Opinion ID: 1354990
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The truncated legislative process underlying the General Assembly's enactment of Act 44 deprived Plaintiffs of equal protection and due process

Text: Plaintiffs, in their second amended complaint, next challenged the manner in which the General Assembly enacted Act 44, alleging that Defendants, by implement[ing] a truncated legislative process, as part of a continuing pattern of illegal statutory enactment, deprived Plaintiffs of both due process and equal protection. App. at 69-70. The district court held that Plaintiffs lacked standing to assert this claim, as well. See Common Cause, 447 F.Supp.2d at 426-30. Again, we agree. Plaintiffs failed to allege how this legislative process actually injured them directly. Instead, they alleged a generalized, abstract grievance shared by all Pennsylvanians. On appeal, Plaintiffs assert only an equal protection claim. Thus, we deem them to have abandoned any due process challenge to the manner in which the General Assembly enacted Act 44, although our conclusion that Plaintiffs lack standing would equally bar Plaintiffs' due process claim had it been preserved. See Kost, 1 F.3d at 182. For the first time on appeal, Plaintiffs make additional allegations to support their standing to challenge the way Act 44 was enacted. They also differentiate the grounds on which the citizen plaintiffs have standing from the basis for Representative Vitali's standing. Again, Plaintiffs generally cannot create standing through new allegations asserted for the first time on appeal. See Storino, 322 F.3d at 297; see also In re Mystic Tank Lines Corp., 544 F.3d at 528. Nonetheless, even considering these additional allegations, Plaintiffs have failed to establish that they have constitutional standing to pursue this equal-protection challenge to the procedures by which the General Assembly enacted Act 44. On appeal, Plaintiffs contend that the extra-legal process designed by [Defendants] to enact Act 44, in which a select few legislators were the only ones allowedsecretlyto draft, propose or alter even a single word of the legislation, deprived the vast majority of legislators, including Appellants['] Representative [Plaintiff] Greg Vitali, and their constituents such as Appellants of equal protection of the laws as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Aplt. Br. at 43. More specifically, Plaintiffs argue on appeal that Defendants deprived them of equal protection by assigning the original house bill to a conference committee, composed of only named Defendants, which completely redrafted the original house bill in secret, and then submitted it to the General Assembly under a rule prohibiting any of the other legislators from amending the submitted bill. As a result [Defendants] ensured that they and only they were able to exercise the full panoply of legislative functions in drafting, debating and amending the text of the Act, while consigning [Plaintiff] Representative Greg Vitali and the elected representatives of the remaining Appellants to a mere up-or-down vote on final passage. A small class of legislators thus was given the abilities constitutionally appertaining to membership in the General Assembly to draft, discuss, debate, and amend the legislation at issueall others were completely and expressly denied such ability. Id. at 44. Because Plaintiffs differentiate between Representative Vitali's standing and that of the other citizen Plaintiffs, we will address Vitali's standing separately. [7] a. Plaintiff Vitali's standing `[L]egislators, like other litigants in federal court, must satisfy the jurisdictional prerequisites of Article III standing.' Goode, 539 F.3d at 317 (quoting Russell v. DeJongh, 491 F.3d 130, 133 (3d Cir.2007) (alteration omitted)). Concerns for separation of powers and the limited role of the judiciary are at the core of Article III standing doctrine and the requirement that a plaintiff allege an injury in fact. Those concerns are particularly acute in legislator standing cases, and they inform the analysis of whether a legislator plaintiff has asserted an injury in fact sufficient to confer standing to sue. Russell, 491 F.3d at 133. On appeal, Plaintiffs suggest that Defendants deprived Vitali of equal protection of the law by denying him, and other legislators, the ability to discuss, debate and perhaps amend Act 44 before having to vote on that legislation. As Plaintiffs point out in their brief, state legislators have, under different circumstances, sued based upon a direct injury suffered by that particular legislator. For instance, in Bond v. Floyd, state representative Julian Bond sued the Georgia legislature, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief that would permit him to take his seat in the Georgia legislature, after that body excluded him for comments Bond made against the Vietnam War, among other things. See 385 U.S. 116, 118, 125-26, 87 S.Ct. 339, 17 L.Ed.2d 235 (1966). Similarly, in Ammond v. McGahn, a New Jersey state senator, Alene Ammond, a Democrat, sued the Democratic senate caucus after the caucus excluded her for making negative remarks about the caucus. See 390 F.Supp. 655, 657 (D.N.J.1975), rev'd on other grounds, 532 F.2d 325, 329 (3d. Cir. 1976); see also Parker v. Merlino, 646 F.2d 848, 849, 851-52 (3d