Court Opinion

ID: 9855157
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:20:23.06117+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:42.318056
License: Public Domain

*1351Justice SCOTT
concurring:
I agree with the majority and join in its opinion and judgment. Amendment 2 is unconstitutional because it offends the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. I write separately, nevertheless, to suggest that Amendment 2 impermissibly burdens the right “peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances,” a right guaranteed to every citizen. Hence, the district court’s permanent injunction should be upheld under the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
I
Citizenship, not the good graces of the electorate, is the currency of our republican form of government. Over 130 years ago, this nation was engaged in a great Civil War which tested our constitutional form of government as has no other time in our history. That great battle, joined to address issues of slavery and race, actually resolved much more. History teaches us that, in fact, our nation addressed a question of paramount importance: whether any state may, by legislative enactment or popular referendum, deny or refute the Union of the several states and render asunder the bonds of our constitutional form of government. Athough answered at Appomatox, today we are called upon to answer, if not resolve, that question once more.
The federal Constitution, as submitted to the various states, created certain rights which the states cannot diminish. By joining the Union, Colorado “cannot be viewed as a single, unconnected, sovereign power, on [which] ... no other restrictions are imposed than may be found in its own Constitution.” Fletcher v. Peck, 10 U.S. (6 Cranch) 85, 135, 3 L.Ed. 162 (1810). Writing for the court in Fletcher, Chief Justice Marshall opined that each state “is a part of a large empire, ... is a member of the American Union; and that Union has a constitution, the supremacy of which all acknowledge, and which imposes limits to ... the several states, which none claim a right to pass.” Id. Thus, within the limits of state sovereignty, most important questions are decided by the electorate. However, those matters in which the result intrudes upon a protected liberty or fundamental right cannot be determined in the voting booth.
The framers originally recognized this potential for harm and understood that not every issue can be resolved by the vote of a majority. In The Federalist Papers, James Madison identified the covenant of “a well constructed Union” as its promise to protect and preserve inviolate certain rights of all citizens. The Federalist No. 10, at 42 (J. Madison) (Wills 1982). Madison noted that under other forms of government, “measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice, and the rights of the minor party; but by the superior force of an interested and over-bearing majority.” Id. at 43. Madison further stated:
The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place_ If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.
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It is of great importance in a republic, not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers; but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.
Id., No. 51, at 262 & 264. Appropriately, Madison suggested, the “cure” rests in a republican form of government — a Union in which there is a “tendency to break and control the violence of faction.” Id., No. 10 at 42. The obligation to “guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part” exists whether the oppressive act is the result of referendum or other state action. Hence, every individual is promised full citizenship under a written Constitution which, as Justice Harlan opined, “neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.” Plessy v. *1352Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 559, 16 S.Ct. 1138, 1146, 41 L.Ed. 256 (1895) (Harlan, J., dissenting).
Judge Robert Bork, addressing the same covenant, wrote of what he referred to as the “Madisonian dilemma,” stating:
The United States was founded as a Madi-sonian system, which means that it contains two opposing principles that must be continually reconciled. The first principle is self-government, which means that in wide areas of life majorities are entitled to rule, if they wish, simply because they are majorities. The second is that there are nonetheless some things majorities must not do to minorities, some areas of life in which the individual must be free of majority rule. The dilemma is that neither majorities nor minorities can be trusted to define the proper spheres of democratic authority and individual liberty. To place that power in one or the other would risk either tyranny by the majority or tyranny by the minority.
Robert H. Bork, The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law 139 (1990) (hereinafter “Bork”). Such a dilemma can only be resolved by resort to a neutral written principal, the Constitution. We should look first to the text and to the understanding manifested in the words used by the framers. McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 421, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819) (let the end be “within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate ... which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional”); Colorado Ass’n of Public Employees v. Lamm, 677 P.2d 1350, 1353 (Colo.1984) (“Where the language of the constitution is plain and its meaning clear, that language must be declared and enforced as written.”); see also Bork at 145 (“If the Constitution is law, then presumably, like all other law, the meaning the lawmakers intended is as binding upon judges as it is upon legislatures and executives.”). Where the words of the Constitution are unambiguous, we need not look further.
