1990)). But when a party-plaintiff has 

already received “the relief he or she sought to obtain through 

the claim,” the federal court lacks the power to provide 

“effective relief.” Id. at 809 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). In such a situation, the claims of the plaintiff may 

well be moot. 

In this case, the City’s enactment of the Ordinance in May 

of last year has provided the Appellants with a substantial part 

of the relief they seek in this litigation. Specifically, the 

Ordinance adopted the nonpartisan method of nominating 
20

candidates for municipal elections, thereby rendering 

inapplicable the open primary system that the Appellants seek to

challenge on constitutional grounds. As explained below, the 

Appellants’ facial and as-applied freedom of association and 

equal protection challenges, to the extent they relate to future 

partisan municipal elections, have been rendered moot, unless 

they are saved by the repetition exception argued by the 

Appellants. 

2.

As the Appellants maintain, we have recognized an exception 

to the mootness doctrine for conduct “capable of repetition, yet 

evading review.” Lux v. Judd, 651 F.3d 396, 401 (4th Cir. 

2011). That exception might apply, for example, to an electionrelated dispute when “there is a reasonable expectation that the 

challenged provisions will be applied against the plaintiffs 

again during future election cycles.” Id. (internal quotation 

marks omitted). The repetition exception is a narrow one, 

however, and it applies in exceptional situations only. See

City of L.A. v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 109 (1983). Thus, “a party 

seeking to invoke this exception to the mootness doctrine bears 

the burden of showing its application.” Williams, 716 F.3d at 

810. 

In these circumstances, the Appellants have not satisfied 

their burden of establishing “a reasonable expectation” that the 
21

City will return to the partisan method of nominating candidates 

in “future election cycles.” See Lux, 651 F.3d at 401. Rather, 

their contention in that regard is predicated solely on 

speculation and conjecture. In enacting the Ordinance, the City 

explained its decision to shift from the partisan to the 

nonpartisan municipal nomination method. The Ordinance 

specified that “Greenville is one of only eight municipalities 

in South Carolina to have partisan municipal elections and the

national trend is for municipalities the size of Greenville to 

have nonpartisan elections.” See Greenville, S.C., Ordinance 

No. 2014-25 (2014). It also reasoned that the partisan method 

“results in a prolonged campaign period” and fails to “promote[] 

full participation by all voters in the electoral process.” Id.

(emphasis omitted). Because the Appellants have not shown a 

reasonable expectation that the City will return to the partisan 

municipal nomination method, the repetition exception is simply 

inapplicable.13 

B.

We recognize, however, that not all of the Committee’s 

claims are mooted by the Ordinance. Specifically, the 

Committee’s facial and as-applied freedom of association and 

 13 As a consequence of the City’s enactment of the Ordinance 

and our application of the mootness doctrine, Appellant Mitchell 

is left with no viable claims for relief in this case. 
22

equal protection challenges to the supermajority requirement are 

not impacted by the Ordinance. Nor are the Committee’s claims 

for declaratory and monetary relief for violations of its right 

to freedom of association in previous municipal open primaries. 

As to those claims, we turn to the Committee’s central appellate 

contention with respect to the Second Opinion, that the district 

court erred in ruling that the Committee lacks standing to sue. 

1.

By the First Opinion, the district court rejected the 

contentions of the then-plaintiffs that the open primary system 

and the supermajority requirement facially violated the First 

and Fourteenth Amendments. As reflected below, we are now 

satisfied — as was the district court in its Second Opinion —

that the Appellants lack standing to pursue any facial or asapplied challenges to future partisan municipal elections. 

Nevertheless, the State Party had standing to pursue the facial 

challenges that were rejected by the First Opinion. The State 

Party, however, then abandoned the case and has not appealed. 

As to the First Opinion, we are being asked to vacate an appeal 

by parties (the Appellants) that have had no independent 

standing, either then or now. Because the Appellants lack 

standing to appeal, we cannot disturb the First Opinion. See

Rhodes v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 636 F.3d 88, 98-100 

(4th Cir. 2011) (declining to review merits of denial of class 
23

action certification where appellants subsequently dismissed 

related claims and thus lacked standing to pursue appeal).

2.

Next, the Committee pursues as-applied freedom of 

association and equal protection challenges with respect to the 

supermajority requirement. In its freedom of association 

argument, the Committee contends that the supermajority 

requirement unconstitutionally regulates a certified political 

party’s internal processes by dictating that a three-fourths 

supermajority vote is required to alter a nomination procedure 

to a convention. The Committee then maintains that the 

supermajority requirement contravenes the Equal Protection 

Clause by requiring political parties to obtain a supermajority 

vote in order to utilize the convention nomination procedure, 

while the State permits other entities — such as churches and 

corporations — to make similar decisions by a simple majority. 

On those challenges, however, the Committee does not satisfy the 

first prong of the standing analysis, that is, a cognizable 

injury. 

As the Second Opinion recognized, the injuries alleged by 

the Committee were actually suffered by another entity entirely 

— the State Party, which is solely tasked with selecting the 

partisan nomination procedure for Republican primaries. See

Second Opinion 17. It is a “fundamental restriction on our 
24

authority that in the ordinary course, a litigant must assert 

his or her own legal rights and interests, and cannot rest a 

claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third 

parties.” Hollingsworth v. Perry, 133 S. Ct. 2652, 2663 (2013) 

(alterations and internal quotation marks omitted). The 

Committee has thus failed to show a cognizable injury under its

First or Fourteenth Amendment contentions, and the Committee 

lacks standing to sue with regard to the supermajority 

requirement. 

