Opinion ID: 1192546
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Balancing Under Anderson v. Celebrezze is Unnecessary

Text: Appellants argue, however, that Local Law 51 is entitled to First Amendment scrutiny under Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 103 S.Ct. 1564, 75 L.Ed.2d 547 (1983). They state, because [a]ll election laws invariably impose some burden upon individual voters, Green Party of N.Y. State v. N.Y. State Bd. of Elections, 389 F.3d 411, 419 (2d Cir.2004) (internal quotation marks omitted), Local Law 51 is subject to First Amendment balancing. Their argument begins from a faulty premise. Anderson and its progeny deal with election and voting rights laws that restrict speech or ballot access. Local Law 51 does neither. To clarify this point, it is necessary to briefly discuss Anderson, its progeny and the cases cited by appellants in their briefs. In Anderson, the Supreme Court addressed the First Amendment validity of Ohio's early filing deadline, which required an independent candidate for the President of the United States to file his or her paperwork by March 20 in order to be on the general election ballot for November 1980. See 460 U.S. at 782-83, 103 S.Ct. 1564. As the Supreme Court pointed out, by March of an election year, developments in campaigns for the major-party nominations have only begun, and the major parties will not adopt their nominees and platforms for another five months. Id. at 790-91, 103 S.Ct. 1564. The Supreme Court wrote: Constitutional challenges to specific provisions of a State's election laws ... cannot be resolved by any litmus-paper test that will separate valid from invalid restrictions. Instead, a court must resolve such a challenge by an analytical process that parallels its work in ordinary litigation. It must first consider the character and magnitude of the asserted injury to the rights protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments that the plaintiff seeks to vindicate. It then must identify and evaluate the precise interests put forward by the State as justifications for the burden imposed by its rule. In passing judgment, the Court must not only determine the legitimacy and strength of each of those interests, it also must consider the extent to which those interests make it necessary to burden the plaintiff's rights. Only after weighing all these factors is the reviewing court in a position to decide whether the challenged provision is unconstitutional. Id. at 789, 103 S.Ct. 1564. The Supreme Court concluded that the early filing deadline had the effect of totally exclud[ing] any candidate who makes the decision to run for President as an independent after the March deadline. Id. at 792, 103 S.Ct. 1564. It reaffirmed that it is especially difficult for the State to justify a restriction that limits political participation by an identifiable political group whose members share a particular viewpoint, associational preference, or economic status. Id. at 793, 103 S.Ct. 1564. The Court wrote: A burden that falls unequally on new or small political parties or on independent candidates impinges, by its very nature, on associational choices protected by the First Amendment. It discriminates against those candidates andof particular importanceagainst those voters whose political preferences lie outside the existing political parties. By limiting the opportunities of independent-minded voters to associate in the electoral arena to enhance their political effectiveness as a group, such restrictions threaten to reduce diversity and competition in the marketplace of ideas. Historically political figures outside the two major parties have been fertile sources of new ideas and new programs; many of their challenges to the status quo have in time made their way into the political mainstream. In short, the primary values protected by the First Amendmenta profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-openare served when election campaigns are not monopolized by the existing political parties.... The Ohio filing deadline challenged in this case does more than burden the associational rights of independent voters and candidates. It places a significant state-imposed restriction on a nationwide electoral process. Id. at 794-95, 103 S.Ct. 1564 (internal citations and footnote omitted). The Court proceeded to hold the statute unconstitutional, concluding that these burdens outweighed the State's minimal interests in imposing a March deadline. See id. at 796-806, 103 S.Ct. 1564. We recently had occasion to apply the Anderson balancing test in Price v. New York State Board of Elections, 540 F.3d 101 (2d Cir.2008), upon which appellants rely heavily in their brief. In Price, we addressed the First Amendment constitutionality of New York's prohibition on voting by absentee ballot in elections for political party county committees. See id. at 103-04. We reiterated the Supreme Court's statement that [a]ll `[e]ection laws will invariably impose some burden upon individual voters.' Id. at 107 (quoting Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428, 433, 112 S.Ct. 2059, 119 L.Ed.2d 245 (1992)) (second alteration in original). We