Court Opinion

ID: 9426070
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:16:43.660447+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:58.917358
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Rehnquist, with whom The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Stewart join,
dissenting.
The Texas Constitution restricts the vote in general obligation bond elections to those who render taxable property with local taxing officials. Tex. Const. Art. 6, § 3a. All real, personal, or mixed property owned by any citizen of the State is taxable property under state law. Tex. Const. Art. 8, § 1; Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Arts. 7145, 7147 (1960 and Supp. 1974-1975). And all citizens of the State are required by law to render all such taxable property with local taxing officials on a yearly basis in order that it be added to local tax rolls. Tex. Rev. Civ Stat. Arts. 7145, 7151, 7152, 7153, 7189 (1960 and Supp. 1974-1975).
The rendering requirement for voting is satisfied by the listing of any single item of property, even though of purely nominal worth, with taxing officials and the completion of an affidavit provided at polling places with a description of any single item of property which the voter has properly rendered. Tex. Elec. Code § 5.03 et seq. (1967 and Supp. 1974-1975); Montgomery Independent School District v. Martin, 464 S. W. 2d 638, 640 (Tex. 1971); Dubose v. Ainsworth, 139 S. W. 2d 307, 308 (Tex. Civ. App. 1940). Rendering immedi*303ately before the election of any item of property qualifies, even though untimely under the rendering statutes, Markowsky v. Newman, 134 Tex. 440, 449-450, 136 S. W. 2d 808, 813 (1940), and the absence of adequate facilities for the rendering of property eliminates the rendition requirement. Hanson v. Jordan, 145 Tex. 320, 198 S. W. 2d 262 (1946); Green v. Stienke, 321 S. W. 2d 95 (Tex. Civ. App. 1959). Under state law, the Texas elector who renders a pair of shoes or a bicycle on election day casts a vote no different from that of a rendering cattle baron.
Not surprisingly, the Texas Supreme Court in Montgomery Independent School District v. Martin, supra, upheld the rendering qualification:
. “[V] oter qualifications of ownership under the Texas constitutional and statutory provisions stated above, as interpreted by our decisions, are so universal as to constitute no impediment to any elector who really desires to vote in a bond election. A voter is qualified if he renders any kind of property of any value, and he need not have actually paid the tax.
”... One who is willing to vote for and impose . a tax on the property of another should be willing to assume his distributive share of the burden. . . .
“. . . To allow some property owners to vote in that kind of an election, and at the same time to permit them to avoid their fair share of the resulting obligation, would confer preferential rights.” 464 S. W. 2d, at 640-642.
Appellees in the instant case have not drawn our attention to a totally propertyless citizen of Fort Worth, poorer than Diogenes, whose total lack of ownership pre*304eludes him from complying with the rendering requirement. Instead, the alleged deprived class in the instent case consists of those who violated their legal obligation under state law, choosing not to render any property by reason of carelessness, a tax-avoidance motive, or otherwise. And the alleged deprivation of equal protection lies in self-disfranchisement caused by their failure to utilize readily available facilities to render property.
Since laws considered by this Court under the Equal Protection Clause are not abstract propositions subject to a requirement of disembodied equality which invalidates classifications without examination of the circumstances surrounding them, Tigner v. Texas, 310 U. S. 141, 147 (1940), we have without exception in passing upon governmental requirements affecting voting looked to the character of the classification challenged as denying equal protection and the individual interests affected by it. Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23, 30 (1968); Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S. 330, 335, 336 (1972). And our prior cases have held that scrutiny under this Clause is triggered only where restrictions have a real and appreciable impact on ability to exercise the franchise. See McDonald v. Board of Election, 394 U. S. 802, 807-808 (1969); Kramer v. Union Free School District No. 15, 395 U. S. 621, 626-627, n. 6 (1969); Gordon v. Lance, 403 U. S. 1, 5 (1971); Bullock v. Carter, 405 U. S. 134, 144 (1972).
In Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U. S. 752 (1973), we upheld a New York registration requirement requiring registration in a party 11 months in advance of its primary as a prerequisite to participation in the primary, stating:
“We cannot accept the petitioners’ contention. None of the cases on which they rely is apposite to the situation here. In each of those cases, the State *305totally denied the electoral franchise to a particular class of residents, and there was no way in which the members of that class could have made themselves eligible to vote. . . . Section 186 of New York’s Election Law, however, is quite different. It did not absolutely disenfranchise the class to which the petitioners belong — newly registered voters .... Eather, the statute merely imposed a time deadline on their enrollment, which they had to meet in order to participate in the next primary. . . . The petitioners do not say why they did not enroll prior to the cutoff date; however, it is clear that they could have done so, but chose not to. Hence, if their plight can be characterized as disenfranchisement at all, it was not caused by § 186, but by their own failure to take timely steps to effect their enrollment.” Id., at 757-758.