Cir.1981) (concluding, without addressing standing, that there was no merit to the claim asserted by several state legislators that other legislators violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by terminating the opportunity for further debate before the legislature voted on two pending bills); Gewertz v. Jackman, 467 F.Supp. 1047, 1050, 1055-56 (D.N.J.1979) (holding federal court had authority to consider state legislator's claim challenging the Democratic caucus's decision to remove him from the Appropriations Committee; noting that, although the legislator's claim implicated operations of the state's legislative body, the federal court was require[d] to consider this individual legislator's claim that his constitutional rights have been violated by the legislature or its leaders); see Davids v. Akers, 549 F.2d 120, 122-23 (9th Cir. 1977) (considering merits of claims brought by state legislators challenging the committee appointments made by the state house speaker). In each of these cases, the courts addressed the merits of these claims brought by individual state legislators without specifically discussing whether those legislators had standing to assert those claims. However, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the existence of unaddressed jurisdictional defects has no precedential effect. Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 352 n. 2, 116 S.Ct. 2174, 135 L.Ed.2d 606 (1996); see also Fed. Election Comm'n v. NRA Political Victory Fund, 513 U.S. 88, 97, 115 S.Ct. 537, 130 L.Ed.2d 439 (1994); United States v. L.A. Tucker Truck Lines, Inc., 344 U.S. 33, 37-38, 73 S.Ct. 67, 97 L.Ed. 54 (1952). See generally Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env't, 523 U.S. 83, 91, 118 S.Ct. 1003, 140 L.Ed.2d 210 (1998) (noting that Supreme Court has often said that drive-by jurisdictional rulings... have no precedential effect). In this case, in any event, Vitali does not allege that he has suffered a direct and concrete injury specific to him, as a result of Defendants' challenged conduct. Rather, he challenges a procedure that excluded most of the Pennsylvania legislators. Other cases, also relied upon by Plaintiffs, have concluded that a legislator has standing to challenge the nullification of his particular vote. [L]egislators have a legally protected interest in their right to vote on legislation and other matters committed to the legislature, which is sometimes phrased as an interest in maintaining the effectiveness of their votes. Not every affront to a legislator's interest in the effectiveness of his vote, however, is an injury in fact sufficient to confer standing to sue. Russell, 491 F.3d at 134 (citing cases). For example, courts have drawn a distinction ... between a public official's mere disobedience of a law for which a legislator votedwhich is not an injury in fact and an official's distortion of the process by which a bill becomes law by nullifying a legislator's vote or depriving a legislator of an opportunity to vote which is an injury in fact. Id. at 135. Cases where a public official has directly injured a particular legislator by nullifying his vote, however, involve circumstances much different than those alleged here. See id. at 135-36 & 135 n. 4 (citing cases); cf. Bender v. Williamsport Area Sch. Dist., 475 U.S. 534, 544 & n. 7, 106 S.Ct. 1326, 89 L.Ed.2d 501 (1986) (noting, in dicta, that a lone dissenting school board member might have standing to assert a claim seeking to maintain the effectiveness of his vote, if state law required a unanimous board vote and the rest of the board, nevertheless, acted without the dissenting member's consent). The Third Circuit addressed several such cases in Russell, 491 F.3d at 135-36. There, this court noted, for example, that Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433, 59 S.Ct. 972, 83 L.Ed. 1385 (1939), `stands, at most, for the proposition that legislators whose votes would have been sufficient to defeat (or enact) a specific legislative Act have standing to sue if that legislative action goes into effect (or does not go into effect) on the ground that their votes have been completely nullified.' Russell, 491 F.3d at 135 n. 4 (quoting Raines, 521 U.S. at 823, 117 S.Ct. 2312) (emphasis added); see also Baird v. Norton, 266 F.3d 408, 411-13 (6th Cir.2001). And in Dennis v. Luis, 741 F.2d 628 (3d Cir.1984), the Third Circuit held that a group of legislators had standing to challenge the appointment by the Governor of the Virgin Islands of an acting Commissioner of Commerce without consulting them, where § 16(c) of the Organic Act, 48 U.S.C. § 1597(c), provided that the appointment of a Commissioner of Commerce was subject to the advice and consent of the Legislature. The plaintiffs in Dennis thus alleged that they possessed a specific right under § 16(c) of the Organic Act that the Governor had violated, and they had no clear recourse through the political process. Russell, 491 F.3d at 135 n. 4. Further, in Silver v. Pataki, 96 N.Y.2d 532, 730 N.Y.S.2d 482, 755 N.E.2d 842 (2001), the New York Court of Appeals recognized an injury in fact when a state assembly member alleged that the governor made illegal use of his line item veto power by using it on bills that were not lawfully subject to the line item veto. The state assembly member had voted in favor of the bills