Court Opinion

ID: 9744949
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:24:36.55064+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:29:10.161944
License: Public Domain

LEVIN H. CAMPBELL, Circuit Judge,
with whom GIGNOUX, District Judge, joins (concurring).
Although I concur in the result, it seems to me that the compelling state interest standard has been improperly invoked and incorrectly applied. See Chimento v. Stark, 353 F.Supp. 1211, 1218 (D.N.H.1973) (concurring opinion). Were the compelling interest test the appropriate measure of the state’s residency requirement the outcome here would surely have to be in plaintiffs’ favor. Chief Justice Burger has described that standard as “seemingly insurmountable” and noted that the Supreme Court has yet to find its stringent requirements satisfied. Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 363-364, 92 S.Ct. 995, 31 L.Ed.2d 274 (1972). Even if one assumes that a state may sometimes justify a law as being necessary to promote a “compelling” interest, a seven year residency requirement for the office of state senator is hardly essential to any such life-and-death end.1
*1293Nor do I think we need paint ourselves into that corner. The Supreme Court has not indicated that the compelling state interest test is to be automatically applied to all candidacy restrictions. The Court has suggested that a candidacy restriction having an appreciable adverse impact on the right to vote may itself be unconstitutional. See Lubin v. Panish, 415 U.S. 709, 94 S.Ct. 1315, 39 L.Ed.2d 702 (1974); Bullock v. Carter, 405 U.S. 134, 92 S.Ct. 849, 31 L.Ed. 2d 92 (1972); cf. Jenness v. Fortson, 403 U.S. 431, 91 S.Ct. 1970, 29 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971). But I doubt if the residency requirement challenged here appreciably interferes with the right of New Hampshire voters to be represented in their state government. The limitation is not aimed at any racial, religious or ethnic minority and does not impinge upon the essentially democratic character of New Hampshire government. Voters who desire to see plaintiff Sununu in the state senate need await his eligibility only a few more years. Meanwhile New Hampshire would permit Sununu to represent them in other elective offices, including that of state representative, and in the interim New Hampshire’s aggregate restrictions on senatorial candidates are not so great as to deprive plaintiff voters of adequate sources of representation in the senate. Cf. Lubin, supra, 415 U.S. at 716, 94 S.Ct. 1315. In short, any burden placed upon voters by this limitation seems too minimal to justify intrusion by a federal court into an area of primary state concern.2
Seven years, it is true, may come close to the maximum permissible. Those desiring to vote for Sununu can be required to wait, but not forever. Yet New Hampshire’s requirement, as our brother BOWNES observes, is sanctioned by long usage and may be said to fit within the range of traditional restrictions upon candidacy dating back to adoption of the federal Constitution itself.3 History is, of course, no infallible index of constitutionality, but neither should history be ignored. It may help separate those limitations with which a democratic society can coexist from those which pose uncharted dangers. I am unpersuaded that the fourteenth amendment commits federal courts to removing all possible anomalies in state candidacy *1294requirements no matter how sanctioned by tradition and how minor their overall effect. Unless significantly threatening values protected by the Constitution, they are better regulated by the state political process.

. It is unlikely that any durational residency requirement could satisfy the compelling state interest standard. It is difficult to conceive of any set of circumstances which could be *1293said to compel a specific durational period. A state would be hard put to justify why a few months or years more or less would not equally serve its purposes.

. The “right to travel” may be said to be implicated in challenges to candidates’ durational residency requirements. But I doubt that this “right” requires a state or locality in every instance to ignore differences between those who have lived in a region for a substantial length of time and those who have more recently moved there. The restriction complained of — -limited to candidacy for twenty-four senatorial positions — -was not designed to discourage interstate travel and does not so “penalize” the exercise of the right to travel as to violate the Constitution. See Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County, 415 U.S. 250, 256-262, 94 S.Ct. 1076, 39 L.Ed.2d 306 (1974).

. While New Hampshire is alone in requiring seven years residency for senatorial candidates, Kentucky requires six years, four states require five, and numerous others have requirements of four years or less. In addition, seven states require seven years residency for the offices of governor and lieutenant governor, and one, Missouri, requires ten years. The Book of the States 1974-75, 40-41. See also U.S.Const. art. I, § 2, cl. 2; id., § 3, cl. 3; id., art. II, § 1, cl. 5.
Senates in bicameral legislatures of this country are a far cry from the privileged “upper houses” of other nations. R. Luce, Legislative Assemblies 43-85 (1924). Yet while making it clear that a state senate must be popularly elected, the Supreme Court has recognized that there may be some differences between it and the lower house. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 576-577, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964). Obviously such differences may not include impermissible ones such as wealth nor election qualifications which discriminate because of race, religion or the like. But qualifications having the effect of requiring senators to be selected from among those citizens who have a more settled attachment to their region, or who are of reasonably mature age have been traditionally accepted, and, whatever their merits, would not seem to offend any constitutional principles.