II
A
Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution declares: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States_” U.S. Const. amend XIV, section l.1 The Fourteenth Amendment, in section 1, made state citizenship derivative of national citizenship and transferred to the federal government a portion of each state’s control over civil and political rights.2
By the force of an unfortunate history and a refusal to rely upon the plain text of the constitution, our Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence has resulted in a Privileges or Immunities Clause that has been eclipsed by the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses. As a consequence, no important line of decision rests solely on the Privileges or Immunities Clause. Early on, in fact, the original understanding was virtually written out of the Constitution by the United States Supreme Court in the Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36, 21 L.Ed. 394 (1873).
*1353In the Slaughter-House Cases, decided in 1873, a majority of the Court acknowledged the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, but limited its effects to those rights earlier existing under Article IV, without recognizing the creation of a new national citizenship. In his opinion for the Court in Slaughter-House Cases, Justice Miller declared that the rights conferred by national citizenship were those “which owe their existence to the Federal government, its National character, its Constitution, or its laws.”3 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) at 79, 21 L.Ed. 394. A review of the legislative history, however, will not permit such an ambivalent view.4 The statements of the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment, Senator Howard and Representative Bingham, confirm that the Privileges or Immunities Clause was originally intended to confer and make inviolate certain minimal rights embodied in national citizenship.5
B
The Fourteenth Amendment Privileges or Immunities Clause was patterned after a similar clause in Article IV, Section 2.6 The Fourteenth Amendment Clause was thought by its framers to be one of the central elements of section 1. Cong.Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., part 3, p. 2765 (1866) (“This is the first clause, and I regard it as very important.”) (statement of Senator Howard); see generally John H. Ely, Democracy and Distrust 22 (1980) (hereinafter “Ely”); John Harrison, Reconstructing the Privileges or Immunities Clause, 101 Yale L.J. 1385 (1992).
The Article IV Privileges and Immunities Clause imposes substantive limits upon the states. Corfield v. Coryell, 6 F.Cas. 546 (No. 3230) (C.C.E.D.Pa.1825). In Corfield, Justice Washington held that this clause protected against state action the privileges “which are, in their very nature, fundamental; which belong, of right, to the citizens of all free governments.”7 Corfield, 6 F.Cas. at 551. Washington went on to state:
What these fundamental privileges are, it would perhaps be more tedious than difficult to enumerate. They may, however, be all comprehended under the following general heads: Protection by the government; the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right to acquire and possess property of every kind, and to pursue and obtain happiness and safety; subject nevertheless to such restraints as the government may justly prescribe for the general good of the whole.
Id. at 551-52.
It was this opinion which became the pole star for Representative Bingham and Sena*1354tor Howard, the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment. Presenting the Fourteenth Amendment to the Senate, Senator Howard disclosed “the views and the motives which influenced that committee,” stating:
To [the privileges and immunities listed in Corfield ], whatever they may be — for they are not and cannot be fully defined in their entire extent and precise nature — to these should be added the personal rights guarantied and secured by the first eight amendments of the Constitution; such as the freedom of speech and of the press; the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances, a right appertaining to each and all the people; the right to keep and to bear arms; the right to be exempted from the quartering of soldiers in a house without the consent of the owner; the right to be exempt from unreasonable searches and seizures, and from any search and seizure except by virtue of a warrant issued upon a formal oath or affidavit; the right of an accused person to be informed of the nature of the accusation against him, and his right to be tried by an impartial jury of the vicinage; and also the right to be secure against excessive bail and against cruel and unusual punishments.
... it is a fact well worthy of attention that the course of decision of our courts and the present settled doctrine is, that all these immunities, privileges, rights, thus guarantied by the Constitution or recognized by it, are secured to the citizen solely as a citizen of the United States and as a party in their courts.... The great objective of the first section of this amendment is, therefore, to restrain the power of the States and compel them at all times to respect these great fundamental guarantees.
Cong.Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., part 3, pp. 2765-66 (1866) (emphasis added).
