Opinion ID: 2814151
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Facial vs. As-Applied Challenge

Text: As a threshold issue, defendants argue that the district court erred in treating the plaintiffs’ facial challenge as an as-applied challenge. In response, plaintiffs argue that they did assert an as-applied claim. A plaintiff can challenge the constitutionality of a statute in two ways. “A facial challenge to a law’s constitutionality is an effort to invalidate the law in each of its applications, to take the law off the books completely.” Speet v. Schuette, 726 F.3d 867, 871 (6th Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted). The plaintiff must establish “‘that no set of circumstances exist under which [the statute] would be valid.’” Id. at 872 (quoting United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 472 (2010)). In contrast, an as-applied challenge “argues that a law is unconstitutional as enforced against the plaintiffs before the court.” Speet, 726 F.3d at 872. “[T]he distinction between facial and as-applied challenges is not so well defined that it has some automatic effect or that it must always control the pleadings and disposition in every case No. 14-5435 Green Party of Tenn., et al. v. Hargett, et al. Page 7 involving a constitutional challenge.” Citizens United v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 558 U.S. 310, 331 (2010). In fact, a claim can have characteristics of as-applied and facial challenges: it can challenge more than just the plaintiff’s particular case without seeking to strike the law in all its applications. John Doe No. 1 v. Reed, 561 U.S. 186, 194 (2010). In constitutional challenges reaching beyond the plaintiff’s circumstances, the plaintiff must satisfy the “standards for a facial challenge to the extent of that reach.” Id. Plaintiffs’ complaint states the challenged Tennessee statutes impose a “severe burden on Plaintiffs and similarly situated ‘[r]ecognized minor parties’” and asks the court to declare the ballot-access and ballot-retention statutes unconstitutional. (Complaint, R. 1, PageID 4.) By their own terms, these statutes apply only to recognized minor parties. Invalidating the statutes for recognized minor parties would strip the statutes of each and every application they have. By challenging the statutes as applied to recognized minor parties, the plaintiffs have in effect asserted a facial challenge. If even one set of circumstances exists in which the state can constitutionally apply the statutes to recognized minor parties, plaintiffs’ claim fails.