Fontham v. McKeithen

• Decision Date: 07 December 1971
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 71-2631.
• Citation: 336 F. Supp. 153
• Parties: Michael R. FONTHAM et al. v. John J. McKEITHEN, Governor of the State of Louisiana and Member of the Board of Voter Registration, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana

336 F. Supp. 153

Michael R. FONTHAM et al. v. John J. McKEITHEN, Governor of the State of Louisiana and Member of the Board of Voter Registration, et al.

Civ. A. No. 71-2631.

United States District Court, E. D. Louisiana, New Orleans Division.

December 7, 1971.

Michael R. Fontham, New Orleans, La., for plaintiffs.

Weldon A. Cousins, Asst. Atty. Gen., State of Louisiana, New Orleans, La., for defendants McKeithen, Aycock, Garrett, Gremillion, Papale and Bankston.

John Mamoulides, Jacob J. Amato, Jr., Asst. Dist. Attys., Parish of Jefferson, Gretna, La., for defendant, Altobello.

Before WISDOM, Circuit Judge, and WEST and GORDON, District Judges.

R. BLAKE WEST, District Judge:

A three-judge court was convened in this matter to consider the constitutionality of various Louisiana durational residency requirements as pre-conditions for voter eligibility in a State general election. Plaintiffs seek to enjoin officers of the State of Louisiana from enforcing State statutes which are allegedly in violation of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the United States Constitution.

Louisiana maintains durational residency requirements for voting in State elections. In order to be eligible to register to vote, a prospective voter must have been a resident of the State for one year and of the Parish for six months preceding the election in which he seeks to vote.¹ Plaintiffs satisfy all other requirements for voter eligibility except durational residency.²

Louisiana law also provides for a temporary suspension of voter eligibility upon a change of political party affiliation.³ A voter who changes party affiliation is not permitted to vote for a period of six months in any primary held by the party to which he has changed. However, an independent, a person registered to vote without declaration of party affiliation, may change his registration and vote immediately in the primary election of his new party without becoming subject to the six month suspension of voter eligibility.

Plaintiffs' complaint, therefore, attacks the requirements of (1) one year state residency; (2) six month parish residency; and (3) six month suspension of voter eligibility upon change of party affiliation. Particularly, it is alleged that Louisiana has no compelling state interest in imposing the requirements complained of, and that the requirements are violative of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses in that they unduly restrict the right to vote and the right to travel guaranteed by the United States Constitution. It is the decision of this Court that plaintiffs' attacks on the statutes in question fail to overcome the presumption of constitutionality afforded the statutes and that the relief sought by plaintiffs should be denied.

The matters to be determined herein, stated simply, are whether (1) the Legislature of Louisiana had the legal right to provide that a person coming into this State to reside should wait for a period of one year and a person moving from one parish to another should wait for a period of six months before becoming eligible to vote in State and local elections; and (2) the Legislature of Louisiana had the legal right to provide that a registered voter who changes his political party affiliation should wait for a period of six months before becoming eligible to vote in the primary elections of his new party.

The underlying concept in this case is that a resident of a State does not have a right to vote in State elections; there is no inherent right to vote, but a privilege to vote, which privilege is granted by the State and is not derived from citizenship of the United States, nor granted by the federal Constitution or any of its Amendments. Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162, 22 L.Ed. 627 (1875).

The privilege to vote in a State election ". . . may not be refused on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, but it does not follow from mere citizenship of the United States. In other words, the privilege to vote in a state is within the jurisdiction of the state itself, to be exercised as a state may direct, and upon such terms as to it may seem proper, provided, of course, no discrimination is made between individuals, in violation of the Federal Constitution." Pope v. Williams, 193 U.S. 621, 24 S.Ct. 573, 48 L.Ed. 817 (1904).

Thus, the United States Supreme Court has held that the following conditions of suffrage could be imposed without constitutional objection upon its residents: age, Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112, 91 S.Ct. 260, 27 L.Ed.2d 272 (1971); literacy, Lassiter v. Northampton County Bd. of Elections, 360 U.S. 45, 79 S.Ct. 985, 3 L.Ed.2d 1072 (1959); and lack of previous criminal record, Davis v. Beason, 133 U.S. 333, 10 S.Ct. 299, 33 L.Ed. 637 (1890).

