Opinion ID: 177129
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Green Party

Text: The Green Party also challenges the district court's remedial order on several grounds. First, it contends that by ordering the Secretary of State to accept either the address of residence or the address as registered of signers of party qualifying petitions, the court improperly rewrote the Election Code. We disagree. The Party cites cases stating that a court cannot rewrite a statute to save its constitutionality. See, e.g., Colo. Right to Life Comm., Inc. v. Coffman, 498 F.3d 1137, 1155 (10th Cir.2007). But that is not what the district court did. On the contrary, it held that the Election Code was unconstitutional in one respect. It therefore had to construct a remedy. Any remedy would require violating the Code in some way. Certainly an order to declare the Party to be a qualified party, despite its failure to comply with the requirements for that status, would rewrite the Code. In our view, the court's order was a proper exercise of its power to remedy a constitutional violation and was entirely consistent with the Election Code. See McCarthy, 429 U.S. at 1323, 97 S.Ct. 10 (fashioning remedy for unconstitutional denial of ballot access that carried out purpose of election law). Indeed, the district court's remedial order did nothing more than restate New Mexico law regarding petition signatures. The sole grounds for rejection of a signature on a nominating petition are set forth in § 1-8-31(C). As relevant here, § 1-8-31(C) requires that a signature on a petition be counted unless the person signing the petition failed to provide required information sufficient to determine that the person is a qualified voter of the state, district, county or area to be represented. [7] The address provisions in §§ 1-8-30(C) and 1-8-31(B) facilitate the determination required by § 1-8-31(C), because either an address of residence or an address as registered would suffice to determine whether the petition signer is a qualified voter. Cf. State ex rel Citizens for Quality Educ. v. Gallagher, 102 N.M. 516, 697 P.2d 935, 939 (1985) (requirement that signer of school-board recall petition indicate address as registered was obviously intended to enable a county clerk to determine whether the signer is a `registered voter of the county and of the school district' as required by N.M. Stat. Ann. § 22-7-10(E)(1) (1978)). But, as New Mexico Supreme Court precedent firmly establishes, those address provisions do not impose conditions for counting a signer beyond those set forth in § 1-8-31(C). The Supreme Court has said that it is committed to examine most carefully, and rather unsympathetically any challenge to a voter's right to participate in an election, and will not deny that right absent bad faith, fraud or reasonable opportunity for fraud. Ruiz v. Vigil-Giron, 145 N.M. 280, 196 P.3d 1286, 1288 (2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). In keeping with this commitment, settled New Mexico law provides that a signature on a petition will be counted if it gives the relevant government officer sufficient information to determine its validity, even if it does not conform to the exact requirements of a statutory petition form. See Gallagher, 697 P.2d at 939 (failure of signature to conform with statutory form would not invalidate signature so long as information provided was sufficient to allow county clerk to determine that signer was qualified voter); Simmons v. McDaniel, 101 N.M. 260, 680 P.2d 977, 978-79 (1984) (refusing to invalidate petition signatures that provided address other than registered address required by statutory form, because lack of registered address was not a cause for disqualification listed in what is now § 1-8-31(C)). Thus, the district court did not improperly rewrite the Election Code when it ordered the Secretary to accept either the address of residence or the address as registered of petition signers. The Green Party also argues that the district court ignored the law of the case when it ordered the Secretary to accept either the residence or registered addresses of petition signers, a remedy it allegedly had rejected in its summary-judgment order. The Green Party points to the district court's statement in the order that parties and candidates gathering signatures for their petitions should not be forced to guess at which address is actually required from signers, or to await a court challenge to the signatures to argue that the address provided was valid under one provision or another. R. at 899. But the court made this statement in explaining its rejection of the Secretary's suggestion that the Green Party use the petition form that she had promulgated which required the address as registeredbut have each signer write down his address of residence. Contrary to the Green Party's contention, the remedy fashioned by the district court was not one that it had rejected on summary judgment. The court was concerned that parties might be uncertain which address they should require people signing their petitions to provide and they might not know if they had chosen correctly until it was too late. The court's remedy eliminated this uncertainty by requiring the Secretary to accept either address. The remedy therefore complemented, rather than contradicted, the court's reasoning on summary judgment. In any event, this court is not bound by the law of the case set in district court, see Woods v. Kenan (In re Woods), 173 F.3d 770, 776 (10th Cir.1999); and we hold that the remedial order was wholly proper. Like Mr. Fenton, the Green Party further contends that under Supreme Court authority, the sole remedy for the unconstitutionally vague Election Code provisions was to order that the Green Party be qualified as a minor party. We have already discussed and rejected that argument with respect to Mr. Fenton. It is similarly unavailing with respect to the Green Party. The Green Party also maintains that the district court's remedial order denied it due process. It contends that it relied on the court's summary-judgment order to discontinue its efforts to gather petition signatures, justifiably assuming that the Election Code's petition requirements no longer applied to it. The Green Party's alleged reliance was not justified, however, because the district court's summary-judgment order did not suggest that the Green Party could qualify as a minor party without submitting the required petition signatures. And the Green Party knew this. After the summary-judgment order was filed, not only did its Emergency Motion state that it did not know the precise nature of the relief that the court intended to grant, R. at 994, but it also filed a motion for preliminary injunction seeking to enjoin the Secretary from enforcing the requirements relating to minor-party qualifying petitions, see id. at 1107-1131, and it filed an emergency motion for permanent injunction in which it acknowledged that [t]he Order granting summary judgment did not specify the relief to be granted for the constitutional violations identified therein, id. at 1283. The court's orders did not deprive the Green Party of sufficient time to collect the necessary signatures for its party qualifying petition. Nor was there any practical problem for the Green Party in gathering petition signatures. It could have used the Secretary's form (which asked for the address of registration) with full confidence under New Mexico law (as set forth above) that the signer would not be rejected on the ground that the address was not the residence address. The Green Party makes two final arguments that are easily disposed of. First, it argues that in fashioning a remedy for the constitutional violation, the district court failed to comply with the dictates of Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 103 S.Ct. 1564, 75 L.Ed.2d 547 (1983), to identify specific state interests and weight state interests against the burdens imposed on the Green Party and to make specific factual determinations regarding these interests and burdens. Aplt. Amended Br. at 26-27 (emphasis omitted). The Green Party's reliance on Anderson is misplaced. Anderson described the analysis a court should follow when determining whether a State's election laws are unconstitutional because they unduly or unfairly burden the voting and associational rights that the plaintiff seeks to vindicate. 460 U.S. at 789, 103 S.Ct. 1564. The decision did not speak to the appropriate remedy to be fashioned once a court finds an unconstitutional burden. Second, the Green Party argues that we may grant the remedial relief it seeks based on the Secretary's allegedly improper use of the term qualified elector rather than voter on her form for party qualifying petitions. But the Party did not show the district court why use of the form would impair its petition-gathering efforts. At worst, a qualified elector who was not registered to vote (and therefore was statutorily ineligible to sign a petition) would sign the petition and the signer would not be counted. Appellants' unopposed emergency motion in this court for expedited argument and ruling and the supplement thereto are DENIED as moot. The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.