Libertarian Party of Va. v. Alcorn

• Decision Date: 20 June 2016
• Docket Number: No. 15-1162,15-1162
• Parties: Libertarian Party of Virginia; William Hammer ; Jeffrey Carson; James Carr; Marc Harrold; William Redpath ; William Carr; Bo Conrad Brown; Paul F. Jones, Plaintiffs, and Robert C. Sarvis, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. James B. Alcorn, in his individual and official capacities as member of the Virginia State Board of Elections; Singleton B. McAllister, in her individual and official capacities as member of the Virginia State Board of Elections; Clara Belle Wheeler, in her individual and official capacities as member of the Virginia State Board of Elections, Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

826 F.3d 708

Libertarian Party of Virginia; William Hammer ; Jeffrey Carson; James Carr; Marc Harrold; William Redpath ; William Carr; Bo Conrad Brown; Paul F. Jones, Plaintiffs

and

Robert C. Sarvis, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.James B. Alcorn, in his individual and official capacities as member of the Virginia State Board of Elections; Singleton B. McAllister, in her individual and official capacities as member of the Virginia State Board of Elections; Clara Belle Wheeler, in her individual and official capacities as member of the Virginia State Board of Elections, Defendants–Appellees.

No. 15-1162

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: May 10, 2016

Decided: June 20, 2016

ARGUED: David I. Schoen, David I. Schoen, Attorney at Law, Montgomery, Alabama, for Appellant. Stuart Alan Raphael, Office of the Attorney General of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Robert C. Sarvis, Alexandria, Virginia, Appellant Pro Se. Mark R. Herring, Attorney General of Virginia, Rhodes B. Ritenour, Deputy Attorney General, Anna T. Birkenheier, Assistant Attorney General, Matthew R. McGuire, Assistant Attorney General, Erin R. McNeill, Assistant Attorney General, Trevor S. Cox, Deputy Solicitor General, Office of the Attorney General of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees.

Before WILKINSON and AGEE, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Wilkinson

wrote the opinion in which Judge Agee and Senior Judge Davis joined.

WILKINSON

, Circuit Judge:

Robert Sarvis, a political figure in the Libertarian Party of Virginia, brings a constitutional challenge to Virginia's three-tiered ballot ordering law. The district court found no merit in Sarvis's arguments and accordingly dismissed his challenge for failure to state a claim under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6)

. We now affirm.

I.

Sarvis's attack focuses chiefly upon the ballot ordering law found in Virginia Code § 24.2-613

. That law describes the form of ballot to be used in Virginia elections. It provides that for elections to “federal, statewide, and General Assembly offices” a candidate “shall be identified by the name of his political party” or by the term “Independent.” Va. Code Ann. § 24.2-613. Of principal concern to this case, the law also orders the ballot for elections to these offices in three tiers.

The first tier includes candidates from “parties” or “political parties,” which a related section of the Code defines as organizations of citizens that received at least 10 percent of the vote for any statewide office filled in either of the two preceding statewide general elections. Va. Code Ann. § 24.2-101

. In addition, the Code provides that any organization seeking “party” or “political party” status must also have had a state central committee and an elected state chairman present in Virginia for six months prior to any nominee from that organization filing for office. Id. The only organizations currently designated “parties” or “political parties” under the Code are the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.¹

The second tier includes candidates from “recognized political parties.” For an organization of citizens to be designated a “recognized political party” under the Code, that organization must have had a state central committee present in Virginia for six months prior to any nominee from that party filing for office, and the state central committee must be comprised of voters residing in each Virginia congressional district. Va. Code Ann. § 24.2-613

. The organization must also have a duly elected state chairman and secretary as well as a party plan and bylaws. Id. The Libertarian Party of Virginia has been designated a “recognized political party” under the Code.

Finally, the third tier of the ballot includes “[i]ndependent candidates” not associated with “political parties” or “recognized political parties.” Id.

