Nolles v. State Com. Reorganization School Dist., 06-4093.

• Decision Date: 28 April 2008
• Docket Number: No. 06-4093.,06-4093.
• Citation: 524 F.3d 892
• Parties: Trudy NOLLES; Angie Palmer; David M. Jeffrey, Appellants, v. The STATE COMMITTEE FOR the REORGANIZATION OF SCHOOL DISTRICTS; Kendall Moseley; Gil Kettelhut; Teresa Hawk; Gerry Osborn; Terry Loshen, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

524 F.3d 892

Trudy NOLLES; Angie Palmer; David M. Jeffrey, Appellants, v. The STATE COMMITTEE FOR the REORGANIZATION OF SCHOOL DISTRICTS; Kendall Moseley; Gil Kettelhut; Teresa Hawk; Gerry Osborn; Terry Loshen, Appellees.

No. 06-4093.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: May 17, 2007.

Filed: April 28, 2008.

Donald B. Stenberg, argued, Erickson & Sederstrom, Omaha, NE, for appellant.

Dale A. Comer, A.A.G., argued, Lincoln, NE (Charles E. Lowe, A.A.G., Lynn A. Melson, A.A.G., on the brief), for appellee.

Before MURPHY, HANSEN, and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges.

HANSEN, Circuit Judge.

Trudy Nolles, Angie Palmer, and David M. Jeffrey (collectively "Plaintiffs") are registered voters in Nebraska who brought this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action challenging the State Committee for the Reorganization of School Districts' (hereinafter "State Committee") implementation of Legislative Bill 126 (LB 126), which implementation occurred prior to the November 2006 referendum vote which ultimately repealed LB 126. The Plaintiffs claim that the State Committee's actions violated the Plaintiffs' rights to substantive and procedural due process and their right to vote as protected by the United States Constitution. We dismiss both of the due process claims for lack of standing, and we affirm the district court's¹ judgment dismissing the right to vote claim.

I.

In 2005, the Nebraska legislature, overriding the Governor's prior veto, passed LB 126, which, inter alia, mandated the dissolution of all Class I school districts and required the Class I school districts to be merged into larger school districts that served students through the twelfth grade. Class I school districts provided education for students only from kindergarten through the eighth grade. LB 126 required the State Committee to issue orders by December 1, 2005, directing how each Class I school district would be merged. The orders merging the school districts were required by LB 126 to take effect on June 15, 2006, following the end of the 2005-2006 school year.

Nebraska citizens commenced a referendum effort, see Neb. Const. art. III, § § 1, 3, & 4, and obtained enough signatures to put the repeal of LB 126 on the ballot at the next general election, which was to be held on November 7, 2006. The referendum effort did not, however, garner enough signatures to suspend the operation of LB 126 pending the result of the election, as required under Nebraska Constitution Article III, Section 3 (requiring the signature of 10% of registered voters to suspend the operation of the challenged law). Three residents and taxpayers in Class I school districts, along with several school districts, filed suit in Nebraska state court (referred to as the "Pony Lake litigation") seeking an injunction to prevent the State Committee from complying with LB 126 and entering consolidation orders before the November 2006 election. The state district court granted a permanent injunction, finding that the effective dates of the consolidation orders impermissibly burdened the people's right of referendum.

The State Committee appealed the injunction to the Supreme Court of Nebraska. Under Nebraska law, the appeal stayed the district court's injunction, see Neb.Rev.Stat. § 25-21,213 (1995), and the Supreme Court declined to issue its own temporary restraining order. On December 1, 2005, no longer under any injunction, the State Committee issued its orders of merger as required by LB 126, although the orders were not to take effect until June 15, 2006. The state court appellees then cross-appealed, claiming that LB 126's effective dates denied them the right to vote and the right to freedom of speech protected by the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court of Nebraska reversed the district court on March 3, 2006, concluding that the trial court had misapplied Nebraska's constitutional provisions regarding referendums and holding that Article III, Section 3 of the Nebraska Constitution clearly provided that where the referendum petition failed to garner sufficient signatures, the legislation facing the ballot was not to be suspended pending the vote. See Pony Lake Sch. Dist. 30 v. State Comm. for the Reorg. of Sch. Dists., 271 Neb. 173, 710 N.W.2d 609, 621-22 (Neb.), cert. denied, 547 U.S. 1130, 126 S.Ct. 2058, 164 L.Ed.2d 784 (2006). The state Supreme Court also addressed the federal voting right and free speech right issues raised by the cross-appeal to determine if the trial court could be affirmed on either alternative basis but determined that it could not. It determined that the right to vote protected by the federal Constitution applied to the right to participate in a representative government and had no impact on the direct democracy referendum process. Id. at 623-24. It further found no free speech violation because the referendum process did not restrict the state appellees' ability to communicate with voters about their attempt to repeal LB 126. Id. at 624-25.

