Court Opinion

ID: 9428876
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:25:02.320952+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:15.723643
License: Public Domain

Justice Brennan,
with whom Justice Marshall and Justice Blackmun join, and with whom Justice White joins as to Part I, dissenting.
In rejecting appellees’ equal protection challenge on the basis that the State is proceeding “one step at a time,” the plurality today gives new meaning to the term “legal fic*977tion.”1 The Court’s summary dismissal of appellees’ First Amendment claim vastly oversimplifies the delicate accommodations that must be made between the interests of the State as employer and the constitutionally protected rights of state employees. I dissent.
t — 4
Putting to one side the question of the proper level of equal protection scrutiny to be applied to these restrictions on candidacy for public office,21 find it clear that no genuine justifi*978cation exists that might support the classifications embodied in either Art. Ill, § 19, or Art. XVI, § 65.
The State seeks to justify both provisions on the basis of its interest in discouraging abuse of office and neglect of duties by current officeholders campaigning for higher office during their terms. The plurality posits an additional justification not asserted by the State for § 19: That section also discourages certain officeholders “from vacating their current terms of office.” Ante, at 968. But neither the State nor the plurality offers any justification for differential treatment of various classes of officeholders, and the search for such justification makes clear that the classifications embodied in these provisions lack any meaningful relationship to the State’s asserted or supposed interests.
Article III, § 19, provides:
“No judge of any court, Secretary of State, Attorney General, clerk of any court of record, or any person holding a lucrative office under the United States, or this state, or any foreign government shall during the term for which he is elected or appointed, be eligible to the Legislature.”
And the Texas Election Code provides that persons ineligible to hold an office shall not be permitted to campaign for that office. Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann., Arts. 1.05, 1.06 (Vernon Supp. 1982). Article III, § 19, creates, in effect, two classes of officeholders. Officeholders of state, federal, and even foreign offices seeking Texas legislative office whose terms overlap with the legislative term are barred from campaign*979ing during their terms, and even after they have resigned, see n. 4, infra; those officeholders seeking any other office and those officeholders whose terms do not overlap the legislative term are free to launch campaigns from their current offices, even while they still hold office.
What relationship does the plurality find between the burden placed on the class of all state, federal, and foreign officeholders seeking legislative seats and the asserted state interests? If it faced the question, the plurality would of course have to acknowledge that Texas has no interest in protecting, for example, federal officials — particularly those serving the electorate of another State — from the corrupting influence of a state legislative campaign. The only conceivable state interest in barring these candidacies would be the purely impermissible one of protecting Texas legislative seats against outside competition. But the plurality does not address this question or purport to find any justification for the broad reach of § 19. Instead it defines the equal protection challenge to § 19 as “whether § 19 may be applied to a [Texas] Justice of the Peace,” ante, at 966, and acknowledges that § 19 would not necessarily survive constitutional scrutiny with regard to any other officeholder, ante, at 968, n. 5. The plurality defines the question in this manner because Baca, the ap-pellee challenging this provision, is a Justice of the Peace. But the State has defined the class of persons restricted by § 19 as all persons “holding a lucrative office under the United States, or [Texas], or any foreign government.” And it has always been my understanding that “ ‘[e]qual protection’. . . emphasizes disparity in treatment by a State between classes of individuals,” in contrast to “‘[d]ue process’,” which “emphasizes fairness between the State and the individual dealing with the State, regardless of how other individuals in the same situation may be treated.” Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U. S. 600, 609 (1974). Accordingly, our equal protection cases have always assessed the legislative purpose in light of the class as the legislature has drawn it, rather than on the basis *980of some judicially drawn subclass for which it is possible to posit some legitimate purpose for discriminatory treatment. See, e. g., Lubin v. Panish, 415 U. S. 709, 717-718 (1974).3 When the class of persons burdened by § 19, as the State has drawn it, is viewed in light of the asserted purposes of discouraging abuse of office and neglect of duty, it is beyond dispute that the class is substantially overbroad.
The plurality cannot, in the same manner that it avoids the overbreadth of the class, avoid the irrationality in the fact that § 19 applies only to candidacy for the Texas Legislature. Officeholders are free to run for President, the United States Senate, governor, mayor, city council, and many other offices. The distracting and corrupting effects of campaigning are obviously present in all campaigns, not only those for the legislature. The plurality responds to this characteristic of the legislative scheme by stating that “[t]he Equal Protection Clause allows the State to regulate ‘one step at a time . . . ”
Ante, at 969, quoting Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 489 (1955). But the record in this case belies any assertion by the State that it is proceeding “one step at a time.” Article III, § 19, has existed in its present form since 1876. There is no legislative history to explain its intended purpose or to suggest that it is part of a larger, more equitable regulatory scheme.4 And in the 106 years that *981have passed since § 19’s adoption, the Texas Legislature has adopted no comparable bar to candidacy for other offices.
A state legislature may implement a program step by step, and an underinelusive regulation may be upheld where the record demonstrates that such “one step at a time” regulation is in fact being undertaken. See, e. g., Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U. S. 456, 465-466 (1981); McDonald v. Board of Election Comm’rs, 394 U. S. 802, 809-811 (1969). I cannot subscribe, however, to the plurality’s wholly fictional one-step-at-a-time justification. As Justice Stevens points out in his concurrence, the plurality’s one-step-at-a-time response in this case “is simply another way of stating that there need be no justification at all for treating two classes differently during the interval between the first step and the second step — an interval that, of course, may well last forever.” Ante, at 976.
