League of Women Voters v. Diamond, Civ. No. 96-0052-B.

• Decision Date: 08 April 1996
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 96-0052-B.
• Citation: 923 F. Supp. 266
• Parties: The LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. G. William DIAMOND, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maine

923 F. Supp. 266

The LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. G. William DIAMOND, et al., Defendants.

Civ. No. 96-0052-B.

United States District Court, D. Maine.

April 8, 1996.

Stephen E.F. Langsdorf, Preti, Flaherty, Beliveau & Pachios, August, Maine, David Soley, Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer & Nelson, Portland, Maine, for Plaintiffs.

Thomas D. Warren, Attorney Generals Office, Augusta, Maine, for Defendants.

John Hubbard Rich, III, Perkins Thompson, Hinckley & Keddy, Portland, Maine, for Governmental Reform.

Samuel W. Lanham, Jr., Cuddy & Lanham, Bangor, Maine, Stephen J. Safranek, Detroit, MI, for U.S. Term Limits, Inc.

ORDER DENYING PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION

BRODY, District Judge

Plaintiffs, the League of Women Voters, the Maine Council of Senior Citizens, two state legislators ("Legislator Plaintiffs"), and four voters ("Voter Plaintiffs"), seek preliminary injunctive relief to prevent Defendants G. William Diamond, Secretary of State of Maine and Andrew Ketterer, Attorney General of Maine, from enforcing the provisions of the Term Limitation Act of 1993, 21-A M.R.S.A. §§ 551-554 ("the Act").¹ For the reasons that follow, the Court denies Plaintiffs' Motion for Preliminary Injunction.

Background

In 1993, Maine voters overwhelmingly passed I.B. 1, an initiative bill to impose limits on the number of consecutive terms various state officials can serve, including state senators and representatives. Relevant to the challenge in this case, the Act limits state senators and state representatives to four consecutive terms. 21-A M.R.S.A. §§ 553(1)-(2). The Act became law in December 1993, and applies to nominations and ballots printed after January 1, 1996. 21-A M.R.S.A. § 554.

In addition to the League of Women Voters and the Maine Council of Senior Citizens, Plaintiffs in this case include both state representatives and registered voters. Plaintiff Herbert Adams has served in the Maine House of Representatives continuously since 1988, and Plaintiff Roger Pouliot has served in the Maine House continuously since 1982. The Legislator Plaintiffs have fulfilled all other eligibility requirements to appear on the ballot for the June 1996 primary election, but have been informed that pursuant to the Act, their names will not appear on the primary ballots.

Plaintiffs seek preliminary injunctive relief against enforcement of the Act, and seek ballot access for the Legislator Plaintiffs. Specifically, Plaintiffs allege that the Act violates both their federal constitutional rights and the Maine Constitution. Plaintiffs also argue that the Act does not apply to terms served prior to its effective date.

Preliminary Injunction

Disposition of a Motion for Preliminary Injunction depends on consideration of the following four factors: (1) the likelihood of the movant's success on the merits; (2) the potential for irreparable harm to the movant; (3) a balancing of the relevant equities, meaning the hardship to the non-movant upon issuance of the injunction against the hardship to the movant upon denial of the injunction; and (4) the effect on the public interest of a grant or denial of the injunction. Gately v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 2 F.3d 1221, 1224 (1st Cir.1993), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 114 S.Ct. 1832, 128 L.Ed.2d 461 (1994); Narragansett Indian Tribe v. Guilbert, 934 F.2d 4, 5 (1st Cir.1991). The first prong, however, is the indispensable requisite of the preliminary injunction. Gately, 2 F.3d at 1225. Thus, the thrust of the decision to grant preliminary injunctive relief boils down to a determination of whether the harm caused to the plaintiff without the injunction in light of the plaintiff's likelihood of success on the merits, outweighs the harm the injunction will cause the defendant. Id. (quoting United Steelworkers of America v. Textron, Inc., 836 F.2d 6, 7 (1st Cir.1987)).

A. Likelihood of Success on the Merits

Plaintiffs claim that the Act violates both the United States and Maine Constitutions. With respect to the Federal Constitution, Plaintiffs claim that the Act unconstitutionally impinges on their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of free speech and association. Under the Maine Constitution, Plaintiffs claim that by imposing additional qualifications on state office holders, the Act attempts to do by legislation what can lawfully be done only by constitutional amendment. Plaintiffs also argue that as written, the Act does not apply to terms served before its effective date. On all three issues the Court concludes that Plaintiffs fail to establish a likelihood of success on the merits.