In addition to delineating the election ballot's three tiers, Virginia's ballot ordering law also specifies how candidates are ordered within the three tiers. In the first two tiers, candidate order is set by lot. Importantly, this order is replicated for each office on the ballot, creating party order symmetry across the ballot as a whole. In the third tier, candidate order is alphabetical by surname. Id.²

In July 2014, just a few months before the November 2014 elections, Sarvis and others members of the Libertarian Party of Virginia along with the Libertarian Party of Virginia itself and one independent candidate filed a complaint that named as defendants certain members of the Virginia State Board of Elections. The complaint alleged that the three-tiered ballot ordering law found in Virginia Code § 24.2-613

violated their constitutional rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Sarvis and his co-plaintiffs sought relief from the law prior to the November 2014 elections.³

In September 2014, the plaintiffs and the Commonwealth both determined that the litigation would not be resolved prior to the November 2014 elections. But the parties and the district court agreed that, should Sarvis and his co-plaintiffs intend to seek elected office in the future, their case would remain ripe beyond the November 2014 elections under the capable of repetition yet evading review doctrine. The plaintiffs thus amended their complaint to reflect their interest in seeking relief from the ballot ordering law with regard to future elections, and the litigation continued on this basis. Sarvis in particular alleged that he would be “a candidate for national office in Virginia in the 2016 election.” J.A. 32. The amended complaint asked that the district court enjoin the law during the “2015 statewide elections and the 2016 and beyond general elections” and issue “an order directing the defendants to assign ballot positions to all ballot-qualified candidates and parties on a random basis without regard to party status.” J.A. 46.

Shortly thereafter, Virginia filed a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6)

, claiming that the amended complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The district court granted Virginia's motion to dismiss in January 2015. Sarvis v. Judd , 80 F.Supp.3d 692, 695 (E.D. Va. 2015). The district court based its decision primarily on the framework established by the Supreme Court in Burdick v. Takushi , 504 U.S. 428, 112 S.Ct. 2059, 119 L.Ed.2d 245 (1992), and Anderson v. Celebrezze , 460 U.S. 780, 103 S.Ct. 1564, 75 L.Ed.2d 547 (1983). In those decisions, the Supreme Court held that courts should review First and Fourteenth Amendment-based challenges to state election laws by weighing the severity of the burden the challenged law imposes on a person's constitutional rights against the importance of the state's interests supporting that law. Burdick , 504 U.S. at 434, 112 S.Ct. 2059 ; Anderson , 460 U.S. at 789, 103 S.Ct. 1564.

Sarvis and his co-plaintiffs, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the district court all agreed that the burden imposed by the three-tiered ballot ordering law was not severe enough to warrant strict scrutiny. The district court gave two principal reasons for this conclusion. First, the law is politically neutral in that it does not entrench particular political parties in favorable positions on the election ballot. Sarvis , 80 F.Supp.3d at 701–02

. Second, the law does not exclude any prospective candidate from the ballot altogether. Id. at 702–03.

Turning to the question of Virginia's interests, the district court noted three justifications offered by Virginia for the ballot ordering law: avoiding voter confusion, creating party-order symmetry, and favoring parties with demonstrated public support. Id. at 703

. Before assessing the merits of these justifications, however, the district court determined that Virginia had described the nature and purpose of the three justifications with sufficient precision. Disagreeing with the plaintiffs, the district court held that neither additional factual development of the case nor more concrete empirical support for Virginia's justifications was necessary before it could properly rule on Virginia's motion to dismiss. Id. at 703–06

. The district court then reviewed Virginia's three justifications and determined that each was important. Id. at 706–08.

Finally, in weighing the plaintiffs' burdens against Virginia's interests, the district court ruled that the interests put forward by Virginia outweighed any minor burdens the ballot ordering law imposed on Sarvis and his co-plaintiffs. The district court accordingly granted Virginia's motion to dismiss the amended complaint. Id. at 708–09

. Sarvis alone appeals that order.

II.

Sarvis's main argument on appeal is that Virginia's three-tiered ballot ordering law advantages candidates from what he calls “major parties” and disadvantages candidates like him that hail from what he calls “minor parties.” According to Sarvis, this conferral of advantages and disadvantages violates expressive and associational rights, the right to cast a vote for a candidate of one's choice, and the right to stand for election, all of which are protected by the First Amendment. In addition, Sarvis contends that the ballot ordering law's unequal treatment of candidates runs afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Appellant's Opening Br. 12-13.

Sarvis premises his constitutional challenge largely on what the district court termed the “windfall vote” theory. Sarvis , 80 F.Supp.3d at 699

. According to this theory, in any given election, some voters will vote for candidates appearing at the top of the ballot because of those candidates' prominent ballot positions. Sarvis argues that Virginia's ballot ordering law, in conjunction with this capricious voter bias, places an improper burden on candidates from minor parties. Before the district court, however, Sarvis stated that his expert would not testify about the exact extent of the bias in Sarvis's specific situation. Id. at...