Directly on point, and we believe controlling in the instant case, is the decision of the Supreme Court in Pope v. Williams, quoted above, in which it was held that a Maryland law, requiring persons coming into the State to reside to make a declaration of intention to become citizens and residents of the State as a prerequisite to the right to be registered as voters, was not violative of the federal Constitution.

Thus, the principle is well established that the States have "long been held to have broad powers to determine the conditions under which the right of suffrage may be exercised . . . absent of course the discrimination which the Constitution condemns." Lassiter v. Northampton County Bd. of Elections, 360 U.S. 45, 50, 79 S.Ct. 985, 989, 3 L.Ed. 2d 1072, 1076 (1959).

This principle was reaffirmed recently by the Supreme Court in Oregon v. Mitchell, wherein Mr. Justice Black, citing Pope v. Williams, expressed the view of the majority of the Court that Congress was unauthorized by the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause to lower the voting age in State and local elections from twenty-one to eighteen.⁴ The Court stated, at 400 U.S. 125, 91 S.Ct. 265, 27 L.Ed.2d 281:

"No function is more essential to the separate and independent existence of the States and their governments than the power to determine within the limits of the Constitution the qualifications of their own voters for state, county, and municipal offices and the nature of their own machinery for filling local public offices. Pope v. Williams, 193 U.S. 621 24 S.Ct. 573, 48 L.Ed. 817 (1904); Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162 22 L.Ed. 627 (1875). Moreover, Art. I, § 2, is a clear indication that the Framers intended the States to determine the qualifications of their own voters for state offices, because those qualifications were adopted for federal offices unless Congress directs otherwise under Art. I, § 4. It is a plain fact of history that the Framers never imagined that the national Congress would set the qualifications for voters in every election from President to local constable or village alderman. It is obvious that the whole Constitution reserves to the States the power to set voter qualifications in state and local elections, except to the limited extent that the people through constitutional amendments have specifically narrowed the powers of the States."

Of course, State standards regulating the rights of voters in State and local elections are not immune from challenges that they offend federally protected rights. However, the Supreme Court has traditionally exercised restraint in reviewing State legislation creating classifications of voters in order to promote legitimate State interests. The general standard for reviewing State legislation challenged under the Equal Protection Clause is known as the "rational relation" test. The test was defined by Mr. Chief Justice Warren in McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 425, 81 S.Ct. 1101, 1105, 6 L.Ed.2d 393, 399 (1961) as follows:

"Although no precise formula has been developed, the Court has held that the Fourteenth Amendment permits the States a wide scope of discretion in enacting laws which affect some groups of citizens differently than others. The constitutional safeguard is offended only if the classification rests on grounds wholly irrelevant to the achievement of the State's objective. State legislatures are presumed to have acted within their constitutional power despite the fact that, in practice, their laws result in some inequality. A statutory discrimination will not be set aside if any state of facts reasonably may be conceived to justify it."

There is no federal constitutional right to vote in State and local elections, and for that reason the Court must test the constitutionality of the residency requirements by application of the "rational relation" test, as did the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio in Howe v. Brown, 319 F.Supp. 862, 866 (N.D.Ohio, 1970) in upholding the validity of Ohio's one year residency requirement:

"We find that the one-year residency requirement is not unreasonable, and that it is rationally related to promoting a legitimate state interest. Legitimate state interests that could be promoted by such a requirement are: ensuring that those who vote for state and local representatives are familiar with the political candidates and issues, by having been given maximum exposure to the problems of the locality through the media of local communication; preventing individuals, motivated only by a desire to affect the state's election results, from `moving' into the state shortly before the election is held, voting, and then returning to their foreign domicile; ensuring that the electors have genuine interests in community affairs. The lines drawn by the distinctions are not infallible, but they need not be, so long as they are rationally related to these interests. McGowan v. Maryland, supra."

Likewise, in Cocanower v. Marston, 318 F.Supp. 402 (D.Ariz.1970), a three-judge court held that Arizona's one year residency requirement for voting in State elections did not violate the Privileges and Immunities...