Senator Howard’s list of privileges or immunities, which incorporated Corfield, was representative rather than exhaustive. No case has ever attempted to identify the totality of implied federal rights guaranteed by the Privileges or Immunities clause. However, in Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78, 29 S.Ct. 14, 53 L.Ed. 97 (1908), the Supreme Court did provide a list of privileges or immunities which it recognized: (1) the right to pass freely from state to state;8 (2) the right to petition Congress for redress of grievances; (3) the right to vote for national officers; (4) the right to enter the public lands; (5) the right to be protected against violence while in the lawful custody of a United States Marshal; and (6) the right to inform United States authorities of violation of its laws. Twining, 211 U.S. at 97, 29 S.Ct. at 18-19. These rights of national citizenship receive absolute protection in the sense that the states never could have a legitimate interest in terminating completely any of these rights. Rotunda & Nowak, Treatise on Constitutional Law 351 (2d ed. 1992).
Ill
The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the right to vote is fundamental to the rights of citizenship and to a free and democratic society. Burson v. Freeman, — U.S. —, —, 112 S.Ct. 1846, 1859, 119 L.Ed.2d 5 (1992); Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 561-62, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 1381-82, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1963); Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 371, 6 S.Ct. 1064, 1071-72, 30 L.Ed. 220 (1886). In Evans I, we held the right to participate equally in the political process to be a fundamental right. Evans v. Romer, 854 P.2d 1270, 1282 (Colo.1993).9 By “participate equally,” although not assuring any political result, we did con*1355template the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances. This right to participate, an attribute of the new national citizenship, was meant by the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment to be a personal right guaranteed and secured by the Privileges or Immunities Clause. See Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., part 3, pp. 2765-66 (1866).
It should be axiomatic that the right peaceably to assemble and petition government implies the ability of the duly elected representatives to respond, if so persuaded or predisposed. Yet, if enforced, Amendment 2 provides that the state, acting “through any of its branches or departments, or any of its agencies, political subdivisions, municipalities or school districts,” shall not “enact, adopt or enforce any statute, regulation, ordinance or policy” granting to citizens a “claim of discrimination” based on homosexual or lesbian status or sexual orientation. Because it would prevent the General Assembly or other legislative bodies from enacting or adopting certain new laws and bar the executive department and its agencies from enforcing existing laws, Amendment 2 effectively denies the right to petition or participate in the political process by voiding, ab initio, redress from discrimination. Like the right to vote which assumes the right to have one’s vote counted, the right peaceably to assemble and petition is meaningless if by law government is powerless to act.
IV
Courts have been reluctant to develop a working constitutional analysis under the Privileges or Immunities Clause since the Slaughter-House Cases, and, unfortunately, have instead built upon the Equal Protection Clause and Due Process Clause. The Equal Protection Clause, burdened by a history and analysis beyond this context,10 is not the most appropriate of the Fourteenth Amendment provisions for securing the right to participate equally in the political process and yet it is the primary mode of analysis relied upon by the majority in this case.11
Certainly all must now agree that the Fourteenth Amendment sought to protect citizens from oppression by state government. The Equal Protection Clause of that amendment mandates that rights afforded to some are granted equally to all. See Steven J. Heyman, The First Duty of Government: Protection, Liberty and the Fourteenth Amendment, 41 Duke L.J. 507 (1991). From time to time the acts of government intervene in the lives of its citizens.12 Under the Equal Protection Doctrine, such government intervention is subjected to review, applying at least one of three standards: strict scrutiny, intermediate review, or rational basis analysis. The applicable standard of review to be applied depends upon the characteristics or attributes of the citizens involved. Under the Equal Protection Doctrine, when such governmental intervention occurs, such as with the enactment of Amendment 2 in this case, regardless of the standard applied, it is contemplated that certain abridgements of even fundamental rights are acceptable. For example, under the strict scrutiny test, *1356the most exacting standard and that applied by the majority, state action is “constitutionally permissible [ ] if it is ‘necessary to promote a compelling state interest,’ and [the state] does so in the least restrictive manner possible.” Maj. op. at 1341 (citations omitted) (emphasis in original).
Unlike the Equal Protection Clause, the Privileges or Immunities Clause guarantees citizens that certain fundamental rights of national citizenship are inviolate, absent due process.13 The syntax of the Fourteenth Amendment Clause seems inescapably that of substantive entitlement. According to Ely, “the slightest attention to language will indicate that it is the Equal Protection Clause that follows the command of equality strategy, while the Privileges or Immunities Clause proceeds by purporting to extend to everyone a set of entitlements.” Ely at 24. The importance of the Privileges or Immunities Clause is that it does not require varying standards of review and that its protections are extended to every citizen.
V
Under Amendment 2, the rights of citizens “peaceably to assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances” so as to participate freely and equally in the political process are compromised in a manner prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment. Because these political rights are fundamental and inherent in national citizenship they are protected by the Privileges or Immunities Clause. Accordingly, I concur.

