Laroque v. Holder

• Decision Date: 08 July 2011
• Docket Number: No. 10–5433.,10–5433.
• Citation: 650 F.3d 777,397 U.S.App.D.C. 93
• Parties: Stephen LaROQUE, et al., Appellantsv.Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., Attorney General of the United States, et al., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

650 F.3d 777

397 U.S.App.D.C. 93

Stephen LaROQUE, et al., Appellants

v.Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., Attorney General of the United States, et al., Appellees.

No. 10–5433.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued May 6, 2011.Decided July 8, 2011.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 1:10–cv–00561).Hashim M. Mooppan argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs were Michael A. Carvin, Noel J. Francisco, and Michael E. Rosman.Linda F. Thome, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Samuel R. Bagenstos, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and Diana K. Flynn, Attorney. James C. Kilbourne, Attorney, entered an appearance.J. Gerald Hebert and Arthur Barry Spitzer were on the brief for intervenors-appellees.Before: ROGERS, TATEL, and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges.Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.TATEL, Circuit Judge:

The citizens of Kinston, North Carolina, approved a referendum switching city elections from partisan to nonpartisan. Because Kinston lies in a jurisdiction covered by section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the city council had no authority to implement the referendum until precleared by federal authorities, and preclearance has not occurred. A candidate for public office claiming a state-law entitlement to run under the suspended nonpartisan system, together with other plaintiffs, filed suit seeking to enjoin the Attorney General from enforcing section 5 against Kinston. Count one of plaintiffs' complaint contends that section 5, as reauthorized in 2006, exceeds Congress's Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment enforcement powers. Count two contends that amendments made to section 5 in 2006 erect a facially unconstitutional racial-preference scheme. The district court dismissed both counts for lack of standing and a cause of action. Concluding that one of the plaintiffs—the candidate for public office—has both standing and a cause of action to pursue count one, we reverse and remand for the district court to consider the merits of that claim. Because plaintiffs' standing with respect to count two raises complex questions unaddressed by the district court and the parties' briefs, we vacate the district court's dismissal of that claim and remand for further consideration consistent with this opinion.

I.

“Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for the broad remedial purpose of ‘rid[ding] the country of racial discrimination in voting.’ ” Chisom v. Roemer, 501 U.S. 380, 403, 111 S.Ct. 2354, 115 L.Ed.2d 348 (1991) (alteration in original) (quoting South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 315, 86 S.Ct. 803, 15 L.Ed.2d 769 (1966)). Section 5, the provision at issue in this case, prohibits “covered jurisdictions”—those with histories of engaging in such discrimination—from implementing any change in “any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting” without first obtaining approval from federal authorities. 42 U.S.C. § 1973c(a); see also id. § 1973b(b) (setting forth the standards for determining which jurisdictions shall be subject to section 5). Commonly referred to as “preclearance,” such approval may be obtained in two ways. First, the covered jurisdiction may seek a declaratory judgment from a three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia that the voting change “neither has the purpose nor will have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color.” Id. § 1973c(a). Second, the jurisdiction may submit the proposed change for review by the United States Attorney General under the same purpose-or-effect test. Id.; see also 28 C.F.R. § 51.52(a). If the Attorney General fails to object within sixty days, section 5's preemptive effect ends, and the jurisdiction may implement the change. 42 U.S.C. § 1973c(a). If the Attorney General objects, the jurisdiction retains the option of seeking preclearance from a three-judge district court, but section 5 prohibits the jurisdiction from implementing the change until it obtains a judgment from the court that the preclearance requirements are satisfied. Id.; see also Morris v. Gressette, 432 U.S. 491, 505 n. 21, 97 S.Ct. 2411, 53 L.Ed.2d 506 (1977).

