Opinion ID: 4525690
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Anderson-Burdick Test

Text: In Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780 (1983), and Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428 (1992), the Supreme Court articulated a “flexible standard,” Burdick, 504 U.S. at 434, for a court to evaluate “[c]onstitutional challenges to specific provisions of a State’s election laws,” Anderson, 460 U.S. at 789. The Anderson-Burdick test may apply to First Amendment claims as well as to Equal Protection claims. See Obama for Am. v. Husted, 697 F.3d 423, 430 (6th Cir. 2012). Although most—if not all—of the cases considered by the Supreme Court and this court under the Anderson-Burdick test have involved laws that regulate the actual administration of elections, the rationales for applying the Anderson-Burdick test—ensuring that “the democratic processes” are “fair and honest,” Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724, 730 (1974), and “maintain[ing] 3 The defendants-appellees also raise the possibility of the court applying the “deferential approach” that we discussed in Citizens for Legislative Choice v. Miller, 144 F.3d 916 (6th Cir. 1998). Unlike the well-established analytical frameworks we discuss herein, this approach has not been further developed by this court, so we do not consider it here. Nos. 19-2377/2420 Daunt et al. v. Benson et al. Page 10 the integrity of the democratic system,” Burdick, 504 U.S. at 441—resonate here, too. At bottom, the Anderson-Burdick framework is used for evaluating “state election law[s],” Burdick, 504 U.S. at 434, and a law restricting membership of the body that draws electoral lines could conceivably be classified as an “election law.” The Amendment is designed to further the exact goals described above: It requires commissioners to “perform their duties in a manner that is impartial and reinforces public confidence in the integrity of the redistricting process.” MICH. CONST., art. IV, § 6(10). For these reasons, we proceed to apply the Anderson-Burdick balancing test. In Anderson, the Supreme Court first articulated this test as follows: [A court] 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. 460 U.S. at 789. The level of scrutiny under this test “depends upon the extent to which a challenged regulation burdens First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.” Burdick, 504 U.S. at 434. In particular, when those rights are subjected to “severe” restrictions, the regulation must be “narrowly drawn to advance a state interest of compelling importance.” But when a state election law provision imposes only “reasonable, nondiscriminatory restrictions” upon the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of voters, “the State’s important regulatory interests are generally sufficient to justify” the restrictions. Id. (citations omitted). “Regulations falling somewhere in between—i.e., regulations that impose a more-than-minimal but less-than-severe burden—require a ‘flexible’ analysis, ‘weighing the burden on the plaintiffs against the state’s asserted interest and chosen means of pursuing it.’” Ohio Democratic Party v. Husted, 834 F.3d 620, 627 (6th Cir. 2016) (quoting Green Party of Tennessee v. Hargett, 767 F.3d 533, 546 (6th Cir. 2014)). As we explained in Miller, determining whether the burden is severe or incidental requires examining “content-neutrality and alternate means of access.” 144 F.3d at 921. A law would not be content-neutral, and would Nos. 19-2377/2420 Daunt et al. v. Benson et al. Page 11 thus impose a severe burden, if it “limit[ed] political participation by an identifiable political group whose members share a particular viewpoint, associational preference, or economic status.” Id. (quoting Anderson, 460 U.S. at 793). And a law would impose a severe burden if it left “few alternate means of access to the ballot,” “restrict[ing] ‘the availability of political opportunity.’” Id. (quoting Anderson, 460 U.S. at 793). On the question of content-neutrality, we concluded in Miller that a lifetime-term-limit law did not impose a severe burden because it burdens no voters based on “the content of protected expression, party affiliation, or inherently arbitrary factors such as race, religion, or gender.” It burdens no voters based on their views on any of the substantive “issues of the day,” such as taxes or abortion. Apart from the term limits issue, voters who favor experience are not in any sense a recognized “group,” and we are aware of no historical bias against incumbent politicians or their supporters. Id. at 922 (citations omitted). Each of these metrics for assessing content-neutrality yields the same result here. The Amendment’s eligibility criteria do not burden the plaintiffs-appellants based on their status as Republicans, cf. Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 355 (1976) (“In order to maintain their jobs, respondents were required to pledge their political allegiance to the Democratic Party, work for the election of other candidates of the Democratic Party, contribute a portion of their wages to the Party, or obtain the sponsorship of a member of the Party . . . .”), or “on their views on any of the substantive ‘issues of the day,’” Miller, 144 F.3d at 922, and neither Daunt nor MRP (with respect to its members) argues that there is a “historical bias” against them in their capacity as individuals with potential conflicts of interest, id. On the question of alternate means of availing oneself of political opportunities, the temporal limitation of the law in this case belies any suggestion that the burden is severe. See Clements v. Fashing, 457 U.S. 957, 967 (1982) (“A ‘waiting period’ is hardly a significant barrier to candidacy.”). Moreover, “[p]laintiffs may run for any [nonpartisan] elected office; they may vote, distribute campaign literature, [and] voice their political opinions . . . .” Grizzle v. Kemp, 634 F.3d 1314, 1324 (11th Cir. 2011). The burden is not severe. On the other end of Anderson-Burdick’s sliding scale, it may appear that the burden imposed by the eligibility criteria is not minimal because the criteria do not constitute a Nos. 19-2377/2420 Daunt et al. v. Benson et al. Page 12 “generally applicable, nondiscriminatory” regulation. Obama for Am., 697 F.3d at 433–34; see Burdick, 504 U.S. at 434. Unlike, for example, “a flat ban on all forms of write-in ballots,” which treats all voters equally, Burdick, 504 U.S. at 438, the Amendment targets specific classes of citizens based on their past political activities. And although there is no “federally protected interest” in holding state office, Moncier v. Haslam, 570 F. App’x 553, 559 (6th Cir. 2014) (collecting cases), several of the eligibility criteria clearly correspond to activities protected by the First Amendment. See, e.g., Elrod, 427 U.S. at 370–71 (explaining that Supreme Court precedent explicitly regarded “political campaigning and management” as “activities . . . protected by the First Amendment”); Autor v. Pritzker, 740 F.3d 176, 182 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (“[R]egistered lobbyists are protected by the First Amendment right to petition.”). Yet the Supreme Court has deemed similar restrictions on political expression to be minimal. See Clements, 457 U.S. at 967 (describing a two-year “waiting period” imposed on current officeholders before they could run for state legislature to be a “de minimis burden”); U.S. Civil Serv. Comm’n v. Nat’l Ass’n of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO, 413 U.S. 548, 550, 556 (1973) (Hatch Act’s bar on federal employees “tak[ing] an active part in political management or in political campaigns” “did not interfere with a ‘wide range of public activities’”) (quoting United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 100 (1947)). Even if the eligibility criteria imposed a moderate burden on activities actually protected by the First Amendment, however, the Amendment would easily satisfy Anderson-Burdick’s middle-ground, “flexible analysis,” under which we “weigh[] the burden on the plaintiffs against the state’s asserted interest and chosen means of pursuing it.” Green Party of Tennessee, 767 F.3d at 546. The burden on the plaintiffs-appellants is relatively insignificant, given (1) their ability to serve on the Commission after their six-year period of ineligibility expires, (2) the lack of any direct prohibition or regulation of pure speech, cf. McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n, 514 U.S. 334, 345 (1995), and (3) the absence of any fundamental right to be a member of the Commission, see Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U.S. 1, 6–7 (1944).4 By contrast, Michigan has a compelling interest “in limiting the conflict of interest implicit in legislative control over 4 Still, one would search in vain for any indication in this opinion that we will relax judicial scrutiny in the area of states structuring their governments “absent the infringement of a dramatic federal interest or a significant violation of constitutional rights.” Concurring Op. at 37. Nos. 19-2377/2420 Daunt et al. v. Benson et al. Page 13 redistricting.” Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Indep. Redistricting Comm’n, 135 S. Ct. 2652, 2676 (2015) (quoting Bruce Cain, Redistricting Commissions: A Better Political Buffer? 121 YALE L. J. 1808, 1808 (2012)) (alteration omitted). Furthermore, “[a]s a sovereign polity, Michigan has a fundamental interest in structuring its government.” Miller, 144 F.3d at 923. The challenged provisions of the Amendment directly advance both of these interests. Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that the plaintiffsappellants are unlikely to succeed on their First and Fourteenth Amendment claims against the eligibility criteria under the Anderson-Burdick test.