emphasized that, in determining whether to apply the First Amendment balancing test, it is important only that there is at least some burden on the voter-plaintiffs' rights. Id. at 109. We held that the plaintiffs have an associational right to vote in political party elections, and that right is burdened when the state makes it more difficult for these voters to cast ballots. Id. at 108 (internal citations omitted). In addition, we held that candidates' associational rights are affected, in at least some manner, when barriers are placed before the voters that would elect these candidates to party positions. Id. (citing Anderson, 460 U.S. at 786, 103 S.Ct. 1564). We concluded: Because there is some burden on the plaintiffs' associational rights, we must apply the framework articulated in Burdick.  Id. (citing Burdick, 504 U.S. at 433-34, 112 S.Ct. 2059). On balance, we concluded that the State's interests were of infinitesimal weight and thus could not outweigh the plaintiff's First Amendment interests. See id. at 110-12. In an attempt to convince us to apply the Anderson balancing test to Local Law 51, appellants seize on our recent reaffirmation that [a]ll election laws will invariably impose some burden upon individual voters. Price, 540 F.3d at 107 (quoting Burdick, 504 U.S. at 433, 112 S.Ct. 2059) (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). But Anderson, Burdick and their progeny (as well as all the other cases cited by appellants) are completely inapposite. [10] These cases all involve direct restrictions on speech or access to the ballot. Plaintiffs face no such restrictions by virtue of Local Law 51. Rather, plaintiffs argue that they and other voters will be less likely to engage in speech and that their speech will potentially become less effective if law passed by referenda can be amended or repealed by City Council legislation. For the reasons explained, this does not amount to a First Amendment violation. Finally, in footnote five of their Brief and throughout their Reply Brief, appellants argue that their First Amendment rights are violated because the extension of term limits burdens both voters in their ability to effectively support would-be challengers to entrenched incumbents and challengers in their ability to mount effective campaigns. Brief for Appellants at 24 n. 5. Thus, in order to trigger First Amendment scrutiny, appellants argue that Local Law 51 affects the eligibility of candidates. Reply Brief for Plaintiffs-Appellants William C. Thompson, Jr., et al. (Reply Brief for Appellants) at 5 (citing Anderson, 460 U.S. at 788, 103 S.Ct. 1564 (Each provision of these schemes, whether it governs the registration and qualifications of voters, the selection and eligibility of candidates, or the voting process itself, inevitably affectsat least to some degree the individual's right to vote and his right to associate with others for political ends.) (emphasis added)). Notwithstanding appellants' protestations to the contrary, this argument necessarily focuses on the substantive impact that the extension of term limits has on the political landscape. See Reply Brief for Appellants at 5 (As a matter of law, the Term-Limits Amendment, by regulating eligibility requirements for office, necessarily burdens First Amendment activity to at least some degree.). But they ultimately concede, and the law is clear, that they have no First Amendment right to term limits. See id. at 5. Cf. U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779, 837, 115 S.Ct. 1842, 131 L.Ed.2d 881 (1995) (explaining that the issue of term limits at the state and local level does not implicate the U.S. Constitution). Moreover, their Amended Complaint, in its eighty-six pages, makes no allegation that plaintiffs' First Amendment rights are somehow burdened, even if only in the slightest way, by Local Law 51's substantive change to term limits. Faced with these insurmountable problems, appellants quickly switch gears and argue that the First Amendment burdens [do not] flow[] from the substance of the Term-Limits Amendment itself. Rather, they are all the direct result of the process by which that law was enacted and, more specifically, of [defendants'] calculated disregard for the voice of City voters. See Reply Brief for Appellants at 7. In particular, they argue, defendants' eleventh-hour undoing of the 1993 and 1996 Referenda has discouraged referenda-related speech, impaired its future effectiveness, and directly frustrated the present exercise of New York City voters' acknowledged right to put the term-limits issue to a third citywide vote. Id. Thus, appellants transform the very essence of their claim as they arrive at different junctures of the First Amendment analysis. We are not persuaded by these efforts. At bottom, plaintiffs challenge New York's equal treatment of law enacted by referendum and law enacted by a legislative body. Such a scheme, however, does not run afoul of the First Amendment. [11] Any chilling of plaintiffs' First Amendment activity is self-imposed and thus incidental[] and constitutionally insignificant. Cohen v. Cowles Media Co., 501 U.S. 663, 672, 111 S.Ct. 2513, 115 L.Ed.2d 586 (1991).