Originally “expected to be in effect for only five years,” section 5 was “reauthorized ... in 1970 (for 5 years), 1975 (for 7 years), and 1982 (for 25 years).” Nw. Austin Mun. Util. Dist. No. One v. Holder, 557 U.S. 193, 129 S.Ct. 2504, 2510, 174 L.Ed.2d 140 (2009). The Supreme Court upheld section 5's original enactment and those three reauthorizations as permissible exercises of Congress's Fifteenth Amendment enforcement power. See Katzenbach, 383 U.S. at 334–35, 86 S.Ct. 803; see also Nw. Austin, 129 S.Ct. at 2510. The Court, however, has yet to rule on the constitutionality of Congress's most recent extension, this one enacted in 2006. See Nw. Austin, 129 S.Ct. at 2511–13; see also Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006, Pub.L. No. 109–246, § 4, 120 Stat. 577, 580 (reauthorizing section 5 for twenty-five years).

The primary issue in this lawsuit is whether certain private parties have standing to challenge the 2006 reauthorization. To satisfy the minimum standing requirements implicit in Article III's limitation of the federal judicial power to actual “Cases” and “Controversies,” U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, plaintiffs must establish “an ‘injury in fact’—an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical,” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992) (internal footnote, citations, and quotation marks omitted). Furthermore, this “injury must be fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant, and likely to be redressed by a favorable decision.” Ord v. District of Columbia, 587 F.3d 1136, 1140 (D.C.Cir.2009) (internal quotation marks omitted).

In addition to these minimum constitutional requirements, courts have recognized prudential limitations on standing not strictly compelled by the Constitution's text. Most important for our purposes, the Supreme Court has held that “even when the plaintiff has alleged injury sufficient to meet the ‘case or controversy’ requirement, ... [he] generally must assert his own legal rights and interests, and cannot rest his claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third parties.” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 499, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975). This prudential limitation is meant to avoid “the adjudication of rights which those not before the Court may not wish to assert” and to ensure “that the most effective advocate of the rights at issue is present to champion them.” Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Envtl. Study Grp., Inc., 438 U.S. 59, 80, 98 S.Ct. 2620, 57 L.Ed.2d 595 (1978).

With this legal background in mind, we turn to the facts of the case before us. In a November 2008 referendum, the residents of Kinston, North Carolina, voted by an almost two-to-one margin to switch from partisan to nonpartisan elections for mayor and city council. Absent section 5, Kinston's city council would have had a duty under North Carolina law to amend the city's charter to implement the referendum. See N.C. Gen.Stat. §§ 160A–104, –108. But since Kinston lies in Lenoir County, a covered jurisdiction, it may not implement the referendum until precleared by federal authorities.

Pursuant to section 5, Kinston submitted the referendum to the Attorney General, who, through the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, objected to the referendum in an August 17, 2009, letter. Letter from Loretta King, Acting Assistant Att'y Gen., U.S. Dep't of Justice, Civil Rights Div., to James P. Cauley III, Kinston City Att'y (Aug. 17, 2009) (included at J.A. 42–44). Although not contending that the referendum was infected by a discriminatory purpose, the Division concluded that Kinston had failed to satisfy its burden of proving that the move to nonpartisan elections would have no retrogressive effect on the ability of black voters to elect their preferred candidates. See Beer v. United States, 425 U.S. 130, 141, 96 S.Ct. 1357, 47 L.Ed.2d 629 (1976) (“[T]he purpose of [section] 5 has always been to insure that no voting-procedure changes would be made that would lead to a retrogression in the position of racial minorities with respect to their effective exercise of the electoral franchise.”). The Division emphasized that although approximately 65% of Kinston's registered voters are black, “[b]lack voters have had limited success in electing candidates of choice during recent municipal elections.” Letter from Loretta King to James P. Cauley III, supra, at 1–2. According to the Division, “[t]he success that [black voters] have achieved has resulted from cohesive support for candidates during the Democratic primary (where black voters represent a larger percentage of the electorate), combined with crossover voting by whites in the general election.” Id. at 2. The Division was concerned that moving to nonpartisan elections would cause black Democratic candidates to lose support from the small number of white voters who out of party loyalty have bucked the racially polarized voting characteristic of Kinston elections. Id. It also noted that black candidates would likely lose campaign support and other assistance from the Democratic party if the city moved to nonpartisan elections. Id. As a result, the Division concluded, “[r]emoving the partisan cue in municipal elections [would], in all likelihood, eliminate the single factor that allows black candidates to be elected to office.” Id.

After the city council voted against seeking de novo review of the...