Section 19’s haphazard reach and isolated existence strikes me as the very sort of “arbitrary scheme or plan” that we distinguished from an as-yet-uncompleted design in McDonald v. Board of Election Comm’rs, supra, at 811, a case the plurality relies on to support the classification in this case, see ante, at 971. In McDonald the record demonstrated that in providing absentee ballots to certain classes of persons the State was in fact proceeding step by step. The State had demonstrated “a consistent and laudable state policy of add*982ing, over a 50-year period, groups to the absentee coverage as their existence comes to the attention of the legislature.” 394 U. S., at 811. Article III, § 19, stands in stark contrast to the provision reviewed in McDonald. In this case, it is pure fiction for the plurality to declare that § 19 is one step in a broader and more equitable scheme that due to legislative delay and inadvertence is yet to be completed.
Appellants, unlike the plurality, at least attempt to justify the distinction between legislative campaigns and other campaigns. They argue that an officeholder-candidate will not enforce legislative policy if he or she is campaigning for a legislative seat. Brief for Appellants 9. But this attempted justification is unpersuasive. Appellants’ argument apparently rests on the tenuous premise that a candidate is likely to choose the strategy of undermining the program of an incumbent opponent in order to advance his own prospects. It is plain that whatever force there is to this premise cannot be limited to a candidate for the legislature; it may as logically be argued that a judge will further his ambition for higher judicial office by failing to follow judicial decisions of a higher court, or that a state legislator with gubernatorial aspirations will use his present position to sabotage the program of the present administration. Even assuming that the State has h particular interest in protecting state legislative policy, and accepting appellants’ somewhat dubious premise, it is still apparent to me that this asserted purpose is ill-served by the group of officeholders covered by § 19. Only those officeholders whose terms happen to overlap with the legislative term are prohibited from running for the legislature.5 The *983District Court noted that this prohibition is most likely to bar the candidacy of mayors and city councilmen — persons who have little if anything to do with carrying out state legislative policy. Fashing v. Moore, 489 F. Supp. 471, 475 (WD Tex. 1980). Appointed administrators, District Attorneys, and District Judges — to name just a few — whose terms do not overlap with that of the legislature, but who are directly charged with carrying out legislative policy, are left free to campaign for the legislature while remaining in office. See, e. g., Chapa v. Whittle, 536 S. W. 2d 681 (Tex. Civ. App. 1976). It is thus clear that the prohibition on legislative campaigns in § 19 furthers in no substantial way the State’s asserted interest in fidelity to legislative policy. In short, I can discern neither in the appellants’ argument nor in the plurality’s hypothesis any rational basis for the discriminatory burden placed upon this class of potential candidates.
I turn now to Art. XVI, § 65. That section applies only to persons holding any of approximately 16 enumerated offices.6 With respect to persons holding these offices, Art. XVI, § 65, provides:
“[I]f any of the officers named herein shall announce their candidacy, or shall in fact become a candidate, in any General, Special or Primary Election, for any office of profit or trust under the laws of this State or the United States other than the office then held, at any time when the unexpired term of the office then held shall exceed *984one (1) year, such announcement or such candidacy shall constitute an automatic resignation of the office then held
Other officeholders, performing similar if not identical duties, are not within the reach of this or any similar restriction and are thus free to campaign for one office while holding another. Article XVI, § 65, while lacking § 19’s broad sweep into areas completely beyond the purview of the State’s concerns, restricts the candidacy only of an unexplained and seemingly inexplicable collection of administrative, executive, and judicial officials. The only distinguishing features of the officeholders collected in § 65 is that in 1954 their terms of office were increased from two to four years, and they all happen to be precinct, county, and district officials as opposed to members of the legislature or statewide elected officials. See 2 G: Braden, The Constitution of the State of Texas: An Annotated and Comparative Analysis 813 (1977). Neither appellants nor the plurality offer any explanation why the State has a greater interest in having the undivided attention of a “Public Weigher” than of a state criminal court judge, or any reason why the State has a greater interest in preventing the abuse of office by an “Inspector of Hides and Animals,” than by a justice of the Texas Supreme Court. Yet in each instance § 65 applies to the former office and not to the latter. Again the plurality opines that the State is legislating “one step at a time.” But while Art. XVI, § 65, is of more recent vintage than Art. Ill, § 19, it has been part of the Texas Constitution for 24 years without prompting any corresponding rule applicable to holders of statewide office. Thus § 65, like § 19, cannot in any realistic sense be upheld as one step in an evolving scheme.
In short, in my view, neither Art. Ill, § 19, nor Art. XVI, § 65, can survive even minimal equal protection scrutiny.7
*985HH
I also believe that Art. Ill, § 19, violates the First Amendment. The Court dismisses this contention by stating that this provision is a more limited restriction on political activities of public employees than we have upheld in prior cases. But none of our precedents presented a restriction on campaigning that applied even after an official had resigned from public office or to officials who did not serve in the regulating government. Moreover, the Court does not go on to address what is for me the crucial question: What justification does the State have for this restriction and how does this provision address the State’s asserted interests?
The Court acknowledges that Art. Ill, § 19, restrains government employees’ pursuit of political office. Such pursuit is clearly protected by the First Amendment and restrictions on it must be justified by the State’s interest in ensuring the continued proper performance of current public duties. As the Court notes, similar competing considerations were considered in CSC v. Letter Carriers, 413 U. S. 548 (1973), Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U. S. 601 (1973), and United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75 (1947).
