Hopfmann v. Connolly, 84-1317
| Decision Date | 31 July 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 84-1317,84-1317 |
| Citation | 769 F.2d 24 |
| Parties | Alwin E. HOPFMANN, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Michael Joseph CONNOLLY, et al., Defendants, Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
Lawrence J. Ball, Boston, Mass., and Laurence Elgin, Washington, D.C., on brief for plaintiffs, appellants.
Francis X. Bellotti, Atty. Gen. and Alexander G. Gray, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Chief, Elections Div., Boston, Mass., on brief, for defendants, appellees, Michael Joseph Connolly, Secretary of State and Francis X. Bellotti, Atty. Gen.
James Roosevelt, Jr., James H. Wexler, Keith C. Long, and Herrick & Smith, Boston, Mass., on brief, for defendants, appellees, Chester G. Atkins and The Democratic State Committee of Mass.
Before CAMPBELL, Chief Judge, COWEN, * Senior Circuit Judge, and BOWNES, Circuit Judge.
In Hopfmann v. Connolly, --- U.S. ----, 105 S.Ct. 2106, 85 L.Ed.2d 469 (1985), the United States Supreme Court vacated in part and remanded our decision, which is reported in 746 F.2d 97 (1st Cir.1984). In that decision, we had held that the enforcement by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts of its Democratic Party's so-called "15 percent rule," which limits ballot access in the state primary to candidates who receive 15 percent or more of the vote in the party's convention, did not violate the United States Constitution. In rejecting one of appellants' contentions, that the rule violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, we relied on the Supreme Court's summary dismissal of an earlier appeal from a decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Langone v. Connolly, 460 U.S. 1057, 103 S.Ct. 1510, 75 L.Ed.2d 938 (1983). The Supreme Court vacated our decision to the extent that we relied on its summary dismissal in Langone, and held that this dismissal had no precedential effect.
Therefore, the sole question before us on remand is whether the enforcement by Massachusetts of its Democratic Party's 15 percent rule, which denied appellant Hopfmann access to the ballot in the 1982 Democratic primary for U.S. Senator, violated the First or Fourteenth Amendments. Appellants contend that the state's enforcement of this rule violates their rights to freedom of association and equal protection guaranteed by these amendments. As we understand their brief, they do not maintain as the plaintiffs in the Langone case apparently argued before the Massachusetts courts, that Massachusetts statutes per se bar the state from enforcing the 15 percent rule. 1
Moreover, even if such a contention were before us, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has construed the state's statutory ballot access requirements in Langone to encompass, rather than to exclude, the Democratic Party's 15 percent rule.
For the purpose of evaluating the plaintiffs' claims that the 15% rule violated rights guaranteed to them by the Federal and State Constitutions, we treat the rule as though it were expressly contained in G.L. c. 53.
Langone v. Secretary of the Commonwealth, 388 Mass. 185, 195; 446 N.E.2d 43, 48 (1983). We are bound to follow this interpretation of state law by the state's highest court, absent extreme circumstances not present in this case. Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 691, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 1886, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975).
A challenge to the validity of the 15 percent rule on First and Fourteenth Amendment grounds was also exhaustively refuted by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in Langone, 446 N.E.2d at 48-51. Like the district court below, we agree with the analysis of this issue by the Massachusetts court, and do not consider it necessary to repeat that court's discussion at length. Both the rationale and the result reached in Langone are amply supported by the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, which are cited therein. It suffices to say that the 15 percent rule's infringement of appellants' rights to associate and express political ideas, as well as their right to equal protection of the laws, is not substantial. For example, the rule...
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...43 (Mass.1983), appeal dismissed sub. nom. Bellotti v. Connolly, 460 U.S. 1057, 103 S.Ct. 1510, 75 L.Ed.2d 938 (1983); Hopfmann v. Connolly, 769 F.2d 24 (1st Cir.), cert, den. 479 U.S. 1023, 107 S.Ct. 863, 93 L.Ed.2d 819 (1987). The lack of discrimination and any preclusion of candidates ci......
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...and assuring that the winner is the choice of a majority, or at least a large plurality, of those voting. See Hopfmann v. Connolly, 769 F.2d 24, 25 (1st Cir.1985) (quoting Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724, 732, 94 S.Ct. 1274, 39 L.Ed.2d 714 (1974)). Thus, the Plaintiffs' equal protection claim......