Opinion ID: 3033682
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Election Laws

Text: [4] An election law that burdens First Amendment rights is not necessarily subject to strict scrutiny, however. See Clingman v. Beaver, 125 S. Ct. 2029, 2038 (2005). Rather, such laws are generally subject to a balancing standard, under which a reviewing court weighs the “character and magnitude” of the burden imposed against the interests advanced to justify that burden. See e.g., Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party, 520 U.S. 351, 358 (1997); Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428, 434 (1992); Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 789 (1983). As the Supreme Court explained in Burdick, it has typically applied this “more flexible” standard to election laws because “[c]ommon sense, as well as constitutional law, compels the conclusion that government must play an active role in structuring elections.” 504 U.S. at 433; accord Clingman, 125 S. Ct. 2039 (explaining that subjecting every electoral regulation to strict scrutiny would “hamper the ability of States to run efficient and equitable elections”). [5] To be sure, the Supreme Court has in several other cases subjected election laws to strict scrutiny rather than flexible balancing. See, e.g., McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n, 514 U.S. 334, 345-46 (1995); Meyer v. Grant, 486 U.S. 414, 420 (1988). Unlike the cases described above, these cases did not involve regulations of the “voting process”; they instead involved regulations of — or, more precisely, limitations on — “pure speech.” See McIntyre, 514 U.S. at 345; accord Campbell v. Buckley, 203 F.3d 738, 745 (10th Cir. 12152 CARUSO v. YAMHILL COUNTY 2000) (“[S]trict scrutiny is applied where the government restricts the overall quantum of speech available to the election or voting process.”). Although these cases “do not lend themselves to a simple synthesis,” Campbell, 203 F.3d at 745, we regard them as distinguishable in two respects. [6] First, unlike the provisions challenged in McIntyre and Meyer (which respectively prohibited the distribution of anonymous campaign literature, McIntyre, 514 U.S. at 336, and the payment of petition circulators, Meyer, 486 U.S. at 416), section 280.070(4)(a) governs the political process more than it does political speech. See McIntyre, 514 U.S. at 344. Significantly, the provision regulates only what is said through the ballot itself. See Timmons, 520 U.S. at 362-63 (applying flexible balancing where the challenged law burdened a political party’s ability to communicate through the ballot only); Rubin v. City of Santa Monica, 308 F.3d 1008, 1015 (9th Cir. 2002) (similar). All other means of communication, including the “interactive” discussions for which First Amendment protection is “at its zenith,” Meyer, 486 U.S. at 422, 425, fall outside the provision’s regulatory scope. Caruso responds that the ballot is not merely a means of communication; it is the most direct and credible means of communication. This argument has some force. Indeed, the Supreme Court has characterized “ ‘the instant before the vote is cast’ ” as “ ‘the most crucial stage in the election process.’ ” Cook v. Gralike, 531 U.S. 510, 525 (2001) (quoting Anderson v. Martin, 375 U.S. 399, 402 (1964)). But the fact that the ballot is “crucial” to an election does not imply that Caruso therefore has a First Amendment right to communicate a specific message through it. To the contrary, the Supreme Court in Timmons rejected the “contention that [a political party] has a right to use the ballot itself to send a particularized message”: “Ballots serve primarily to elect candidates, not as forums for political expression.” 520 U.S. at 362-63; accord Rubin, 308 F.3d at 1016 (“A ballot is a ballot, not a bumper sticker.”). CARUSO v. YAMHILL COUNTY 12153 Caruso argues that cases such as Timmons are inapposite because they involved candidates rather than initiatives. We disagree. In Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation, Inc., 525 U.S. 182 (1999), a case involving ballot initiatives, the Supreme Court expressly affirmed the Tenth Circuit’s reliance on Timmons. See id. at 190. The Supreme Court further affirmed that “States allowing ballot initiatives have considerable leeway to protect the integrity and reliability of the initiative process, as they have with respect to election processes generally.” Id. at 191. It is true that the Supreme Court has elsewhere highlighted the differences between initiatives and candidates, but it appears to have done so not because the First Amendment is more protective of initiatives than of candidates, but because elections on initiatives pose lesser risks of quid pro quo corruption. See, e.g., First Nat’l Bank v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 790 (1978) (“The risk of corruption perceived in cases involving candidate elections simply is not present in a popular vote on a public issue.” (citations omitted)). Caruso also observes that notwithstanding Timmons, Chief Justice Rehnquist in Cook applied strict scrutiny to an amendment governing the composition of Missouri ballots. See Cook, 531 U.S. at 530-32 (Rehnquist, C.J., concurring in the judgment). Specifically, the amendment required that ballots label candidates for congressional office who “DISREGARDED