Opinion ID: 4521181
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Associational Rights Claim

Text: We turn our attention to whether Appellants' allegations plausibly support a claim that the WTA system violates their associational rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. At the core, Appellants allege that the Massachusetts WTA system severely (and unconstitutionally) burdens their associational rights by discarding or diluting their votes as minority party members in a manner that ensures that they get no voice in the Electoral College. Because the right to freedom of association does not entitle citizens to electoral success, we agree with the -54- district court that Appellants' complaint does not allege an associational burden. Together, the First and Fourteenth Amendment operate to protect [t]he freedom of association. Tashjian v. Republican Party of Conn., 479 U.S. 208, 214 (1986); NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449, 460 (1958) (It is beyond debate that freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the 'liberty' assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech.). This protection includes the rights of citizens to form political parties for the advancement of common political goals and ideas as well as the rights of parties to self-determine their organizational structure and to select candidates. Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party, 520 U.S. 351, 357, 363 (1997); see also Cal. Democratic Party v. Jones, 530 U.S. 567, 574-75 (2000) (Representative democracy in any populous unit of governance is unimaginable without the ability of citizens to band together in promoting among the electorate candidates who espouse their political views.); Tashjian, 479 U.S. at 214-15. To that end, because voters express their preferences at the ballot box, see Anderson, 460 U.S. at 787-88, associational freedom necessarily includes the right to cast an effective vote. Republican Party of N.C. v. Martin, 980 F.2d 943, 960 (4th Cir. -55- 1992); cf. Rhodes, 393 U.S. at 30 (noting the overlap between the right of individuals to associate for the advancement of political beliefs, and the right of qualified voters . . . to cast their votes effectively in the context of an equal protection challenge). No bright line rule exists to aid our inquiry. Instead, to decide whether a state election law violates the aforementioned associational rights, we employ a balancing test that weighs the 'character and magnitude' of the burden the State's rule imposes on those rights against the interests the State contends justify that burden, and [then] consider the extent to which the State's concerns make the burden necessary. Timmons, 520 U.S. at 358 (quoting Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428, 434 (1992)). We apply strict scrutiny to a state election law that severely burdens a plaintiff's associational rights, meaning that it must be narrowly tailored and advance a compelling state interest. Id. By contrast, [l]esser burdens . . . trigger less exacting review. Id.; see Anderson, 460 U.S. at 788 ([T]he state's important regulatory interests are generally sufficient to justify reasonable, nondiscriminatory restrictions.).15 15 Because (as we will explain) we have determined that there is no burden at all to Appellants' associational rights, we need not decide between the various tiers of scrutiny. -56- We proceed to Appellants' claim that the WTA system burdens their associational rights because it ensur[es] that [their] votes, and any associational efforts, can have no effect on the national election. First and foremost, we echo the district court's determination that the WTA system simply does not burden Appellants' associational rights because it merely sets the stakes but does not help or hurt one group's chances of winning the Commonwealth's electors. Lyman, 352 F. Supp. 3d at 91. That one's candidate of choice does not prevail at the ballot box simply does not translate into an associational rights violation. See Smith v. Ark. State Highway Emps., Local 1315, 441 U.S. 463, 464-65 (1979) (The First Amendment right to associate and to advocate 'provides no guarantee that a speech will persuade or that advocacy will be effective.' (quoting Hanover Twp. Fed'n of Teachers v. Hanover Cmty. Sch. Corp., 457 F.2d 456, 461 (1972))); Martin, 980 F.2d at 960 (The First Amendment guarantees the right to participate in the political process. It does not guarantee political success.). The fact that the loser of the popular vote is not entitled to electors does not make that candidate's voters unequal participant[s] in the decisions of the body politic. Complaint at 14, Lyman v. Baker, 352 F. Supp. 3d 81 (D. Mass. 2018) (No. 1:18-cv-10327) (quoting Whitford v. Gill, 218 F. Supp. 3d 837, 883 (W.D. Wis. 2016)). It is thus no burden -57- to Appellants' right of partisan political organization