In United Public Workers, the Court upheld § 9(a) of the Hatch Act, 5 U. S. C. § 7324(a)(2), which prohibits certain federal civil service employees from taking “an active part in political management or political campaigns. ” In Letter Car*986riers the Court reaffirmed United Public Workers, and in Broadrick the Court upheld a similar state provision. In these cases, the Court determined that the restrictions were necessary to foster and protect efficient and effective government by keeping partisan politics out of the civil service. The Court recognized that “the government has an interest in regulating the conduct and ‘the speech of its employees that differ[s] significantly from those it possesses in connection with regulation of the speech of the citizenry in general.’” Letter Carriers, supra, at 564, quoting Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U. S. 563, 568 (1968).
At the same time, this Court has unequivocally rejected the premise that one surrenders the protection of the First Amendment by accepting the responsibilities of public employment. Elrod v. Burns, 427 U, S. 347 (1976); Pickering v. Board of Education, supra. And the Court has clearly recognized that restrictions on candidacy impinge on First Amendment rights. See, e. g., Illinois State Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U. S. 173 (1979); Lubin v. Panish, 415 U. S. 709 (1974); American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U. S. 767 (1974); Bullock v. Carter, 405 U. S. 134, 142-143 (1972); Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23, 34 (1968).8 Our precedents establish the guiding principle for applying the strictures of the First Amendment to restrictions of expres-sional conduct of state employees: The Court must arrive at an accommodation “ ‘between the interests of the [employee] *987. . . and the interest of the [government], as an employer.”’ CSC v. Letter Carriers, supra, at 564, quoting Pickering v. Board of Education, supra, at 568. And in striking the required balance, “[t]he gain to the subordinating interest provided by the means must outweigh the incurred loss of protected rights.” Elrod v. Burns, supra, at 362 (plurality opinion). See also United Public Workers v. Mitchell, supra, at 96.9
In undertaking this balance, I acknowledge, of course, that the State has a vital interest in ensuring that public officeholders perform their duties properly, and that a State requires substantial flexibility to develop both direct and indirect methods of serving that interest. But if the State’s interest is not substantially furthered by the challenged restrictions, then the restrictions are an unnecessary intrusion into employee rights. If the restriction is effective, but interferes .with protected activity more than is reasonably necessary to further the asserted state interest, then the overintrusive aspects of the restriction lack constitutional justification. In short, to survive scrutiny under the First Amendment, a restriction on political campaigning by government employees must be narrowly tailored and substantially related to furthering the State’s asserted interests.
It is clear to me that Art. Ill, § 19, is not narrowly tailored to conform to the State’s asserted interests. . Nor does it further those interests in a meaningful way. I have discussed briefly the broad sweep and thus the absence of narrow tailoring of § 19 in Part I, supra. Section 19 bars the candidacy of a wide class of state, federal, and foreign officeholders. The offices enumerated in § 19 include the judges of all courts, the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the *988clerks of any court of record, and all persons holding any “lucrative” office under the United States, Texas, or any foreign government. Section 19 by its terms would bar, for example, a retired United States District Court Judge, appointed for life, whose District was outside of Texas, from running for the Texas State Legislature. The Texas courts have interpreted “lucrative” broadly enough to include any office that yields profit, gain, revenue, or salary, regardless of the adequacy of the compensation. See Willis v. Potts, 377 S. W. 2d 622, 625-627 (Tex. 1964). The state courts have also held that offices created by political bodies subordinate to the State, such as cities, are covered by § 19. See, id., at 624-625.
Section 19 is not merely a resign-to-run law, or a prohibition on dual officeholding. Rather, the Texas Supreme Court has construed the phrase, “during the term for which he was elected or appointed,” to bar candidacy for the legislature even after an official has resigned from his current office. See n. 4, supra. As one commentator has noted, § 19 “has trapped the unwary who believed (not unreasonably) that by resigning their present office they would be eligible to run for the legislature.” 1G. Braden, The Constitution of the State of Texas: An Annotated and Comparative Analysis 135 (1977).
In many of its applications § 19 has absolutely no connection to Texas’ interest in how Texas public officials perform their current duties. This provision applies to persons holding office under the United States or any foreign government and would thus bar a person holding federal office from resigning from that office and running for the Texas Legislature.10 Even with respect to persons who, like Baca, are *989currently Texas public officials, §19 continues to operate after their resignations from current positions have taken effect and their responsibility to the Texas electorate has ceased. A provision directed only at Texas officeholders, that gave those officeholders a choice between resigning and serving out their current terms would serve all of the asserted state interests; yet Texas has inexplicably chosen this far more restrictive alternative.11
The same irrationality evident to me when I analyzed § 19 under the Equal Protection Clause convinces me that it is not substantially related to furthering the asserted state interests. Appellants contend that §19 promotes attention to *990current duties by officeholders and prevents abuse of their current office in the attempt to further political aspirations. But § 19 prohibits the enumerated officeholders from engaging only in Texas legislative campaigns. It has absolutely no effect on an officeholder who misuses his current office in order to undertake a campaign for any other office. Even if no improper motive underlies the restriction, it is obvious that § 19 is far more likely to discourage officeholders from running for the state legislature than it is to encourage them to serve properly in their current positions. See supra, at 980-983.
In sum, the prohibition of § 19 furthers in no substantial way any of the asserted state interests said to support it, and is not narrowly tailored to avoid unnecessary interference with the First Amendment interests of government employees. Accordingly, in my view, this provision is invalid as an unjustified infringement on appellees’ First Amendment rights.12
Because the Court finds neither an equal protection nor a First Amendment violation in either of these restrictions on candidacy, I respectfully dissent.