VOTERS’ INSTRUCTIONS ON TERMS LIM- ITS” or “DECLINED TO PLEDGE TO SUPPORT TERM LIMITS.” Id. at 514-15. Chief Justice Rehnquist described the requirement as constitutionally suspect in part because it was “not neutral as to issues or candidates.” Id. at 532. To the contrary, only one issue was selected for comment and “only those candidates who fail[ed] to conform to the State’s position receive[d] derogatory labels.” Id. Caruso maintains that here, just as Chief Rehnquist described in Cook, the State selected a single consideration for comment on the ballot. As an initial matter, we note that 12154 CARUSO v. YAMHILL COUNTY Chief Justice Rehnquist’s opinion in Cook was a concurrence, joined only by Justice O’Connor. Id. at 530. In contrast to Chief Justice Rehnquist’s concurring opinion, the majority opinion reviewed Missouri’s labeling requirement under the Tenth Amendment and the Elections Clause rather than under the First Amendment. Id. at 518-27. In fact, the majority specifically rejected the respondents’ reliance on “First Amendment cases upholding ‘time, place, and manner’ regulations of speech,” explaining that “[a]lthough the Elections Clause uses the same phrase as that branch of our First Amendment jurisprudence, it by no means follows that such cases have any relevance to our disposition of this case.” Id. at 527 n.20. But even apart from its precedential value, we regard Chief Justice Rehnquist’s concurring opinion as distinguishable. Unlike Missouri’s labeling requirement, which applied to “only those candidates who fail[ed] to conform to the State’s position,” id. at 532, Oregon’s three-percent warning applies to all “measure[s] authorizing the imposition of local option taxes,” Or. Rev. Stat. § 280.070(4)(a). Accordingly, no measure or group of measures is “singled out.” Compare Cook, 531 U.S. at 532. And unlike congressional candidates, who “may debate tax reform, Social Security, national security, and a host of other issues,” id., initiative measures, by law, may “embrace one subject only,” Or. Const. art. IV, § (2)(d). For Measure 36-55, that subject was a one-time increase in property taxes. The measure’s possible effect on property taxes, then, was not simply one facet of many. Finally, unlike the State of Missouri, which “ha[d] chosen one and only one issue to comment on,” id., the State of Oregon has chosen to comment not only on a measure’s possible effect on property taxes, but also on the rate of the special levy, the voter turnout required to pass it, the proposed uses for the funds, the total amount of funds anticipated, and the estimated additional cost to property owners. [7] Second, and also unlike the provisions challenged in McIntyre and Meyer, section 280.070(4)(a) does not have “the CARUSO v. YAMHILL COUNTY 12155 inevitable effect of reducing the total quantum of speech on a public issue.” Meyer, 486 U.S. at 423; accord McIntyre, 514 U.S. at 346. In Meyer, the Supreme Court determined that Colorado’s ban on the use of the paid petition circulators “limit[ed] the number of voices who will convey appellees’ message and the hours they can speak,” thus restricting their ability to reach a larger audience, “garner the number of signatures necessary to place the matter on the ballot,” and “make the matter the focus of statewide discussion.” 486 U.S. at 422-23. The Court quoted the observation made by the Colorado Supreme Court in another context: “ ‘[T]he solicitation of signatures on petitions is work. It is time-consuming and it is tiresome — so much so that it seems that few but the young have the strength, the ardor and the stamina to engage in it, unless, of course, there is some remuneration.’ ” Id. at 423-24 (quoting Urevich v. Woodard, 667 P.2d 760, 763 (Colo. 1983)). [8] In contrast, the effect of the three-percent warning on the “total quantum of speech” is uncertain. In a declaration submitted to the district court, Caruso predicted that continued enforcement of the three-percent-warning requirement would discourage petition circulators “as they w[ould] realize that all of their work can and will be nullified by the false statement that will appear on the ballot.” But Caruso’s prediction — unsupported by any evidence in the record, compare Am. Constitutional Law Found., 525 U.S. at 198 (describing the testimony of several petition circulators who recounted the harassment and fear that they and others had experienced as a result of the requirement that they wear identification badges) — is not the only plausible one. In fact, the requirement “might encourage more speech,” Campbell, 203 F.3d at 745, with petition circulators working not only to collect signatures, but also to inform voters that their measures would not, by themselves, increase property taxes more than three percent. Along these lines, we note that the three-percent warning required by section 280.070(4)(a) is “separated from the moment the circulator speaks,” leaving circulators free to 12156 CARUSO v. YAMHILL COUNTY contest its accuracy in their conversations with electors. Compare Am. Constitutional Law Found., 525 U.S. at 198-200 (explaining that Colorado’s affidavit requirement, unlike its identification badge requirement, “exemplifies the type of regulation for which McIntyre left room” because it “must be met only after circulators have completed their conversations with electors”).