Libertarian Party of Ky. v. Grimes, Civil No. 3:15-cv-00086-GFVT
| Decision Date | 08 July 2016 |
| Docket Number | Civil No. 3:15-cv-00086-GFVT |
| Parties | THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF KENTUCKY, et al., Plaintiffs, v. ALISON LUNDERGAN GRIMES, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Kentucky |
The Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party are active political associations in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and throughout the United States. Considered "political groups" under Kentucky's three-tiered election law scheme, the two associations do not presently enjoy the same ballot access rights and privileges as the more dominant Republican and Democratic Parties. As explained below, there is a mechanism for third parties in Kentucky to gain general access to the ballot. Significantly, this method is not so exclusive that the Constitution demands the choice of the Kentucky legislature be voided. Accordingly, the Court DENIES the Plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment but GRANTS summary judgment in favor of the Defendants.
Political parties have been a part of the American governmental process almost since this country's conception. Though our first President vehemently warned against the dangers of developing a party system,1 James Madison's supposition that "the causes of faction cannot beremoved; and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects" has proven true. See THE FEDERALIST NO. 10 (James Madison). The nation's first party, the Federalist Party, emerged around 1787, with the ideologically opposed Democratic-Republican Party soon to follow. From those early days until the present time, the United States has operated primarily as a two-party system, with the Democratic Party and the Republican Party currently dominant.
Nevertheless, a variety of minor, or "third," parties have played an important role in the nation's history and have contributed greatly to its richness. These include historic and present associations such as the Free Soil Party, the Know-Nothing Party, the Progressive Party, the Reform Party, the Green Party, and the two Plaintiffs. See, e.g., THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THIRD PARTIES IN AMERICA (Immanuel Ness & James Ciment, eds., 2000). In fact, one of the nation's current major parties has its roots as a third party. The Republican Party successfully displaced one of the existing major parties around the turn of the nineteenth century, and it has been one of the country's leading political groups ever since. See GRAND NEW PARTY, https://www.gop.com/history/ (last visited May 24, 2016); see also Nader v. Keith, 385 F.3d 729, 732 (7th Cir. 2004) ().
Regardless of the size or the political dominance of such a group, the right to associate for the advancement of political ideas has been a crucial part of the nation's framework since the passage of the Bill of Rights. U.S. CONST. amend. I ("Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble."); Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23, 30 (1968); Tashijian v. Republican Party of Conn., 479 U.S. 208, 224 (1986) (). The First Amendment, made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, protects both the right to associateand the right to vote effectively as two of the nation's most sacred freedoms. Williams, 393 U.S. at 30. As the Supreme Court has explained, "[n]o right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live." Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 17 (1964).
The Constitution delegates the responsibility of carrying out elections to the states, subject to congressional oversight. See U.S. CONST. art. I, § 4, cl. 1. As a result, state legislatures are the primary source of laws regulating local, state, and national elections, and each state has largely developed its own ballot access structure. See Dmitri Evseev, A Second Look at Third Parties: Correcting the Supreme Court's Understanding of Elections, 85 B.U. L. REV. 1277, 1282 (Dec. 2005). While the Constitution undoubtedly protects the rights of citizens to associate in political parties, the Supreme Court has determined that states may enact reasonable regulations to help carry out elections and reduce related fraud. Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party, 520 U.S. 351, 358 (1997); Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724, 730 (1974) (). It logically follows, therefore, that the judicial branch has at times been called upon to consider the election laws of state legislatures and to ensure those laws do not infringe upon important constitutional freedoms.
The present lawsuit involves such a challenge. Both the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party believe the Commonwealth of Kentucky's ballot access scheme abridges their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The two minor parties are allowed to participate in the political process in the Commonwealth pursuant to certain criteria outlined below, and they argue those criteria unduly interfere with their right to freely associate and to the equal protectionof the law. The Plaintiffs have launched both an as-applied and facial challenge to the Commonwealth's two percent requirement, arguing the law is unconstitutional "as applied to multiple candidates and petitions, and the ability, or lack thereof, of a 'Political Group' to elevate themselves to a 'Political Organization.'" [R. 37 at 1-2, 14; see also R. 1 at 13-14.] The question before the Court is simple: does the Kentucky General Assembly's chosen ballot access scheme comport with the guarantees of the Constitution? The short answer is "yes;" a more complete explanation as to why this is so follows.
The Plaintiffs in this case—the Libertarian Party of Kentucky, the Constitution Party of Kentucky, and individual members of both parties—are currently allowed to participate in the political process according to the following framework. Pursuant to Kentucky state law, every political association is classified as either a political party, a political organization, or a political group. A political party is an organization whose candidate received at least twenty percent of the total vote cast in the last preceding presidential election. KRS § 118.015(1). Based on the 2012 presidential election, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are considered political parties under Kentucky law. [See R. 31-1 at 4.]
The second classification, a political organization, applies to an association whose candidate received at least two percent or more of the vote in the last preceding presidential election. KRS § 118.015(8). For example, Ross Perot of the Reform Party received more than two percent of the vote in the 1996 presidential election; therefore, the Reform Party was classified as a political organization for the following four-year term. [See R. 1 at 9.]
An association that fails to qualify as a political party or a political organization is considered a political group under Kentucky law. KRS § 118.015(9). The Libertarian Party of Kentucky and the Constitution Party of Kentucky, having failed to obtain at least two, or twenty, percent of the vote in the 2012 presidential election, are currently classified as political groups.
All three classifications of political associations are afforded ballot access in Kentucky, though they qualify for the ballot in different ways. Political parties and political organizations earn general ballot access for the four-year period following a qualifying presidential election. KRS § 118.305(1)(a)-(d). Thus, a candidate of a political party or a political organization obtains ballot access by virtue of being his or her association's nominee. By contrast, political groups earn ballot access through petitioning. A candidate running on behalf of a political group—or an independent candidate running apart from any political association—must submit a petition containing a requisite number of signatures before the candidate will be added to a particular ballot. KRS § 118.315(2). The signature requirement varies by office. For example, a candidate running for President of the United States or Governor of the Commonwealth must collect the signatures of five thousand petitioners. Id. A candidate running for any congressional office must collect four hundred signatures, and a candidate for the state's General Assembly must collect one hundred signatures. Id.
The Plaintiffs concede the petition requirement for a single candidate in a single election cycle is an acceptable rule [see, e.g., R. 37 at 4-5], and, indeed, this is not a case where the Plaintiffs have been denied access to the ballot altogether. Instead, the Plaintiffs' chief concern is with their parties' rights and privileges as a whole. The Plaintiffs are political groups who failed to obtain at least two percent of the vote in the 2012 presidential election but who nonetheless argue that they enjoy a significant modicum of support among Kentucky voters.They desire the same rights and privileges as political organizations and political parties—namely, they seek the general ballot access afforded to associations obtaining either two or twenty percent of the vote in a presidential race. As the law stands, the Plaintiffs must petition for ballot access in every race until the next presidential election, when they may once again attempt to obtain the requisite percentage of the vote and thus achieve the rights that come with political organization or political party classification under Kentucky law.
This scheme, the Plaintiffs argue, is...
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