Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/103031/socialist-labor-party-vs-gilligan
Timestamp: 2016-10-22 17:18:09
Document Index: 756819236

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1253', '§ 1257', '§ 3517', '§ 1253', '§ 273', '§ 3599']

Socialist Labor Party Vs Gilligan - Citation 103031 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Save as PDF Add a Tag Add a Note Semantics Visualize Socialist Labor Party Vs. Gilligan - Court Judgment	LegalCrystal Citationlegalcrystal.com/103031CourtUS Supreme CourtDecided OnMay-30-1972Case Number406 U.S. 583AppellantSocialist Labor PartyRespondentGilliganExcerpt:
socialist labor party v. gilligan - 406 u.s. 583 (1972)
appellant political party, its officers, and members, attacked the constitutionality of revisions of the ohio election code made following this court's decision in
, and a provision that a political party execute a loyalty affidavit under oath in order to obtain a ballot position. the district court, deciding the case on cross-motions for summary.....Judgment:
, and a provision that a political party execute a loyalty affidavit under oath in order to obtain a ballot position. The District Court, deciding the case on cross-motions for summary judgment on the basis of the pleadings and supporting affidavits, upheld all appellants' challenges except that involving the oath provision. All parties appealed. A revision of the election code made after this Court noted probable jurisdiction mooted all but the oath issue. Appellants, who did not attack the oath provision in
and who have been on the ballot and presumably have complied with that provision since its adoption in 1941, contend that it violates the First Amendment, is impermissibly vague, does not comport with due process, and, since it applies to them and not the two major political parties, violates equal protection.
The record and pleadings on the one issue not mooted by the supervening legislation (an issue that received scant attention in appellants' complaint, and none in the affidavits supporting the cross-motions for summary judgment) are inadequate for resolution of the constitutional questions presented, and, in view of the abstract and speculative posture of the case, the appeal must therefore be dismissed.
REHNQUIST, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C.J., and STEWART, WHITE, BLACKMUN, and POWELL, JJ., joined. DOUGLAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BRENNAN and MARSHALL, JJ., joined,
406 U. S. 589
Appellant Socialist Labor Party has engaged in a prolonged legal battle to invalidate various Ohio laws restricting minority party access to the ballot. Concluding that "the totality of the Ohio restrictive laws, taken as a whole," violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, this Court struck down those laws in
] Following that decision, the Ohio Legislature revised the state election code, but the Party was dissatisfied with the revisions, and instituted the present suit in 1970.
It is axiomatic that the federal courts do not decide abstract questions posed by parties who lack "a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy."
(1968). Appellants argue that the affidavit requirement violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments, but their pleadings fail to allege that the requirement has in any way affected their speech or conduct, or that executing the oath would impair the exercise of any right that they have as a political party or as members of a political party. They contend that to require it of them, but not of the two major political parties, denies them equal protection, but they do not allege any particulars that make the requirement other than a hypothetical burden. Finally, they claim that the required affidavit is impermissibly vague and that its enforcement procedures do not comport with due process. But the record before the three-judge District Court, and now before this Court, is extraordinarily skimpy in the sort of proved or admitted facts that would enable us to adjudicate this claim. Since appellants have previously secured a position on the ballot with no untoward consequences, the gravamen of their claim that it injures them remains quite unclear.
In the usual case in which this Court has passed on the validity of similar oath provisions, the party challenging constitutionality was either unable or unwilling to execute the required oath, and, in the circumstances of the particular case, sustained, or faced the immediate prospect of sustaining, some direct injury as a result of the penalty provisions associated with the oath.
See, e.g., Cole v. Richardson,
368 U. S. 283
-285 (1961), the appellants were public school teachers who had been threatened with discharge for their refusal to execute the required oath. The Court held that, even though appellants might be able to sign the
This Court has recognized in the past that, even when jurisdiction exists, it should not be exercised unless the case "tenders the underlying constitutional issues in clean-cut and concrete form."