3.

Finally, the Committee seeks declaratory and monetary 

relief for violations of its right to freedom of association in 

previous partisan municipal elections. More specifically, the 

Committee contends that the open primary system 

unconstitutionally required the Committee to conduct and pay for 

those open primaries, in which registered Democrats 

participated. 

In this situation, the Committee cannot satisfy the 

traceability prong of the standing analysis. In order to 

satisfy that prong, the Committee was obliged to show that its 

injury “fairly can be traced to the challenged action.” 

Marshall v. Meadows, 105 F.3d 904, 906 (4th Cir. 1997) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). Here, the “challenged action” is 

South Carolina’s open primary. In Marshall, we determined that 
25

the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge Virginia’s open 

primary statutes, reasoning that

it [was] not the Open Primary Law that [was] the cause 

of the plaintiffs’ alleged injury. Rather, it [was] 

the decision of the Virginia Republican Party to 

conduct an “open” primary that [caused] this alleged 

injury, as there is: (1) nothing unconstitutional 

about a political party’s choice of an “open” primary; 

and (2) simply no indication that the Virginia 

Republican Party would have a “closed” primary in the 

absence of the Open Primary Law.

Id. (emphasis and citations omitted). Accordingly, we ruled 

that the absence of the Virginia Republican Party as a partydefendant in Marshall deprived the plaintiffs of standing to 

sue. Id.

Here too, the Committee’s alleged injuries were fairly 

traceable to the decision of the State Party to select its 

nominees by way of the open primary system. Thus, as the Second 

Opinion explained, the State Party is an intermediary that 

“‘stands directly between [the Committee] and the challenged 

conduct in a way that breaks the causal chain’” between the open 

primary system and the Committee’s freedom of association 

claims. See Second Opinion 17 (quoting Frank Krasner Enters., 

Ltd. v. Montgomery Cnty., Md., 401 F.3d 230, 236 (4th Cir. 

2005)). Because the State Party is not a party-defendant in 
26

this litigation, the Committee is unable to satisfy the 

traceability prong of the standing analysis.14 

Contrary to the Committee’s contention, our decision in 

Miller v. Brown, 462 F.3d 312 (4th Cir. 2006), does not dictate 

some other conclusion. In Miller, a local political 

organization contested the open primary system in Virginia that 

was challenged in Marshall. See Miller, 462 F.3d at 316. When 

Miller was decided, however, the Virginia Republican Party had 

already taken steps to implement its use of closed primaries. 

Id. at 318. Specifically, the Virginia Republican Party had 

amended its plan of organization to “exclude voters who 

participated in the nomination process of another party within 

the preceding five years from voting in the Republican primary.” 

Id. at 314. In that circumstance, we concluded that the local 

political organization had standing to sue, because it was 

seeking to enforce the Virginia Republican Party’s desire to 

 14 We also agree with the Second Opinion that the Committee 

is unable to establish the redressability prong of the standing 

analysis. If South Carolina’s open primary system is 

unconstitutional, we would likely be unable to compel the State 

Party to conduct closed primaries, as such a court order may 

well violate the Constitution. See Tashjian v. Republican Party 

of Conn., 479 U.S. 208, 224 (1986) (recognizing that a court 

“may not constitutionally substitute its own judgment for that 

of the [p]arty,” as the “[p]arty’s determination of the 

boundaries of its own association, and of the structure which 

best allows it to pursue its political goals, is protected by 

the Constitution”) (internal quotation marks omitted)). 
27

conduct closed primaries. Id. at 318. We readily distinguished 

that situation from the one in Marshall, where the Virginia 

Republican Party had not yet implemented its use of closed 

primaries. Id. Thus, the plaintiffs in Marshall were merely 

challenging the Party’s desire to conduct open primaries, not 

the open primary system itself. Id. 

Miller is not applicable here because, unlike the Virginia 

Republican Party in Miller, the State Party has done nothing, on 

this record, that seeks to conduct closed primaries in South 

Carolina. Accordingly, this situation more closely resembles 

that in Marshall, with the Committee challenging the State 

Party’s decision to conduct open primaries. Thus, the Committee 

lacks standing to pursue its claims for declaratory and monetary 

relief based on alleged constitutional violations in previous 

partisan municipal elections.15

IV.

Pursuant to the foregoing, we dismiss as moot the 

Appellants’ facial and as-applied challenges to future partisan 

 15 Finally, the Committee erroneously contends that the 

State Party’s platform — vaguely indicating support for a closed 

primary system — is sufficient to establish standing for the 

Committee’s freedom of association claims. As recognized in the 

Second Opinion, however, the Party’s platform “at most states a 

possible preference or partiality for [open] primaries . . . 

[which] is undoubtedly trumped by its rules and conduct.” See

Second Opinion 21. 
28

municipal elections. We also dismiss, for lack of standing to 

sue, the facial challenges to the supermajority requirement. 

Finally, we affirm the dismissal, for lack of standing to sue, 

of the as-applied challenges to the supermajority requirement, 

as well as the claims for declaratory and monetary relief with 

respect to previous partisan municipal elections. 

AFFIRMED IN PART 

AND DISMISSED IN PART