1. Federal Constitutional Claims

The United States Supreme Court has not determined whether a limitation on the number of consecutive terms state legislators can serve violates either the legislators', voters' or political parties' rights of speech and association.² The Supreme Court has, however, provided a framework to guide the lower courts' constitutional evaluation of state election laws. See Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428, 434, 112 S.Ct. 2059, 2063-64, 119 L.Ed.2d 245 (1992); Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 789-90, 103 S.Ct. 1564, 1570-71, 75 L.Ed.2d 547 (1983). An examination of the Act in the context of that framework leads this Court to conclude that Plaintiffs fail to establish a likelihood of success on the merits sufficient to support a preliminary injunction.

In Anderson v. Celebrezze the Supreme Court faced a First and Fourteenth Amendment challenge to an Ohio filing deadline which had the effect of keeping independent candidates off the ballot. 460 U.S. 780, 792, 103 S.Ct. 1564, 1571-72, 75 L.Ed.2d 547 (1983). The Supreme Court acknowledged the tendency of all ballot access laws to limit the field of candidates available to voters, and stressed the need "to examine, in a realistic light the extent and nature of their impact on voters." Id. at 786, 103 S.Ct. at 1569. Accordingly, the Court set forth a test that requires courts to balance the magnitude of the asserted injury to a plaintiff's First and Fourteenth Amendment rights against the precise interests asserted by the state to justify the burden imposed by its rule. Id. at 789, 103 S.Ct. at 1570. With respect to the latter consideration, courts must determine both the legitimacy and strength of the state's asserted interests and the extent to which those interests make necessary the burden on the plaintiff's rights. Id.

In Burdick v. Takushi, the Supreme Court faced a voter challenge to a Hawaiian prohibition on write-in ballots. 504 U.S. at 430, 112 S.Ct. at 2061-62. The Court reiterated that the mere fact that a state's election system creates barriers tending to limit the field of candidates does not by itself compel strict scrutiny. Id. at 433, 112 S.Ct. at 2062-63 (quoting Bullock v. Carter, 405 U.S. 134, 143, 92 S.Ct. 849, 855-56, 31 L.Ed.2d 92 (1972)). The Court elaborated on the Anderson test, indicating that the rigor with which courts evaluate state election laws depends on the degree to which the challenged laws burden a plaintiff's rights. 504 U.S. at 434, 112 S.Ct. at 2063-64. When the election law subjects those rights to severe restrictions, the state must narrowly draw the law to advance a compelling interest. Id. When a state election law imposes only "reasonable, nondiscriminatory restrictions" on a plaintiff's First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, the state must assert only an important regulatory interest to justify its restriction. Id. (quoting Anderson, 460 U.S. at 788, 103 S.Ct. at 1569-70). In other words, Burdick essentially establishes that a severe restriction subjects the election law to strict scrutiny, while a reasonable, nondiscriminatory restriction subjects the law to the less rigorous Anderson analysis. See id.

The Burdick Court did not delineate where on the scale of restrictions an election law moves from reasonable to severe. A close reading of Burdick, however, in light of several of the Supreme Court's dispositions of state election law challenges, reveals two key indicators of when a restriction moves from legitimate to severe: whether the restriction is content based or content neutral, and the extent to which alternative routes to ballot access minimize the restriction on the plaintiff's rights. See 504 U.S. at 436-37, 438, 112 S.Ct. at 2064-65, 2066.

The content neutrality of the challenged election law provides one measure of the severity of the burden on a plaintiff's First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. See Burdick, 504 U.S. at 438, 112 S.Ct. at 2065-66. The Supreme Court has "repeatedly upheld reasonable, politically neutral regulations that have the effect of channeling expressive activity at the polls," because such regulations do not require voters to espouse positions they do not support. Id. Thus, in Burdick, for example, the Supreme Court concluded that "there is nothing content based about a flat ban on all forms of write-in ballots," and declined to subject the Hawaiian law to strict scrutiny. Id.

The existence of alternative mechanisms to ballot access may also measure the severity of the burden an election law imposes on a plaintiff's First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. See Burdick, 504 U.S. at 436-37, 112 S.Ct. at 2064-65. Although the Hawaiian write-in prohibition closed off one route to ballot access, the Burdick Court noted that the multitude of alternative mechanisms in the Hawaiian election system ensures easy access to the ballot. Id. at 436, 112 S.Ct. at 2064-65. Easy alternative access, in turn, minimized the burden the prohibition on write-in ballots imposed on the plaintiff's First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Id. at 437, 112 S.Ct. at 2065.

Burdick fails to describe precisely when state election laws shift from reasonable restrictions to severe burdens on First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, and thus does not clearly indicate when courts must subject election laws to strict scrutiny. In addition, neither Burdick, Anderson, nor...