331 U. S. 584
(1947). Problems of prematurity and abstractness may well present "insuperable obstacles" to the exercise of the Court's jurisdiction, even though that jurisdiction is technically present.
We find that the present posture of this case raises just such an obstacle. All issues litigated below have become moot except for one that received scant attention in appellants' complaint and was treated not at all in the affidavits filed in support of the cross-motions for summary judgment. Nothing in the record shows that appellants have suffered any injury thus far, and the law's future effect remains wholly speculative. Notwithstanding the indications that appellants have in the past executed the required affidavit without injury, it is, of course, possible that, at some future time, they may be able to demonstrate some injury as a result of the application of the provision challenged here. Our adjudication of the merits of such a challenge will await that time. This appeal must be dismissed.
Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, supra,
That case was decided together with
Despite the contrary implication in the dissent,
406 U. S. 592
-593, n. 3, the holding of
has been applied by this Court to numerous appeals in which no statutory or constitutional impediment to jurisdiction was present.
See, e.g., Cowgill v. California,
396 U. S. 371
(1970) (Harlan, J., concurring);
Teamsters v. Denver Milk Producers, Inc.,
334 U.S. 809 (1948). Nor has there ever been any suggestion that
should apply only to appeals from state, rather than federal, courts.
See United States v. Fruehauf,
335 U. S. 125
-126 (1948) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).
See also Albertson v. Millard,
345 U. S. 245
(1953). Despite this lack of case support, the dissent argues that the
doctrine should not apply to the present case, since it is an appeal from a federal court judgment pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1253, whereas
was an appeal from a state court judgment pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1257. This distinction is evanescent. Under both grants of jurisdiction, this Court is obligated to rule upon those properly presented questions that are necessary for decision of the case. But when the issues are not presented with the clarity needed for effective adjudication, appellate review of a federal court judgment is every bit as inappropriate as was review of a state court judgment in
Rescue Army.
In order to "be recognized or be given a place on the ballot in any primary or general election," Ohio requires that members of political parties file a loyalty oath with the Secretary of State. Ohio Rev.Code nn. § 3517.07 (1960) (
appendix to this opinion). I need not consider the vagueness or overbreadth of the Ohio oath, for my views on that subject have been stated over and over again. [
] For the present case, it is sufficient for my decision that Ohio requires the oath based upon the invidious classification of political allegiance.
An exception from the oath requirement is made for "any political party or group which has had a place on the ballot in each national and gubernatorial election since the year 1900."
It is conceded that this exemption applies only to the Democratic and Republican Parties (
Plaintiffs' Motion for Summary Judgment), and we may properly treat it as if it were written in precisely those terms.
See Lane v. Wilson,
(1915). This exception is thus part of the broader pattern of Ohio's discriminatory preference for the two established political parties. We considered this discrimination before in
393 U. S. 39
. Classifications based upon political or religious associations, beliefs, or philosophy are such "invidious" classifications. As Mr. Justice Black said in
Lippitt v. Cipollone,
, 1033-1034 (DOUGLAS, J., dissenting);
see also Williams v. Rhodes, supra,
-40 (separate opinion of DOUGLAS, J.), the appellees have not even offered a colorable explanation for the disparate treatment of the separate political parties. I conclude, therefore, that the unequal burden placed upon appellants is unconstitutional. [
The Court does not reach appellants' challenge to the loyalty oath, however, because it concludes that "they do not allege any particulars that make the [oath] requirement other than a hypothetical burden."
406 U. S. 587
. In sharp contrast to the decision in
(1947), the only case upon which it relies, [
] the Court does not explain what
and its vagueness. Certainly such challenges to the facial validity of a statute are ideally suited for declaratory judgment.
