Opinion ID: 788367
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Claimed Constitutional Violations

Text: 19 Plaintiffs argue that New York's voter enrollment scheme violates the First Amendment — as applied to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment — because it impinges on their right to organize a political party and associate together to advance that party's shared political beliefs. The words freedom of association are not to be found in the First Amendment but, over nearly 50 years, the Supreme Court has developed a jurisprudence that guides us today. In 1958, the Court held that a right to associate is entitled to First and Fourteenth Amendment protection. See NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 460, 78 S.Ct. 1163, 2 L.Ed.2d 1488 (1958). Thus, the NAACP could not be compelled to disclose to the state of Alabama its list of members in that state because the order requiring it to do so constituted a substantial restraint upon the exercise by petitioner's members of their right to freedom of association. Id. at 462, 78 S.Ct. 1163. Two years later in Bates v. Little Rock , the Court added that for the state to justify a significant encroachment on an associational right, the state must point to a compelling reason for that encroachment. 361 U.S. 516, 524, 80 S.Ct. 412, 4 L.Ed.2d 480 (1960). And, in 1963, the Court held that the state must also persuasively show a substantial relation between the information sought and a subject of overriding and compelling state interest. Gibson v. Fla. Legislative Investigation Comm., 372 U.S. 539, 546, 83 S.Ct. 889, 9 L.Ed.2d 929 (1963). 20 The Supreme Court further instructs us that to determine whether a claimed violation of the right to associate is valid, a court must consider the character and magnitude of the alleged injury the plaintiff has sustained, and then must identify and evaluate the interests the state uses to justify the burdens imposed by the challenged rule, taking into consideration the extent to which the state's interests make it necessary to burden plaintiff's rights. Burdick, 504 U.S. at 434, 112 S.Ct. 2059 (quoting Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 789, 103 S.Ct. 1564, 75 L.Ed.2d 547 (1983)). 21 All election laws invariably impose some burden upon individual voters. Id. at 433, 112 S.Ct. 2059. Whether that burden concerns the registration and qualifications of voters, the selection and eligibility of candidates, or the voting process itself, it inevitably has an effect on an individual's right to vote and associate with others for political purposes. Id. Accordingly, the Court has refused to subject all election regulations to strict scrutiny. Id. Instead, it has held that the rigorousness of our inquiry into the propriety of a state election law depends upon the extent to which a challenged regulation burdens First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Id. at 434, 112 S.Ct. 2059. 22 If those rights are subject to severe restriction, the regulation has to be narrowly drawn to advance a compelling state interest. Id. If it imposes only `reasonable, nondiscriminatory restrictions,' then important regulatory interests are sufficient to justify the restrictions. Id. (quoting Anderson, 460 U.S. at 788, 103 S.Ct. 1564). Courts are required to consider the restrictions within the totality of the state's overall plan of regulation. Lerman v. Bd. of Elections, 232 F.3d 135, 145 (2d Cir.2000); see also Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724, 737, 94 S.Ct. 1274, 39 L.Ed.2d 714 (1974) (discussing the totality approach and application of that approach in determining the constitutionality of voter laws).
