Court Opinion

ID: 9691286
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 20:22:49.428857+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:16.784631
License: Public Domain

FEINBERG, Circuit Judge
(concurring) :
I agree with Judge McLean that since Judge Moritt asks us to declare that a requirement of 12,000 signatures from any district or districts in the state would be valid and yet has not filed a petition containing such signatures, he cannot now as a candidate attack section 136, subd. 5. I do not suggest that a court is necessarily bound by the legal views of the plaintiff before it in adjudicating his right to raise them. But plaintiff’s concession—in fact, his assertion—that 12,000 signatures is a reasonable requirement is so obviously correct1 that plaintiff’s failure to meet even this minimum requirement of a petition should end that portion of his case.
Nor do I believe that a contrary result is called for by either Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U.S. 814, 89 S.Ct. 1493, 23 L.Ed.2d 1 (1969), or Socialist Workers Party v. Rockefeller, 314 F.Supp. 984 (S.D.N.Y.), aff’d mem., 400 U.S. 806, 91 S.Ct. 65, 27 L.Ed.2d 38 (1970). In Moore v. Ogilvie, the candidates for electors there complaining about the Illinois distributive signature requirement had filed nominating petitions containing the names of the required minimum of 25,000 qualified voters. Thus, plaintiffs there clearly had standing to sue when the suit was brought, and the threshold question before the Supreme Court was one of mootness because the election had already been held by the time the case was argued before it.
In Socialist Workers, the plaintiffs were voters and political parties, as well as candidates, who challenged, inter alia, the New York requirement that independent nominating petitions be signed by at least 50 voters in each county of the state. Although it is true that the requirement then in effect that an independent nominating petition contain at least 12,000 signatures was “not contested,” 314 F.Supp. at 989, and that none of the candidate-plaintiffs had submitted petitions, the standing problem involved here did not arise, in part, because the suits there were filed well in advance of the time when signatures could be obtained. Here, in contrast, the only plaintiff is a candidate. Moreover, according to plaintiff, the period for obtaining signatures began on April 4, 1972 and ended on May 11, 1972,2 yet the original complaint was not sworn to until April 12, and the motions for a three-judge court and a preliminary injunction were brought on not by order to show cause but by notice of motion *39returnable on April 25, by which time over half of the period for collecting signatures had expired. It is my view that when a candidate chooses to wait until well after the period for obtaining signatures has begun to challenge the distributive signature requirement as placing an unconstitutional burden on his candidacy, the court should not adjudicate the constitutional claim unless the plaintiff demonstrates that he has fulfilled the other legitimate state requirement for being a candidate—namely, the minimum signature requirement. Otherwise the court may place itself in the awkward position of having adjudicated a litigant’s constitutional claims and yet, as Judge McLean points out, be unable to grant the candidate any relief.
With regard to section 131, I agree with Judge McLean that the federal claims are not substantial. Since the only claims then remaining before us are based upon the state constitution, I would decline to exercise pendent jurisdiction. On that basis, I concur in the result of dismissing the complaint.

. Indeed, as Judge Tenney points out, the requirement of 20,000 signatures is similarly clearly reasonable.

. Plaintiff’s Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion, p. 21.