 I note that a majority of the Court today rejects the plurality’s mode of equal protection analysis. See ante, at 976 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and in judgment).

 It is worth noting, however, that the plurality’s analysis of the level of scrutiny to be applied to these restrictions gives too little consideration to the impact of our prior cases. Although we have never defined candidacy as a fundamental right, we have clearly recognized that restrictions on candidacy impinge on First Amendment rights of candidates and voters. See, e. g., Illinois State Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U. S. 173,184 (1979); Lubin v. Panish, 415 U. S. 709, 716 (1974); American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U. S. 767 (1974); Bullock v. Carter, 405 U. S. 134, 142-143 (1972); Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23, 31 (1968). With this consideration in mind, we have applied strict scrutiny in reviewing most restrictions on ballot access; thus we have required the State to justify any discrimination with respect to candidacy with a showing that the differential treatment is “necessary to further compelling state interests.” American Party of Texas v. White, supra, at 780. See also Bullock v. Carter, supra, at 144. The plurality dismisses our prior cases as dealing with only two kinds of ballot access restrictions — classifications based on wealth and classifications imposing burdens on new or small political parties or independent candidates. Ante, at 964-965. But strict scrutiny was required in those cases because of their impact on the First Amendment rights of candidates and voters, see Storer v. Brown, 415 U. S. 724, 729 (1974), not because the class of candidates or voters that was burdened was somehow suspect. Compare Lubin v. Panish, 415 U. S., at 717-718, with id., at 719 (Douglas, J., concurring) (strict scrutiny demanded because classification based on wealth). The plurality offers no explanation as to why the restrictions at issue here, which completely bar some candidates from running and require other candidates to give up their present employment, are *978less “substantial” in their impact on candidates and their supporters than, for example, the $700 filing fee at issue in Lubin.
In my view, some greater deference may be due the State because these restrictions affect only public employees, see Part II, infra, but this does not suggest that, in subjecting these classifications to equal protection scrutiny, we should completely disregard the vital interests of the candidates and the citizens who they represent in a political campaign.