Even the four dissenting Members of the Court in that case would have required a “serious burden or infringement” on the right to vote as a prerequisite to the establishment of a constitutional violation. Id., at 767 (Powell, J., joined by Douglas, Brennan, and Marshall, JJ., dissenting). See also id., at 765.
In the immediate case, appellees and the class of nonrenderers they represent could have easily complied with the rendering qualification, imposed not only as a prerequisite for voting but also as a legal duty necessary to the orderly operation of a voluntary self-assessment taxing system. The burden imposed by the qualification was de .minimis and compliance was universally easy.
Despite this, the Court, without inquiry into the impact of the Texas qualification on appellees’ ability to vote, concludes that the Texas scheme is unconstitutional. Ante, at 298, 306-301.
As might be expected when dealing with provisions *306of state law in the abstract, the theoretical arguments advanced both in support of the constitutionality of the provisions involved here, and against their constitutionality, tend to cut both ways. The State contends that because anyone could have complied with the rendering qualification, the burden on the franchise is minimal. The Court disposes of this contention by concluding that in such event the rendering requirement must serve no valid state policy. The State also contends that the rendering requirement does serve the state policy of increasing the amount of personal property on the tax rolls, which property in turn will be taxed to retire the bonded indebtedness incurred as a result of the election in question. The Court’s response to this contention is that if this be the case, the requirement unreasonably burdens the franchise. This constitutional dialogue is somewhat less than edifying, and may be traced in part to the dichotomy drawn by Kramer v. Union Free School District No. 15, supra, where all voting qualifications in an “election of general interest,” ante, at 295, were herded into two categories. Those dealing with “residence, age, and citizenship,” ibid., received the Court’s imprimatur, while the “strict scrutiny” test was to be applied to other requirements. The basis of this judicially created classification would itself scarcely survive a “rational basis” test, unexplained as it is by any of our decisions. But even taking Kramer on its own terms, no sound reason is advanced for applying it to the situation before us now.
The Court distinguishes, ante, at 300 n. 9, our decision in Rosario on' the grounds that the New York registration requirement involved in that case, unlike the Texas rendering qualification for bond elections, was directed toward “ ‘preserving] the integrity of the electoral process.’ ”
*307As a factual matter, the offered distinction is a doubtful one. The purpose sought to be served by the registration requirement examined in Rosario was the prevention of “raiding”: the crossing of party lines by members of one party in order to affect the outcome of the primary election of another political party. The rendering qualification under challenge in the instant case is designed in part to prevent citizens who violate their legal obligations by totally avoiding any portion of their fair share of obligations resulting from a bond election, however small that share may be, from influencing the process which results in the imposition of such obligations. If the integrity of the electoral process is violated by allowing citizens, who are unwilling to assume the responsibilities of party membership, to vote in party primaries, it is difficult to understand how it is less violated by allowing citizens, who are unwilling to assume their fair share of the obligations occurring from a bond election, to vote in such an election.
As the Court indicates, ante, at 298 n. 7, appellees at oral argument asserted that the rendering requirement in practice functions as a property-related classification since realty and business personalty make up virtually all of the property actually subject to taxation in Fort Worth. However, appellees also conceded that their allegation was without support in the record in this case. Tr. of Oral Arg. 31. To the extent that the record does speak to appellees’ assertion, it shows the rendition of substantial amounts of personal property in Fort Worth and in the State generally. App. 68, 81-84. While one member of the three-judge panel below indicated his suspicion that the rendering requirement operated as a de facto exclusion of non-real-property owners, another member of the panel indicated his disagreement. Compare 377 F. Supp. 1016, 1020 • (opinion of Thorn-*308berry, J.), with id., at 1025 (opinion of Woodward, J., specially concurring). In light of the serious question raised by this disagreement and the absence of evidence in the record resolving it, I would vacate the judgment below and remand this case for factual determination of whether the rendering requirement as administered in Texas has the practical effect of impermissibly disfranchising identifiable groups of voters such as non-real-property owners and thereby constitutes a genuine burden on the franchise. Cf. City of Phoenix v. Kolodziejski, 399 U. S. 204 (1970).