Indep. Party of Fla. v. Sec'y, State of Fla.

• Decision Date: 03 August 2020
• Docket Number: No. 20-12107,20-12107
• Citation: 967 F.3d 1277
• Parties: INDEPENDENT PARTY OF FLORIDA, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. SECRETARY, STATE OF FLORIDA, In Her Official Capacity, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

967 F.3d 1277

INDEPENDENT PARTY OF FLORIDA, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.SECRETARY, STATE OF FLORIDA, In Her Official Capacity, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 20-12107

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

August 3, 2020

Daniel James Treuden, The Bernhoft Law Firm, SC, Austin, TX, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Ashley E. Davis, Bradley Robert McVay, Colleen E. O'Brien, Florida Department of State, Ashley Moody, Office of the Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, ROSENBAUM and LUCK, Circuit Judges.

WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge:

This appeal requires us to decide whether a Florida ballot-access law for presidential elections complies with the United States Constitution. Decades ago, we upheld a Florida law that required minor parties to submit a petition signed by three percent of registered voters to access the ballot in statewide elections. Libertarian Party of Fla. v. Florida , 710 F.2d 790, 792 (11th Cir. 1983). But Florida now makes it easier for minor parties to gain access to the ballot. Under current law, minor parties may access the presidential ballot either by satisfying a one -percent signature requirement or by affiliating with a qualified national party. Fla. Stat. § 103.021(4)(a)–(b). The Independent Party of Florida and the Party for Socialism and Liberation seek to place their presidential candidates on the ballot in Florida without satisfying either requirement. The district court denied their motion for a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of these requirements. We affirm because we conclude that the minor parties are unlikely to succeed on their claims that the ballot-access requirements unconstitutionally burden their First Amendment rights and deny them equal protection of the laws.

I. BACKGROUND

Florida offers minor political parties two ways to access the ballot in presidential elections. If a minor party affiliates with a national party that nominates candidates for President and Vice President at a national convention, the minor party may have those candidates listed on the ballot by sending the Department of State a certificate naming the candidates. Fla. Stat. § 103.021(4)(a). To qualify as a "national party," a party must successfully register as a national committee with the Federal Election Commission. Id. If a minor party does not affiliate with a qualified national party, its candidates for President and Vice President may appear on the ballot if the party submits a petition signed by one percent of registered voters in Florida. Id. § 103.021(4)(b).

This ballot-access regime has governed presidential elections in Florida since 2012. Ten minor parties accessed the ballot using the affiliation method in the 2012 election and four did so in 2016. Minor parties also accessed the ballot using a similar affiliation method between 2000 and 2008. It appears that no party has attempted to access the presidential ballot by the petition method since Florida first adopted an affiliation method in 1999. The last time minor-party presidential candidates accessed the ballot using the petition method was in 1996.

The Independent Party of Florida and the Party for Socialism and Liberation seek to place their presidential candidates on the ballot in the upcoming election. The Party for Socialism and Liberation has already chosen its candidate for President; the Independent Party of Florida is still in the selection process. Neither party affiliates with a qualified national party. And neither party has complied with the one-percent signature requirement, which they contend burdens their constitutional rights.

The minor parties filed a complaint against the Florida Secretary of State and moved for a preliminary injunction. They alleged that the one-percent signature requirement is an unconstitutional restriction on their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. See generally Anderson v. Celebrezze , 460 U.S. 780, 103 S.Ct. 1564, 75 L.Ed.2d 547 (1983) ; Burdick v. Takushi , 504 U.S. 428, 112 S.Ct. 2059, 119 L.Ed.2d 245 (1992). They also alleged that Florida violated the Equal Protection Clause by providing an alternative, easier method of ballot access for minor parties that affiliate with a national party.

The district court denied the motion for a preliminary injunction. It ruled that the parties had standing to challenge the ballot-access measures but that they were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their claims. The district court evaluated the claims using the balancing test employed in Anderson , 460 U.S. 780, 103 S.Ct. 1564, and Burdick , 504 U.S. 428, 112 S.Ct. 2059, which requires courts to weigh the burdens imposed by an election regulation against the state interests that justify the measure. It concluded that the ballot-access law does not impose a severe restriction on First and Fourteenth Amendment rights and that the State's interest in requiring minor parties to prove a modicum of state or national support before appearing on the ballot was sufficient to justify the law.