 The plurality’s sudden focus on the fairness of the restriction to the individual as opposed to the class, is as episodic as it is novel. For in writing for the Court in Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S. 749, 781 (1975), Justice RehNquist refused to hold that an otherwise valid legislative classification should be invalidated on the basis of the characteristics of the individual plaintiff.

 Indeed, it may be that Art. Ill, § 19, was intended to do no more than prohibit dual officeholding. If it had been so construed, there would be no equal protection problem for there are blanket prohibitions in Texas against holding two elected offices at the same time. See Art. II, § 1; Art. XVI, § 40. In Lee v. Daniels, 377 S. W. 2d 618 (1964), the Texas Supreme Court construed the language in § 19, “during the term for which he was elected or appointed,” to mean that even after an otherwise qualified candi*981date for the legislature had resigned his current position, he could not hold legislative office. The dissent in Lee argued that § 19 was simply a prohibition on dual officeholding and the phrase, “during the term for which he is elected or appointed,” simply “negates any basis for the contention that a person” who once held one of the offices covered by the section was still ineligible for the legislature after the completion of his term. Id., at 621 (Steakley, J., dissenting). The Texas Supreme Court was unaided by any legislative history on this provision. We are of course bound by the state court’s construction of this state provision, but I point out its ambiguity to highlight the dubious nature of the plurality’s hypothesis that Art. Ill, § 19, marks one step in what will become more complete regulation of a perceived evil.

 For example, in Lee v. Daniels, supra, a County Commissioner resigned on February 1,1964, and he sought thereafter to run for the legislature. However, his term did not expire until December 81, 1964; the legislative term commenced in November 1964, and the court therefore held that his name could not be placed on the legislative ballot. In contrast, in Chapa v. Whittle, 536 S. W. 2d 681 (Tex. Civ. App. 1976), the Director of a Social Culture Intervention Program began campaigning in February 1966. He resigned from his current office in May of that year. Because the Di*983rector had no set term, the complainant could not show that the Director’s term overlapped the legislative term, beginning in November 1966, and the court therefore allowed the Director to run for the legislature.