23 Plaintiffs also contend that the statutory classification scheme violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because the state's enrollment list policy gives established Parties an advantage over minor or developing parties. The Supreme Court has said that if state law grants established parties a decided advantage over any new parties struggling for existence and thus place[s] substantially unequal burdens on both the right to vote and the right to associate the Constitution has been violated, absent a showing of a compelling state interest. Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23, 31, 89 S.Ct. 5, 21 L.Ed.2d 24 (1968). Hence, a court has a duty to examine the character of the classification in question, the importance of the individual interests at stake, and the state interests asserted in support of the classification. Ill. State Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U.S. 173, 183, 99 S.Ct. 983, 59 L.Ed.2d 230 (1979). Where the state's classification limit[s] the access of new parties and inhibits this development, the state must prove that its classification is necessary to serve a compelling government interest. See Norman v. Reed, 502 U.S. 279, 288-89, 112 S.Ct. 698, 116 L.Ed.2d 711 (1992); Schulz, 44 F.3d at 60. Even if a state is pursuing a compelling interest, it must show that the means it adopted to achieve that goal are the least restrictive means available. Ill. State Bd. of Elections, 440 U.S. at 185, 99 S.Ct. 983. 24 The laws at issue in this case, according to plaintiffs, place discriminatory burdens on minor political parties. The alleged unequal burdens are those that affect claimants' ability to exercise their First Amendment rights. See Anderson, 460 U.S. at 793-94, 103 S.Ct. 1564 (A burden that falls unequally on new or small political parties ... impinges, by its very nature, on associational choices protected by the First Amendment.). As the alleged violations of the plaintiffs' First Amendment rights form the basis of both the First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment claims, we are faced with a situation where the plaintiffs' First Amendment claims substantially overlap with their equal protection claims. Accordingly, the analyses of plaintiffs' claims under the two amendments also substantially overlap. 25 With respect to both claims, we must first determine the character and severity of the alleged burdens. If we conclude that the burdens on plaintiffs' associational rights are severe, we must next analyze the state's purported interests to determine whether those interests are compelling and, if so, whether the alleged burdens are necessary for the state to achieve its compelling interests. If we determine, as we do here, that the state's interests are not sufficient to justify such burdens, we must rule that the plaintiffs have a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their claims. II Burdens on Associational Rights A. Character and Severity of Burdens 26 We think the burdens imposed on plaintiffs' associational rights are severe. In Schulz we struck down a New York state law that required local boards of election automatically to supply two copies of enrollment lists, free of charge, to the county chairmen of Parties, but allowed the boards to charge independent bodies for access to such lists stating, `[i]t is clear that the effect of these provisions ... is to deny independent or minority parties ... an equal opportunity to win the votes of the electorate.' 44 F.3d at 60 (quoting Socialist Workers Party v. Rockefeller, 314 F.Supp. 984, 995 (S.D.N.Y.1970)). Similarly, while the enrollment lists at issue here may have originally been intended solely for use in facilitating closed primary elections, we are required to look at the totality of the voter enrollment scheme in its present form. Currently, Parties use these lists for a number of different activities essential to their exercise of First Amendment rights. 27 Based on the proof produced at the hearing on the preliminary injunction, the district court determined that the Green Party's ability to identify, appeal to, inform, organize, mobilize and raise money from its supporters will be severely damaged as a result of the current enrollment scheme. Green Party I, 267 F.Supp.2d at 353. It ruled in this fashion based on Supreme Court and Second Circuit precedent. See, e.g., Anderson, 460 U.S. at 794, 103 S.Ct. 1564 (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 the diversity and competition in the marketplace of ideas.); Lerman, 232 F.3d at 147-48 (noting that a statute need not [ban association altogether] in order to substantially burden the right to political association if it prevents a candidate from accessing voters or conveying a political message). 28 In a case similar to the one now before us, the Tenth Circuit ruled that in today's political landscape, access to minimal information about political party affiliation is the key to successful political organization and campaigning. Baer v. Meyer, 728 F.2d 471, 475 (10th Cir.1984). If an independent body does not have access to other information concerning who is affiliated with its party, it will be unable to determine from the word unaffiliated whether a particular unaffiliated voter is or is not a supporter of its organization. It burdens all the plaintiff parties if they cannot determine who would like to associate with them. That they are smaller, less developed — and hence less financially established parties — makes their situation even more difficult. As Anderson instructs, such limitation of opportunity for independent voters reduces diversity and competition in the marketplace of ideas. 