. The words "privileges” and "immunities" first appear in the Constitution in article IV, § 2 ("The Citizens of each State shall he entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.”). By virtue of Article IV, state citizenship carries with it the right to nondiscriminatory treatment within each state of citizens of all the states.
Consistent with the text and for purposes of distinction, the Article IV clause will be referred to as the "Privileges and Immunities Clause,” and the Fourteenth Amendment clause will be referred to as the "Privileges or Immunities Clause.”

. It is widely agreed that section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment was intended at least to empower Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866, ch. 31, 14 Stat. 27. William Nelson, The Fourteenth Amendment: From Political Principle to Judicial Doctrine 104 (1988) ("Section one was added to the amendment at least in part to remove doubts about the constitutionality of the 1866 act.”); John Harrison, Reconstructing the Privileges or Immunities Clause, 101 Yale L.J. 1385, 1389 (1992). Many commentators have suggested that the amendment actually writes the substance of the 1866 Act into the Constitution. See id.

. Subsequent cases suggested an even narrower definition of the rights of national citizenship, but in Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78, 29 S.Ct. 14, 53 L.Ed. 97 (1908), the Court in dictum finally settled on the Slaughter-House definition as correct.

. As Justice Field observed in dissent, and it is not really possible to deny:
If this inhibition ... only refers, as held by the majority of the court in their opinion, to such privileges and immunities as were before its adoption specially designated in the Constitution or necessarily implied as belonging to citizens of the United States, it was a vain and idle enactment, which accomplished nothing, and most unnecessarily excited Congress and the people on its passage.
Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) at 96, 21 L.Ed. 394 (Field, J., dissenting).

. As Senator Howard stated: "it is certain the clause was inserted in the Constitution for some good purpose.” Cong.Globe. 39th Cong., 1st Sess., part 3, p. 2765 (1866); see generally John H. Ely, Democracy and Distrust 22 (1980).

. Representative Bingham, the Congressperson who framed the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, pointed to the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV as his model. Cong.Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., part 2, pp. 1033-34 (1866).

. As Ely has observed, the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment "repeatedly adverted to the Corfield discussion as the key to what they were writing.” See Ely at 29; Steven J. Heyman, The First Duty of Government: Protection, Liberty and the Fourteenth Amendment, 41 Duke L.J. 507, 555-56 (1991). Corfield was invoked by both Senator Trumbull and Representative Wilson, the managers of the Civil Rights Act, to explain the fundamental rights of citizenship secured by the Act. Similarly, Senator Howard quoted from Corfield during the Congressional debates regarding adoption of the fourteenth amendment. Cong.Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., part 3, p. 2765 (1866).

. See Edwards v. California, 314 U.S. 160, 178, 62 S.Ct. 164, 169, 86 L.Ed. 119 (1941), (the right of interstate travel is an essential “incident of national citizenship protected by the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment ...”).

. See also Illinois State Board of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U.S. 173, 184, 99 S.Ct. 983, 990, 59 L.Ed.2d 230 (1979); Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 336, 92 S.Ct. 995, 999-1000, 31 L.Ed.2d 274 (1972); Gordon v. Lance, 403 U.S. 1, 5, 91 S.Ct. 1889, 1891-92, 29 L.Ed.2d 273 (1971); Frank I. Michelman, Conceptions of Democracy in American Constitutional Argument: Voting Rights, 41 Fla.L.Rev. 443, 459 n. 63 (1989).

. Historically, the Equal Protection Clause was called upon to protect insular minorities. Similarities undoubtedly exist between unlawful discrimination based on sexual orientation and that based on race or national origin. However, the record is uncertain as to whether, as a general matter, victims of discrimination based on sexual orientation share the same history or are subjected to a similar experience or condition as victims of racial or ethnic discrimination.

. The defendants argue that the participation in the political process plaintiffs seek is a particular end or the successful adoption of plaintiffs’ views. I note, however, that the right to participate in the political process does not guarantee plaintiffs or any other qualified electors the success of any candidate or cause nor the state’s embracement of particular ideas. This right simply guarantees access to the political process. Citizens may vote, petition or amend as a matter of right, but they cannot necessarily win as a matter of right.
Moreover, I am not unmindful that the state may deny the right to vote or participate in the political process as an operation of due process. See, e.g., Moran v. Carlstrom, 775 P.2d 1176, 1179 (Colo.1989) (the General Assembly may place reasonable restrictions on the right to vote); see also People v. Russo, 713 P.2d 356, 360 (Colo.1986) (jurors disqualified if they do not have the right to vote by reason of criminal conviction).

.Government intervention may take the form of agency action, legislation, constitutional amendment, or other conduct which has the effect of law.

. See supra, n. 11.