Opinion ID: 4576942
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Defendants’ sovereign immunity

Text: The defendants assert that they are entitled to sovereign immunity. State sovereign immunity prohibits “private suits against nonconsenting states in federal court.” City of Austin v. Paxton, 943 F.3d 993, 997 (5th Cir. 2019). State officials and agencies enjoy immunity when a suit is effectively against the state. Id. Unless waived by the state, abrogated by Congress, or an exception applies, the immunity precludes suit. Id. The plaintiffs contend that sovereign immunity does not bar their Twenty-Sixth Amendment claim under the exception carved out in Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908). Suits for injunctive or declaratory relief are allowed against a state official acting in violation of federal law if there is a “sufficient ‘connection’ to enforcing an allegedly unconstitutional law.” In re Abbott, 956 F.3d 696, 708 (5th Cir. 2020). 10 Case: 20-50407 Document: 00515602091 Page: 11 Date Filed: 10/14/2020 No. 20-50407 This circuit has not spoken with conviction about all relevant details of the “connection” requirement. Tex. Democratic Party, 961 F.3d at 400. An en banc plurality of this court explained that “the officers [must] have ‘some connection with the enforcement of the act’ in question or be ‘specially charged with the duty to enforce the statute’ and be threatening to exercise that duty.” Okpalobi v. Foster, 244 F.3d 405, 414–15 (5th Cir. 2001) (en banc) (plurality op.). Without a majority, no controlling precedent was made. See K.P. v. LeBlanc, 627 F.3d 115, 124 (5th Cir. 2010). In K.P., we declined to “resolve whether Ex Parte Young requires only ‘some connection’ or a ‘special relationship’ between the state actor and the challenged statute,” because the defendant fell within the exception under either standard. Id. Although the precise scope of the requirement for a connection has not been defined, the plaintiff at least must show the defendant has “the particular duty to enforce the statute in question and a demonstrated willingness to exercise that duty.” Morris v. Livingston, 739 F.3d 740, 746 (5th Cir. 2014) (quotation marks omitted). That means the official must be “statutorily tasked with enforcing the challenged law.” In re Abbott, 956 F.3d at 709. Enforcement typically means “compulsion or constraint.” K.P., 627 F.3d at 124. A “scintilla of ‘enforcement’ by the relevant state official with respect to the challenged law” will do. City of Austin, 943 F.3d at 1002. Determining whether Ex parte Young applies to a state official requires a provision-by-provision analysis, i.e., the official must have the requisite connection to the enforcement of the particular statutory provision that is the subject of the litigation. See, e.g., In re Abbott, 956 F.3d at 709. This is especially true here because the Texas Election Code delineates between the authority of the Secretary of State and local officials. A “case-by-case approach to the Young doctrine has been evident from the start.” Idaho v. Coeur d’Alene Tribe of Idaho, 521 U.S. 261, 280 (1997). 11 Case: 20-50407 Document: 00515602091 Page: 12 Date Filed: 10/14/2020 No. 20-50407 The plaintiffs claim that Section 82.003, the age-based absenteevoting provision, violates the Twenty-Sixth Amendment of the Constitution. The plaintiffs have included the Secretary of State as a defendant, understandable since the Secretary is the “chief election officer of the state.” Tex. Elec. Code § 31.001. Still, we must find a sufficient connection between the official sued and the statute challenged. The statutory duties that matter today are the ones for the Secretary regarding applications for absentee ballots. She has the specific and relevant duty to design the application form for mail-in ballots, id. § 31.002(a), and to provide that form to local authorities and others who request it. Id. § 31.002(b). Additionally, the Secretary must furnish forms to those who request them for distribution to others. Id. § 84.013. Because local authorities are required to use the Secretary’s absentee-ballot form outside of emergency situations, id. § 31.002(d), the Secretary has the authority to compel or constrain local officials based on actions she takes as to the application form. See City of Austin, 943 F.3d at 1000. The Secretary’s form currently includes an option for a voter to indicate entitlement to an absentee ballot because that voter is at least 65 years old. It is permissible under Ex parte Young for a court to “command[] a state official to do nothing more than refrain from violating federal law.” Va. Office for Prot. & Advocacy v. Stewart, 563 U.S. 247, 255 (2011). Thus, a finding that the age-based option denies or abridges younger voters’ right to vote might lead to prohibiting the Secretary from using an application form that expressed an unconstitutional absentee-voting option. The plaintiffs present far broader reasons for holding the Secretary to be a proper defendant. The Secretary’s general duties under the Code include issuance of directives and instructions, being willing to “assist and advise” local officials, and endeavoring to “obtain and maintain uniformity 12 Case: 20-50407 Document: 00515602091 Page: 13 Date Filed: 10/14/2020 No. 20-50407 in the application, operation, and interpretation” of the Election Code. Tex. Elec. Code §§ 31.003–.004. We previously interpreted this provision as “requiring the Secretary to take action with respect to elections.” Lightbourn v. Cnty. of El Paso, 118 F.3d 421, 429 (5th Cir. 1997). Almost fifty years ago, though, a justice on the Supreme Court of Texas, who would later be a cherished colleague of ours, wrote that the Secretary’s duty to “obtain and maintain” uniformity in the application of the Election Code is not “a delegation of authority to care for any [i.e., every] breakdown in the election process.” Bullock v. Calvert, 480 S.W.2d 367, 372 (Tex. 1972) (Reavley, J.). That 1972 opinion suggests the Secretary can address some breakdowns, id., but today the only ones we need to identify are those relating to absentee-ballot applications. Even there, some duties fall on other officials. For example, a local “early voting clerk shall review each application for a ballot to be voted by mail.” Tex. Elec. Code § 86.001(a). Also, an “early voting clerk shall mail without charge an appropriate official application form.” Id. § 84.012. Though there is a division of responsibilities, the Secretary has the needed connection. In sum, the Secretary’s specific duties regarding the application form under Section 31.002 are enough for us to conclude that the Secretary has at least a scintilla of enforcement authority for Section 82.003. We do not need to consider whether other duties of the Secretary might suffice. Sovereign immunity does not bar suit against the Secretary in this case. As to the Governor, we conclude he lacks a sufficient connection to the enforcement of an allegedly unconstitutional law. In re Abbott, 956 F.3d at 708–09. As the motion’s panel in this case stated, the actions the Governor took — to postpone the May 2020 primary and to expand the early voting period — were exercises of the Governor’s emergency powers unrelated to the Election Code. The Governor is not “statutorily tasked with enforcing the challenged law.” Id. at 709. The challenged Section 82.003 certainly 13 Case: 20-50407 Document: 00515602091 Page: 14 Date Filed: 10/14/2020 No. 20-50407 operates independently of influence or enforcement from the Governor. As a result, the connection between the Governor and enforcement of the challenged provision is insufficient, and Ex parte Young does not apply to him. As for the Attorney General, whether Ex parte Young applies is a closer question. The plaintiffs’ only argument as to this official is that, in previous cases, the state of Texas has “concede[d] that the attorney general has a duty to enforce and uphold the laws of Texas.” See City of Austin v. Abbott, 385 F. Supp. 3d 537, 544 (W.D. Tex. 2019). We have already held that “[t]he required connection is not merely the general duty to see that the laws of the state are implemented, but the particular duty to enforce the statute in question and a demonstrated willingness to exercise that duty.” Morris, 739 F.3d at 746 (quotation marks omitted). A general duty to enforce the law is insufficient for Ex parte Young. The plaintiffs also focus us on the letter sent by the Attorney General. True, we applied the Ex parte Young exception to this Attorney General after his office sent to a manufacturer numerous “threatening letters” that “intimat[ed] that formal enforcement” of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act “was on the horizon.” NiGen Biotech, L.L.C. v. Paxton, 804 F.3d 389, 392, 397 (5th Cir. 2015). Conversely, we have declined to apply Ex parte Young where the Attorney General issued a press release warning that anyone who violated the Governor’s recent emergency order would be “met with the full force of the law.” In re Abbott, 956 F.3d at 709. We explained that “our cases do not support the proposition that an official’s public statement alone establishes authority to enforce a law, or the likelihood of his doing so, for Young purposes.” Id. Unlike NiGen, the Attorney General’s letter in this case was sent to judges and election officials, not to the plaintiffs. The letter did not make a specific threat or indicate that enforcement was forthcoming. Nor did it state 14 Case: 20-50407 Document: 00515602091 Page: 15 Date Filed: 10/14/2020 No. 20-50407 that the Texas Democratic Party or the other plaintiffs had violated any specific law, as the letter did in NiGen, 804 F.3d at 392. Instead, the letter explained that advising voters to pursue disability-based mail-in voting without a qualifying condition constituted a felony under Sections 84.0041 and 276.013 of the Texas Election Code. As a result, we conclude that the letter here did not “intimat[e] that formal enforcement was on the horizon.” Id. Instead, it closely reflected the Attorney General’s letter in In re Abbott, 956 F.3d at 709. Accordingly, the Attorney General lacks a requisite connection to the challenged law, and Ex parte Young does not apply to him.