Libertarian Party of Va. v. Judd

• Decision Date: 29 May 2013
• Docket Number: No. 12–1996.,12–1996.
• Citation: 718 F.3d 308
• Parties: LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF VIRGINIA; Darryl Bonner, Plaintiffs–Appellees, v. Charles JUDD, in his official capacity as member of the Virginia State Board of Elections; Kimberly Bowers, in her official capacity as member of the Virginia State Board of Elections; Don Palmer, in his official capacity as member of the Virginia State Board of Elections, Defendants–Appellants. Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, Amicus Supporting Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

718 F.3d 308

LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF VIRGINIA; Darryl Bonner, Plaintiffs–Appellees,

v.Charles JUDD, in his official capacity as member of the Virginia State Board of Elections; Kimberly Bowers, in her official capacity as member of the Virginia State Board of Elections; Don Palmer, in his official capacity as member of the Virginia State Board of Elections, Defendants–Appellants.

Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, Amicus Supporting Appellees.

No. 12–1996.

United States Court of Appeals,Fourth Circuit.

Argued: March 20, 2013.

Decided: May 29, 2013.

Held Unconstitutional

West's V.C.A. § 24.2–543ARGUED:Earle Duncan Getchell, Jr., Office of the Attorney General of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellants. Rebecca Kim Glenberg, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees. ON BRIEF:Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II, Attorney General of Virginia, Michael H. Brady, Assistant Attorney General, Patricia L. West, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Wesley G. Russell, Jr., Deputy Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellants. J. Joshua Wheeler, The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Amicus Supporting Appellees.

Before KING, DIAZ, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge KING wrote the opinion, in which Judge DIAZ and Judge FLOYD joined.

OPINION

KING, Circuit Judge:

In the spring of 2012, the Libertarian Party of Virginia (the “LPVA”) began to circulate petitions throughout the Commonwealth in the hope of collecting enough signatures to place its national candidate for President of the United States on the ballot for the November general election. To achieve ballot access for its candidate, the LPVA was required to obtain the signatures of 10,000 qualified Virginia voters, with each of the Commonwealth's eleven congressional districts contributing at least 400 signatures toward the total. SeeVa.Code § 24.2–543.¹ In accordance with Virginia law, signatures on nominating petitions must be witnessed either by the candidate personally, or by a person who is a “resident of the Commonwealth and who is not a minor or a felon whose voting rights have not been restored” (the “witness residency requirement” or the “requirement”). Id.

On May 14, 2012, the LPVA, joined by Darryl Bonner, a Pennsylvania Libertarian and professional petition circulator (collectively, the “plaintiffs”), filed the underlying action in the Eastern District of Virginia, seeking injunctive and declaratory relief pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The plaintiffs' verified Complaint alleges that the witness residency requirement impermissibly burdens their rights to free speech and free association under the First Amendment, as made applicable to the Commonwealth by the Fourteenth Amendment. The named defendants are the three members of the Virginia State Board of Elections (collectively, the “Board”), sued in their official capacities as administrators of the Commonwealth's election laws.

The plaintiffs explain that the LPVA uses both paid professionals and unpaid volunteers to circulate nominating petitions and collect signatures. See Complaint ¶ 15.² Only two of those professionals are LPVA members, see id. ¶ 16, and are thus permitted, on the basis of their Virginia residency, to attest to the signatures they collect. In contrast, nonresident professionals like Bonner must work in tandem with a resident of Virginia, whose sole purpose is to function as a witness. While circulating petitions in Virginia for the Green Party during 2008, Bonner “found that being accompanied by a non-professional Virginia resident significantly slowed the process down and inhibited his ability to communicate effectively with potential signatories.” Id. ¶ 19.³

Consequently, according to the plaintiffs, the witness residency requirement “reduces the pool of circulators available,” thereby rendering it more difficult for LPVA members “to disseminate their political views, to choose the most effective means of conveying their message, to associate in a meaningful way with the prospective solicitors for the purpose of eliciting political change, to gain access to the ballot, and to utilize the endorsement of their candidate” with respect to signature-collecting efforts. Complaint ¶ 21. Bonner is likewise adversely affected, the plaintiffs maintain, in that the requirement “restrict[s] the nature of support he can offer candidates, restrict[s] the type of speech he can engage in[,] ... and restrict[s] his right to associate with the LPVA and with the candidates and voters of Virginia.” Id. ¶ 22. These deleterious effects cause the witness residency requirement to fail strict scrutiny analysis under the First Amendment, the plaintiffs say, because it “is not narrowly tailored to further a compelling government interest.” Id. ¶ 33.