II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW

We review the denial of a preliminary injunction for abuse of discretion. Horton v. City of St. Augustine , 272 F.3d 1318, 1326 (11th Cir. 2001). We review any underlying legal conclusions de novo and any factual findings for clear error. Id.

III. DISCUSSION

We divide our discussion in two parts. We first explain that at least one of the minor parties has standing to challenge both ballot-access requirements. We then explain that the district court correctly denied the motion for a preliminary injunction because the parties are unlikely to succeed on the merits of their claims.

A. The Party for Socialism and Liberation Has Standing.

We must begin by ensuring that at least one plaintiff has standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge the ballot-access requirements. See Jacobson v. Fla. Sec'y of State , 957 F.3d 1193, 1201 (11th Cir. 2020). To have standing, a plaintiff must establish an injury in fact that is fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant and likely to be redressed by a favorable decision. Id. When a plaintiff seeks prospective relief to prevent a future injury, it must establish that the threatened injury is "certainly impending." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

The Party for Socialism and Liberation has standing. It has chosen its candidate for President and seeks to place that candidate on the ballot in the upcoming presidential election. The Secretary of State previously rejected the party's application for ballot access in the 2016 presidential election because it failed to comply with the statutory requirements, and the party has every reason to believe the Secretary will continue to enforce those requirements in the upcoming 2020 election.

The party will be injured if its candidate is denied access to the ballot. See Swanson v. Worley , 490 F.3d 894, 903 n.10 (11th Cir. 2007). That future injury is "certainly impending"—it will occur only months from now. And because the party has neither affiliated with a qualified national party nor complied with the one-percent signature requirement, its injury is fairly traceable to the challenged ballot-access provisions, both of which the Secretary enforces. Fla. Stat. §§ 20.10(1), 103.021(4)(a)–(b) ; see also Jacobson , 957 F.3d at 1211. Finally, its injury could be redressed by an injunction forbidding the Secretary to deny the party access to the ballot based on the challenged provisions. See Jacobson , 957 F.3d at 1208–09.

The Secretary contends that the reasoning of Bernbeck v. Gale , 829 F.3d 643 (8th Cir. 2016), supports that the minor parties lack standing, but we disagree. In Bernbeck a petition circulator alleged that he was injured by a signature-distribution requirement for voter initiatives because the requirement allegedly gave the signatures of voters in rural counties greater weight than other signatures. Id. at 647, 648 n.4. The Eighth Circuit held that the petition circulator lacked standing because he never attempted to collect or submit a single signature for the initiative at issue and had no immediate plans to do so in the future. Id. at 648 & n.3. Without any efforts or imminent plans to collect signatures, the petition circulator could not establish that any signatures were at imminent risk of being unequally valued under the signature-distribution requirement. Id. at 648 & n.4. Because the alleged injury in Bernbeck was not denial of access to the ballot but instead a failure to value all signatures equally, the decision is inapposite.

B. The District Court Correctly Denied a Preliminary Injunction.

To obtain a preliminary injunction, a party must establish that it is substantially likely to succeed on the merits; that it will suffer irreparable injury absent an injunction; that the threatened injury to the movant outweighs any harm the injunction would cause the opposing party; and that the injunction would not be adverse to the public interest. Swain v. Junior , 961 F.3d 1276, 1284–85 (11th Cir. 2020). We can begin and end with the first requirement. Because the minor parties failed to establish a substantial likelihood of success on their claims, the district court correctly denied their motion for a preliminary injunction.

In our Circuit, the balancing test of Anderson , 460 U.S. 780, 103 S.Ct. 1564, and Burdick , 504 U.S. 428, 112 S.Ct. 2059, "controls challenges to ballot access requirements." Green v. Mortham , 155 F.3d 1332, 1337 (11th Cir. 1998). This test applies whether a plaintiff challenges a ballot-access requirement under the First Amendment or the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Fulani v. Krivanek , 973 F.2d 1539, 1542–43 (11th Cir. 1992).

Under this framework, the level of scrutiny we apply to a ballot-access law depends on the severity of the burdens it imposes. Severe restrictions on ballot access must be narrowly tailored to advance a...