that their candidates of choice are not entitled to any of Massachusetts's electors even if they only lose the general ticket by a margin of a single vote. Tashjian, 479 U.S. at 214. Elections are hard-fought political battles won by the power of persuasion. See Schatz, 669 F.3d at 52 (observing that the electoral process sometimes has the feel of a contact sport, with candidates, political organizations, and others trading rhetorical jabs and sound-bite attacks in hopes of landing a knockout blow at the polls). The WTA system raises the stakes of victory, but it does not deprive any group of Massachusetts voters of an equal opportunity to win votes during the statewide election. Rhodes, 393 U.S. at 31. It would be troublesome indeed if, like Ohio's ballot access measure in Rhodes, Massachusetts's WTA system imposed signature requirements that made it virtually impossible for a political party to slot their candidate onto the statewide ballot. Id. at 24-25. That, however, is not the case in Massachusetts, which offers the candidates whom Appellants support the equal opportunity to win votes. Rhodes, 393 U.S. at 31. Indeed, Appellants cannot and have not alleged that the WTA system restricts their ability to express their political preferences in Massachusetts by keeping their preferred candidates off the ballot. See Anderson, 460 U.S. at 786-88. Appellants' -58- preferred candidates did appear on the ballot in the 2016 presidential election and Appellants allege that they exercised their right to vote (the alleged harm being that their votes were effectively discarded by virtue of the WTA system). Instead, Appellants assert that the WTA system has the effect of distorting the political process in such a manner that severely burdens their associational rights because it incentivizes candidates to ignore Massachusetts . . . and its [political] minority voters in each election cycle, which in turn exposes the national election system to foreign interference as well. Having contextualized Massachusetts's use of the WTA system vis-à-vis the Electoral College as being in line with the national norm, it would not be sensible now to deem it the culprit for the outsized influence that a handful of swing states exert on the presidential election (whether because of the date of their primary elections or the opportunity they offer to capture electoral votes). We cannot opine here on the policy arguments for and against this intersection between the WTA system and the Electoral College. Moreover, Appellants do not allege that the WTA system burdens the associational rights of the political parties to which they belong to determine their organizational structure, engage in political activities, or select their leaders (in Massachusetts). See Timmons, 520 U.S. at 357-58. -59- Lastly, we note that in the course of its analysis, the district court turned to the Supreme Court's gerrymandering jurisprudence because it sheds some light on how to assess the character and magnitude of the burden imposed by state election law on associational freedoms. 16 For these purposes, it is particularly troubling when a State purposely 'subject[s] a group of voters or their party to disfavored treatment.' Gill, 138 S. Ct. at 1938 (Kagan, J., concurring) (emphasis added) (alteration in original) (quoting Vieth, 541 U.S. at 314 (Kennedy, J., concurring)). Appellants contend that the district court incorrectly dismissed their claim on the basis that the WTA system does not purposely burden their associational rights by reason of their views. The Commonwealth, for its part, suggests that the district court drew the parallel to gerrymandering as a means of observing that the winner-take-all system is a neutral rule, the application of which does not turn on the viewpoint of a particular individual, group, or party. While intent (i.e., purpose) may not be a 16 We also note the potential limitations of this comparison after Rucho v. Common Cause, in which the Supreme Court held partisan gerrymandering to be a non-justiciable political question (at least in the context of plaintiffs' equal protection and First Amendment claims). 139 S. Ct. 2484, 2498-2502, 2504-05 (2019). By contrast, Elector Clause claims are justiciable. See McPherson, 146 U.S. at 23-25. -60- required element of an associational rights claim, we tend to agree with the Commonwealth that the larger point is that the WTA system is a rule of neutral and even-handed application that does not burden the associational rights of any voter or party by reason of their views. Therefore, Appellants have not sufficiently alleged that the WTA system burdens their associational freedom. Even if we were pressed to find that some burden resulted, it is surely not severe, and its character and magnitude is too slight to exert any significant force in the relevant balancing test that cannot be overcome by any regulatory interest of Massachusetts.