After the Supreme Court of the United States denied the Pony Lake plaintiffs' petition for certiorari on May 15, 2006, the current Plaintiffs, none of whom were parties to the state court litigation, brought a declaratory judgment action in federal district court on June 8, 2006, claiming that LB 126 violated the federal Constitution's protection of the rights to vote and to freedom of speech, and the Fourteenth Amendment's protection of the rights to substantive due process and procedural due process. They sought a declaration that the State Committee's actions were unconstitutional and therefore null and void. In the meantime, the school districts were merged pursuant to LB 126 effective June 15, 2006. The federal district court stayed its ruling on the § 1983 claims to see if the voters would retain LB 126, thus mooting the claims. The referendum appeared on the ballot at the November 7, 2006, general election, and the voters of Nebraska voted to repeal LB 126. Nothing about the repeal affected the prior actions of the State Committee or other-wise authorized the re-establishment of the dissolved school districts.

The district court subsequently dismissed the federal case, finding all of the claims to be barred by res judicata based on the Pony Lake litigation. The district court also determined that the right to vote and the right to freedom of speech claims were mooted because the Plaintiffs did in fact vote on the referendum and that the due process claims lacked merit. The Plaintiffs appeal.²

II.

A. Due Process

Even though not raised by the parties or addressed by the district court, we "are under an independent obligation to examine [our] own jurisdiction, and standing is perhaps the most important of the jurisdictional doctrines." United States v. Hays, 515 U.S. 737, 742, 115 S.Ct. 2431, 132 L.Ed.2d 635 (1995) (internal marks omitted). Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, cabined by the authority granted to them by Article III of the United States Constitution. Article III limits federal courts' jurisdiction to the deciding of "Cases" and "Controversies." U.S. Const. art III, § 2; see also Hein v. Freedom from Religion Found., Inc., ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2553, 2562, 168 L.Ed.2d 424 (2007) ("`"No principle is more fundamental to the judiciary's proper role in our system of government than the constitutional limitation of federal-court jurisdiction to actual cases or controversies."'") (quoting Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811, 818, 117 S.Ct. 2312, 138 L.Ed.2d 849 (1997) (in turn quoting Simon v. E. Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 37, 96 S.Ct. 1917, 48 L.Ed.2d 450 (1976))). "`One of the controlling elements in the definition of a case or controversy under Article III' is standing." Hein, 127 S.Ct. at 2562 (quoting ASARCO Inc. v. Kadish, 490 U.S. 605, 613, 109 S.Ct. 2037, 104 L.Ed.2d 696 (1989) (Kennedy, J., concurring)). At a "`constitutional minimum,'" standing requires three elements: (1) injury in fact, (2) causation, and (3) redressability. Hays, 515 U.S. at 742-43, 115 S.Ct. 2431 (quoting Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992)). Injury in fact requires the party bringing suit to have "a legally protected interest that is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical." Id. at 743, 115 S.Ct. 2431 (internal marks omitted).

1. Substantive Due Process

The Plaintiffs claim that the implementation of LB 126 prior to the referendum vote, as required by Article III, Section 3 of the Nebraska Constitution, rendered their vote in the referendum election ineffective, resulting in a fundamentally unfair election process in violation of their right to substantive due process. The contested standing issue with respect to the substantive due process claim is whether the Plaintiffs can establish an injury in fact. "A federal court cannot pronounce any statute, either of a State or of the United States, void, because irreconcilable with the constitution, except as it is called upon to adjudge the legal rights of litigants in actual controversies." Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962) (internal marks omitted); see also id. at 206, 82 S.Ct. 691 (holding that only those "voters who allege facts showing disadvantage to themselves as individuals have standing to sue"). Federal courts lack the authority to review legislative acts merely because they are allegedly unconstitutional. Rather, the courts are limited to considering the constitutionality of a legislative act only when it is said to result in or threaten a direct injury to the party challenging the act. See Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447, 488, 43 S.Ct. 597, 67 L.Ed. 1078 (1923) (dismissing for lack of standing a claim that the Maternity Act was unconstitutional in a case brought based on taxpayer standing). "[W]here large numbers of Americans suffer alike, the political process, rather than...