The plaintiffs filed their Complaint about three months in advance of the deadline for the LPVA to submit signatures. In light of the time-sensitive nature of the dispute, the district court conducted a conference call with the parties on May 22, 2012, directing that discovery immediately commence and be completed within thirty days. The Board answered the Complaint on May 25, 2012, denying that the plaintiffs were entitled to redress. Following the close of discovery, on June 21, 2012, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, with the Board's motion premised entirely on its assertion that the plaintiffs have not suffered a legally cognizable injury and thus lack standing to sue.

On July 30, 2012, the district court issued a Memorandum Opinion in conjunction with a conforming Order, in which it denied the Board's motion as to standing and granted the plaintiffs' motion on the merits. The court therefore declared the witness residency requirement unconstitutional and permanently enjoined its enforcement.⁴

Subsequently, on August 13, 2012, the court denied the Board's motion to stay the Order pending appeal. The Board noticed this appeal the following day, and it moved us for a stay on August 24, 2012, the deadline for the LPVA to submit its petitions. Thereafter, on September 6, 2012, we denied the requested stay. The parties then proceeded to brief the issues identified for appeal, and they presented oral argument on March 20, 2013. Having now fully considered the submissions and arguments of the parties, we affirm in all respects the judgment of the district court.

I.

We review de novo the district court's disposition of the cross-motions for summary judgment, evaluating them seriatim. See Desmond v. PNGI Charles Town Gaming, L.L.C., 630 F.3d 351, 354 (4th Cir.2011). With respect to both motions, we are required to view the facts and all justifiable inferences arising therefrom in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, in order to determine whether “ ‘there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.’ ” Woollard v. Gallagher, 712 F.3d 865, 873 (4th Cir.2013) (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a)). A dispute is genuine if “a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.” Dulaney v. Packaging Corp. of Am., 673 F.3d 323, 330 (4th Cir.2012). A fact is material if it “ ‘might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law.’ ” Henry v. Purnell, 652 F.3d 524, 548 (4th Cir.2011) (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986)).

II.

We first examine the district court's ruling denying summary judgment to the Board, whose motion contended that the plaintiffs were bereft of standing to sue and, thus, that the court was without jurisdiction over the dispute. See Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env't, 523 U.S. 83, 94, 118 S.Ct. 1003, 140 L.Ed.2d 210 (1998) (“ ‘On every writ of error or appeal, the first and fundamental question is that of jurisdiction.’ ”) (quoting Great S. Fire Proof Hotel Co. v. Jones, 177 U.S. 449, 453, 20 S.Ct. 690, 44 L.Ed. 842 (1900)). Standing is part and parcel of the constitutional mandate that the judicial power of the United States extend only to “cases” and “controversies.” U.S. Const. art. III, § 2; see Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992) (“[T]he core component of standing is an essential and unchanging part of the case-or-controversy requirement of Article III.”).

Constitutional standing comprises three elements: (1) the plaintiff is required to have sustained an injury in fact; which (2) must be causally connected to the complained-of conduct undertaken by the defendant; and (3) will likely be redressed if the plaintiff prevails. See Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560–61, 112 S.Ct. 2130. The burden of establishing each element is on the plaintiff, which, in the context of this appeal, requires the “set[ting] forth by affidavit or other evidence specific facts, which for purposes of the summary judgment motion will be taken to be true.” Id. at 561, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). In challenging the district court's adverse ruling on its summary judgment motion, the Board maintains that neither the LPVA nor Bonner has sufficiently demonstrated the existence of a threshold injury in fact.

A.

The Board portrays the LPVA's First Amendment claim as grounded in the latter's anxiety that its resident petition circulators might become incapacitated such that it would be compelled to replace either or both—if at all—with nonresident circulators made less efficient by the witness residency requirement. See Complaint ¶ 16 (“In past campaigns, these two people have been responsible for collecting a significant number of the required signatures. If either of them were to take ill or otherwise become unavailable, the LPVA would be unlikely to be able to collect the required 10,000 signatures.”). Pointing out that the LPVA has...