in question, and the New York Court of Appeals held that the plaintiff had standing.... In Silver, the Governor's veto nullified the pending bills and forced the assembly member to try [to] persuade a supermajority of his colleagues to override the governor's veto if he wished to restore the status of the bills as law. Russell, 491 F.3d at 135 n. 4. The circumstances alleged in this case are much different. Here, Representative Vitali was not precluded from voting on Act 44. Cf. id. at 135-36 (concluding legislator, asserting claim that Governor violated applicable deadlines in nominating justices of the Virgin Islands Supreme Court, did not allege that his ability to vote had been nullified where the legislator was still able to confirm, reject, or defer voting on the Governor's nominees). Nor has Vitali alleged that his vote was in any other way nullified. At most, Vitali merely alleges he was denied full input on the drafting and consideration of Act 44. But the denial was not specific to him; rather, its impact was felt by all legislators other than the select leadership. However, the legislative process inevitably involves a division of responsibilities, and leadership necessarily will have greater input in legislation being considered. For these reasons, we conclude that Vitali has failed to allege that the manner in which the General Assembly enacted Act 44 actually and concretely injured him in particular. Even if Vitali had alleged such an injury (which we conclude he has not), Vitali has also failed to satisfy prudential standing concerns. Vitali's challenge to the manner in which the General Assembly enacted Act 44 is a clear example of one of those `abstract questions of wide public significance' which amount to `generalized grievances,' pervasively shared and most appropriately addressed in the representative branches which the Supreme Court counsels federal courts to avoid adjudicating. Valley Forge Christian Coll., 454 U.S. at 474-75, 102 S.Ct. 752 (quoting Warth, 422 U.S. at 499-500, 95 S.Ct. 2197); see also 13B Charles Alan Wright, Arthur Miller & Edward H. Cooper, Federal Practice & Procedure § 3531.11.3 (3d ed.2008) (noting that most disagreements among state legislators will involve matters of state law, or issues of federal law that cannot be disentangled from the political functions of the legislature. Standing should be denied as to the federal questions, for reasons of federalistic deference to state legislatures that mirror the separation-of-powers deference to Congress). For these reasons, the district court did not err in concluding Plaintiff Vitali lacked standing to challenge the manner in which the General Assembly enacted Act 44. b. Citizens Plaintiffs' standing On appeal, the citizen Plaintiffs (and the associations whose members are Pennsylvania citizens) allege that their elected state representatives were, like Representative Vitali, precluded from drafting, debating and amending Act 44. The New Jersey district court has suggested that a state legislator's constituents might be able to assert such a claim: The action by the Caucus in denying Senator Ammond the opportunity to attend its deliberations deprived her constituents of the Equal Protection of the law. In effect, the action by the Caucus created two classes of voters. One class consists of those citizens whose Senators could effectively participate fully in the legislative process and another class whose Senator could participate only to a limited degree. Ammond, 390 F.Supp. at 660. Even if we were to adopt the District of New Jersey's reasoning, however, the citizen Plaintiffs in this case are able to assert only a generalized, abstract grievance shared by most Pennsylvaniansthat Defendant legislators denied Plaintiffs' representatives the equal opportunity to draft, debate and amend Act 44 before voting on that bill. See App. at 277 (Plaintiffs arguing to the district court that Defendants, through their mechanism by avoiding the legislative process mandated by the Pennsylvania Constitution, ... cut out the vast majority of the representatives and the people of Pennsylvania from the deliberative processes of the General Assembly. These are representational rights that are personal to every citizen in this state.) Such injury is insufficient to confer constitutional standing. And even if they had established constitutional standing (which we conclude they did not), the citizen Plaintiffs cannot satisfy prudential standing concerns. See Valley Forge Christian Coll., 454 U.S. at 474-75, 102 S.Ct. 752. c. Conclusion It is clear that, before the district court, all of the Plaintiffs failed to establish their standing under Article III to pursue their due process/equal protection claim challenging the manner in which the General Assembly enacted Act 44. For the first time on appeal, Plaintiffs make additional standing arguments. Nevertheless, even if we were to consider those newly raised arguments, Plaintiffs have ultimately still failed to meet their burden of alleging that they suffered an actual and concrete injury sufficient to support constitutional standing. Nor can Plaintiffs satisfy prudential standing concerns. For all of these reasons, this court affirms the district court's decision to dismiss Plaintiffs' due process/equal protection challenge to the process by which Act 44 was enacted.