 The assortment of offices restricted by Art. XVI, §65, are: District Clerks; County Clerks; various County Judges; County Treasurers; Criminal District Attorneys; County Surveyors; Inspectors of Hides and Animals; County Commissioners; Justices of the Peace; Sheriffs; Assessors and Collectors of Taxes; District Attorneys; County Attorneys; Public Weighers; and Constables.

 Justice Stevens argues in his concurrence that there is no federal interest in requiring the State to treat different elective state offices in a *985fair and equitable manner. Ante, at 974. I agree with Justice Stevens that the State may define many of the “benefits and burdens of different elective state offices” in a dissimilar manner without offering an explanation for the classifications that a federal judge will find to be rational, so long as such classifications do not mask any racial or otherwise impermissible discrimination. Ibid. But where the differential treatment concerns a restriction on the right to seek public office — a right protected by the First Amendment — that Amendment supplies the federal interest in equality that may be lacking where the State is simply determining salary, hours, or working conditions of its own employees.

 Such restrictions affect not only the expressional and associational rights of candidates, but those of voters as well. Voters generally assert their views on public issues by casting their ballots for the candidate of their choice. “By limiting the choices available to voters, the State impairs the voters’ ability to express their political preferences.” Illinois Elections Bd. v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U. S., at 184. The effect on voters from restrictions on candidacy is illustrated in this case by the fact that 20 of the appellees are voters who allege that they would vote for the officeholder-appellees were they to become candidates. See ante, at 961.

 “[T]his Court must balance the extent of the guarantees of freedom against a congressional enactment to protect a democratic society against the supposed evil of political partisanship by classified employees of government.” 330 U. S., at 96.

 The Court, citing Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U. S. 601, 612-616 (1973), states that Baca may not utilize the “overbreadth” doctrine to “challenge the provision’s application to him on the grounds that the provision might be unconstitutional as applied to a class of officeholders not before *989the Court.” Ante, at 972, n. 6. But all that Broadrick holds is "that the overbreadth of a statute must not only be real, but substantial as well, judged in relation to the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep.” 413 U. S., at 615. In my view, the overbreadth of Art. Ill, § 19, is clearly substantial, particularly when its breadth is viewed in relationship to its relatively tenuous “legitimate sweep.”

 The less intrusive means for accomplishing the State’s goals are obvious. A statute requiring persons to take a leave of absence would also preclude an officeholder from misusing his current office during a campaign. See Bolin v. Minnesota, 313 N. W. 2d 381, 384 (Minn. 1981). Appellants assert an interest in ensuring that defeated candidates do not return to office and administer their old position vindictively or halfheartedly. Brief for Appellants 9. But this would be satisfied by a resign-to-run statute — giving candidates a choice between running for a new office or holding their present position. Appellants suggest that even before an actual announcement of candidacy a potential candidate may begin to abuse his current office. Id., at 13. They thus appear to suggest that a resign-to-run provision is not necessarily adequate because it allows the candidate to stay in his current position until his formal announcement of candidacy. Even if this is a sufficient state concern to justify further intrusion on the interests of potential candidates, it would be fully served by a statute that simply required all potential candidates to resign some period of time before they formally announced their candidacy for a new office. Unlike the plurality, I refuse to assume that the State has an interest in having officeholders who no longer desire to hold their office serve out their terms. See ante, at 968-969. Indeed, appellants have not asserted this interest in this Court or in the courts below.

 Article XVI, § 65, also affects appellees’ right to run for political office; it has a lesser impact on that right for it merely requires that candidates resign before embarking on political campaigns. Moreover, it bears a more substantial relationship to the State’s asserted purposes because it bans political campaigns for all offices. That provision does not in my view violate the First Amendment. Because it applies only to an inexplicable group of elected officials, it does, however, violate the Equal Protection Clause.