460 U.S. at 794, 103 S.Ct. 1564. Therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion in ruling that New York's voter enrollment scheme could only withstand constitutional challenge if New York were able to show a compelling state interest. B. New York's Interests 29 We pass then to a review of the state's expressed interests to decide whether they are compelling enough to justify the burden on plaintiffs' rights. 30 New York offered two interests in support of its enrollment scheme. First, the state contends it must reasonably restrict access to the primary election process, and that the 50,000 vote requirement for access to the enrollment scheme developed from its need to regulate that process. Plaintiffs, however, are not challenging the primary election process or the 50,000 vote threshold for obtaining or maintaining Party status. Plaintiffs simply request that the local boards of elections maintain lists of voters enrolled in their parties. 31 As we said in Lerman, the fact that the defendants['] asserted interests are `important in the abstract' does not necessarily mean that its chosen means of regulation `will in fact advance those interests.' 232 F.3d at 149 (quoting Turner Broadcasting Sys., Inc. v. FCC, 512 U.S. 622, 664, 114 S.Ct. 2445, 129 L.Ed.2d 497 (1994)). Similarly, here, the state failed to show any meaningful relationship between its desire to restrict access to the primary election process and the provision of New York's Election Law that requires it to remove from its lists the party affiliation of any voters who are registered as members of independent bodies. Indeed, nothing in the district court's preliminary injunction alters the state's ability to restrict access to the primary election process. Accordingly, it does not appear that the challenged statutory provision is necessary to achieve the state's asserted interest. 32 The state's second interest, preventing voter confusion, has somewhat more weight. We do not address the question of whether the goal of preventing voter confusion is a compelling one, because it obviously is. But, we do question whether the challenged provision the state has adopted achieves that goal. The state board insists that voters who enroll as a member of a political party would think that they were members of an official Party when actually they are not. Thus, such voters would not realize, the state continues, that they were foregoing the privilege of voting in a primary. The state concludes that this would effectively disenfranchise those voters who want to vote in a primary election, but are not aware that they will be unable to do so. 33 Whether this argument is or is not persuasive is irrelevant in light of our holding that this statutory provision is not necessary to prevent voter confusion in this case. We agree with the district court's observation that there was no significant reason for confusion and [that there are] readily available means of ensuring there will be none. Green Party I, 267 F.Supp.2d at 356-57. The registration form need only be amended to inform a registering voter that only specified political Parties may have primary elections. In fact, when the original plaintiffs brought this suit, the registration form noted that a voter had to be enrolled in a Party in order to vote in a primary. A similar notation may be made on the current form. This approach would avoid the substantial burden on plaintiffs' First Amendment rights imposed by the challenged provision, while still addressing the state's concern about voter confusion in a clear and concise manner. 34 Defendants insist this approach is burdensome and will not remedy voter confusion because there are many small and undeveloped parties in existence that have yet to show they have any support and therefore do not deserve to have the state maintain their enrollment information, or have such information clutter the enrollment lists. The case they rely on to support that proposition, Iowa Socialist Party v. Nelson, 909 F.2d 1175 (8th Cir.1990), is inapposite. The facts here are not at all similar to those in Iowa Socialist Party. In that case the Eighth Circuit held that the Iowa Socialist Party could not defeat Iowa's enrollment threshold because the Iowa Socialist Party polled only three-hundredths of one percent of the total vote cast for president in the previous election, and the state would obviously incur a serious financial burden were it forced to enroll the Iowa Socialist Party. Id. at 1180. 35 The situation in the case at hand is fundamentally different. By placing statewide candidates on the ballot in the 2002 election, all of the plaintiffs have demonstrated a modicum of support sufficient to overcome the state's broad latitude in controlling frivolous party registration of tiny fractional interests. See Baer, 728 F.2d at 476. The Tenth Circuit noted in Baer that it was not at liberty to set out a rule regarding where a state must draw a bright line in order to regulate this admittedly important interest. Id. But, like Baer, we hold that the ability to meet the requirements for placing a candidate on the statewide ballot is enough of an indication of support to overcome the state's interest in preventing voter confusion. The present injunction only applies to the parties before the court in this case, all of which met those requirements. Thus, our holding extends only to them. 36 Finally, we have reviewed defendants' other claims including the challenge with respect to the testimony of the Green Party's expert witness, and the separation of powers argument, and find all these challenges to be without merit.