Court Opinion

ID: 9468421
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:14:21.949894+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:51.680210
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s holding that the City of Akron and the State of Ohio have a compelling interest in the imposition and maintenance of a one-year durational residency requirement for city council candidates who represent various wards within the city.
The Supreme Court’s summary affirmances in Sununu v. Stark, 420 U.S. 958, 95 S.Ct. 1346, 43 L.Ed.2d 435 (1975) aff’g 383 F.Supp. 1287 (3 Judge panel, D.N.H.1974), and Chimento v. Stark, 414 U.S. 802, 94 S.Ct. 125, 38 L.Ed.2d 39 (1973), aff’g 353 F.Supp. 1211 (3 Judge panel, D.N.H.1973), upholding seven-year residency requirements for election as state senator and governor, respectively, which the majority relies upon are to be “read with care,” for they deal only with “the precise issues presented and necessarily decided by those actions,” Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego,-U.S.-,-, 101 S.Ct. 2882, 2888, 69 L.Ed.2d 800 (1981). Further, they are not to be read “too expansively” for *170they are of limited precedential significance. Mande1 v. Bradley, 482 U.S. 173, 176, 177, 97 S.Ct. 2238, 2240, 2241, 53 L.Ed.2d 199. It should be noted that the case before us does not deal with a state senator or a governor. It concerns a city charter provision and a state statute with respect to the qualification to seek election as a ward councilman.
If decisions of the Sixth Circuit did not so directly address this issue I feel the panel would have some justification for speculating as to what may have been in the mind of the Supreme Court when the summary affirmances were entered. Until the holding of this Circuit in Green v. McKeon, 468 F.2d 883 (6th Cir. 1972) is vitiated by the Supreme Court, I feel bound to follow it.
In my view, in durational residency requirement cases, we continue to be guided by this Court’s decision in Green v. McKeon. In Green, Judge Phillips, writing for the majority, affirmed the district court’s application of a strict scrutiny standard of review of durational residency requirements which operate to penalize the exercise of basic constitutional rights. Under this standard, this Court held that the city could not require candidates for city office to be bona fide residents for two years prior to the election. The strict scrutiny standard of review has been consistently applied in this Circuit. Mogk v. City of Detroit, 335 F.Supp. 698 (E.D.Mich.1971); Bolanowski v. Raich, 330 F.Supp. 724 (E.D.Mich.1971); Headlee v. Franklin Co. Bd. of Elections, 368 F.Supp. 999 (S.D.Ohio 1973); But cf., Joseph v. City of Birmingham, 510 F.Supp. 1319 (E.D.Mich.1981). In my opinion, any departure from this standard of review at this time is not appropriate.
The City of Akron has not demonstrated a compelling interest in the imposition of its one-year durational residency requirement for ward councilman candidates. The purported purpose of the residency requirement is to facilitate knowledgeable voters and candidates in city elections and to prevent fraudulent and frivolous candidacies. Indeed, this purpose is important and reasonable. However, I am convinced that it does not rise to the level of a compelling interest. The expressed purpose of the city charter section and the state statute in maintaining the residency requirement could be achieved by less restrictive and less drastic means. I emphasize that I do not contend that to accomplish this requires the abolition of all residency requirements as per se unconstitutional. I simply conclude that the one-year residency requirement with which we are here concerned fails the strict scrutiny test.
The effect of the residency requirement on ward council candidates is to prevent individuals from participating in ward council elections even though those persons have worked in or lived in close proximity to the respective ward. Ward council candidates who are fully apprised of the ward’s community and neighborhood concerns and who are well-known to the residents of that ward are precluded from entering the election. This result does violence to the stated purposes of the residency requirement and is repugnant to the candidates’ constitutional rights of travel and of political expression and association. Additionally, the fundamental right of the voters of Ward 10 to cast their votes for such a candidate is effectively ignored. Therefore, I believe that the residency requirement as applied to ward council candidates unnecessarily burdens constitutionally protected activity, Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 92 S.Ct. 995, 31 L.Ed.2d 274 (1972), and that the City of Akron’s charter and the State of Ohio’s statute as applied to ward council candidates are not justified by compelling interests. Illinois State Board of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U.S. 173, 99 S.Ct. 983, 59 L.Ed.2d 230 (1979).
Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the district court regarding the application of the residency requirement to ward council candidates for the September 8 primary election in the City of Akron.