. There can be no question of appellants' stake in the controversy, for, if they refuse to subscribe to the oath, they will be denied political recognition,
cf. Law Students Research Council v. Wadmond,
Baird v. State Bar of Arizona,
401 U. S. 1
(1971), while, in order to obtain such recognition, they must subscribe to an unconstitutional oath or subject themselves to an invidious classification. [
Cf. Keyishian v. Board of Regents,
] Under either alternative, appellants have
(1962). Nor is this a case where appellants' injury is only speculative,
(1958), is relevant here. The appellant in that case was a black who sought a declaratory judgment that a state statute requiring the segregation of the races on municipal buses was unconstitutional. In dismissing the complaint, the District Court took the approach this Court takes today, and reasoned that appellant "ha[d] not been injured at all," because "he was not a regular, or even an occasional, user of bus transportation." We summarily reversed that decision, saying that an individual
And see Gooding v. Wilson,
we did not base our decision on any consideration of whether the seats blacks were required to take were better or worse than those available to whites. Rather, we held that members of a disfavored minority could challenge unconstitutional statutory classifications which set them apart. That was the "disability" to which we referred. Appellants are members of an unfavored political minority in Ohio, and they too should be able to challenge invidious classifications which set them apart from the favored majority.
Since 1946, appellants and other minority political parties in Ohio have been repressed by legislation enacted by the two dominant parties. In the last four years, they have sought relief from these shackles so that their voices could be heard in the political arena. [
] But Ohio
E.g., Cole v. Richardson,
405 U. S. 687
(1972) (dissenting opinion);
W.E. B.DuBois Clubs v. Clark,
389 U. S. 309
389 U. S. 313
(1967) (dissenting opinion);
Nostrand v. Little,
362 U. S. 474
362 U. S. 476
(1960) (dissenting opinion);
First Unitarian Church v. Los Angeles,
357 U. S. 545
357 U. S. 547
(1958) (concurring opinion);
357 U. S. 532
The present case, by contrast, comes from a United States District Court where our appellate jurisdiction is founded upon 28 U.S.C. § 1253. It is, I think, an undue extension of
to apply it to an appeal from a federal court which properly heard and considered a federal constitutional question.
H. Hart & H. Wechsler, The Federal Courts and the Federal System 149 (1953). Our differing treatment of appeals from federal and state courts relates to the difference between the courts from which the appeals are taken. If an appeal from a state court does not fall within Art. III, it would in nowise affect the jurisdiction of the court from which the appeal was taken.
(1952). The same cannot be said, however, of appeals from federal courts,
R. Robertson & F. Kirkham, Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court § 273, p. 501 (1951). "If the proceeding is one to review the decision of a state court," however, our practice is to "remand the cause to the state court in order that that court may take such further proceedings as may be deemed appropriate."
The cases cited by the majority,
-589, n. 2, do not support today's treatment of an appeal from an Art. III court. In
(1961), the District Court dismissed an indictment and we reversed and remanded, holding that the provable facts might bring the case within the statute. In
(1948), we affirmed the judgment of the District Court which had dismissed an indictment, because the facts alleged did not state an offense, and we did not therefore reach the constitutional issue relied upon by the District Court. Finally,
The suggestion that "appellants have apparently signed the oath at previous times,"
, and thus somehow have waived their right to object to the oath, is unsupported by the record. Appellants include not only the Socialist Labor Party, but also its named officers and members who would be required to execute the oath. Whatever relevance there may be to the fact that the Socialist Labor Party was on the ballot in Ohio in 1946, that fact has no bearing with regard to the individual appellants.
. In our opinion in
however, we noted that Cramp alleged in his complaint
368 U. S. 281
. In any event, Ohio also subjects oath takers to the "possible hazards of a perjury conviction,"
Ohio Rev.Code Ann. §§ 3599.36, 2917.25 (1960), so
is not distinguishable.
See, e.g., Lippitt v. Cipollone,
337 F.Supp. 1405 (ND Ohio 1971);
aff'g sub nom. Socialist Labor Party v. Rhodes,
290 F.Supp. 983 (Ohio 1968);
State ex rel. Bible v. Board of Elections,
22 Ohio St.2d 57, 258 N.E.2d 227;
see also State ex rel. Beck v. Hummel,
150 Ohio St. 127, 80 N.E.2d 899.