Libertarian Party of Washington v. Munro

• Decision Date: 14 July 1994
• Docket Number: No. 92-36620,92-36620
• Citation: 31 F.3d 759
• Parties: The LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF WASHINGTON; Arthur Rathjen; Dan Blachly; Tom Isenberg, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Ralph MUNRO, Secretary of State for Washington State; Brian Sonntag, Auditor for Pierce County, Washington; Jane Haugh, Elections Manager, for King County, Washington, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 759

31 F.3d 759

The LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF WASHINGTON; Arthur Rathjen; Dan Blachly; Tom Isenberg, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Ralph MUNRO, Secretary of State for Washington State; Brian Sonntag, Auditor for Pierce County, Washington Jane Haugh, Elections Manager, for King County, Washington Defendants-Appellees.

No. 92-36620.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Jan. 6, 1994.

Decided July 14, 1994.

Richard Shepard, Tacoma, WA, for plaintiffs-appellants.

Jeffrey T. Even, Asst. Atty. Gen., Olympia, WA, Roger J. Miener, Office of Pros. Atty., Tacoma, WA, Quentin R. Yerxa, King County Pros. Attys. Office, Seattle, WA, for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington.

Before: CANBY, and T.G. NELSON, Circuit Judges and William B. Shubb ^*, District Judge.

CANBY, Circuit Judge:

The Libertarian Party of Washington appeals the district court's grant of summary judgement in its suit under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 and the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2201, challenging Washington state election procedures that effectively require minor party candidates to announce their candidacies four to five weeks earlier than major party candidates. Because the challenged procedures have a rational basis and impose only a de minimis burden on the Libertarians' constitutional rights, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

Washington state provides two methods for obtaining a place on its primary ballot, one for candidates from major parties, and one for all other candidates. A political party that fielded at least one candidate who won at least five percent of the vote in the preceding statewide election is defined as a major party. RCW Sec. 29.01.090. Major party candidates obtain a place on the ballot by filing a declaration of candidacy between the fourth Monday in July and the following Friday. RCW Secs. 29.15.010 et seq.

Parties that had no candidates who received at least five percent of the vote in the preceding statewide election are defined as minor parties. RCW Sec. 29.01.100. To get on the ballot, minor party candidates first must be nominated at a convention held no later than approximately four weeks before the deadline for filing declarations of candidacy. RCW Sec. 29.24.020. To nominate a candidate for statewide office, the party must obtain, at the convention, petitions signed by at least 200 registered voters; for other offices, the party must obtain petitions signed by at least 25 voters registered to vote in the district for which the nominations are made. RCW Sec. 29.24.030. Certificates of nomination, containing the name of each candidate, along with the petitions containing the required signatures, must be forwarded to the Secretary of State no later than one week after the convention. RCW Sec. 29.24.040. ¹ The Secretary is responsible for verifying the petition signatures and other aspects of the certificates of nomination. RCW Sec. 29.24.060. If the certificates and signatures are in order, minor party candidates may proceed to file declarations of candidacy during the same week as major party candidates. RCW Sec. 29.24.070.

After the filing deadline, major parties have a second opportunity to place candidates on the ballot. On the Friday after the last day for candidates to file declarations of candidacy, major parties are permitted to fill vacancies caused by the failure of any candidates to file for a particular office on their ticket. See RCW Sec. 29.18.150. Minor parties have no similar opportunity. ²

The effect of this bifurcated procedure is that minor party candidates must announce their candidacies during a nominating convention approximately four weeks before major party candidates must announce (when they file declarations of candidacy), and approximately five weeks before the major parties' last opportunity to place candidates on the ballot by filling vacancies. The Libertarians contend that these differences violate their rights to free speech, freedom of association, and equal protection under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

DISCUSSION

We review de novo a district court's grant of summary judgment. Lightfoot v. Eu, 964 F.2d 865, 869 (9th Cir.1992). In evaluating the constitutionality of the ballot access regulations the Libertarians challenge, we must weigh the degree to which the regulations burden their exercise of constitutional rights against the state interests the regulations promote. Burdick v. Takushi, --- U.S. ----, ----, 112 S.Ct. 2059, 2063, 119 L.Ed.2d 245 (1992). If the burden is severe, the challenged procedures will pass muster only if they are narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling state interest. Id. If the burden is slight, the procedures will survive review as long as they have a rational basis. See id. at ---- - ----, 112 S.Ct. at 2063-64.

I: The Early Convention Requirement

The Libertarians argue that Washington's election schedule, which forces them to announce their candidacies a few weeks earlier than major party candidates, makes it substantially more difficult for them to obtain a place on the primary ballot than it is for major party candidates. ³ To the extent that this allegation is true, there is no dispute that such a burden implicates the Libertarians' rights. See Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 786-88, 103 S.Ct. 1564, 1568-69, 75 L.Ed.2d 547 (1983). The issue is the severity of the handicap.

A

In determining the nature and magnitude of the burden that Washington's election procedures impose on the Libertarians we must examine the entire scheme regulating ballot access. See Mandel v. Bradley, 432 U.S. 173, 177-78, 97 S.Ct. 2238, 2241, 53 L.Ed.2d 199 (1977) (per curium). The question is whether "reasonably diligent" minor party candidates can normally gain a place on the ballot, or if instead they only rarely will succeed. Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724, 742, 94 S.Ct. 1274, 1285, 39 L.Ed.2d 714 (1974). The Libertarians have the initial burden of showing that Washington's ballot access requirements seriously restrict the availability of political opportunity. American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U.S. 767, 781, 94 S.Ct. 1296, 1306, 39 L.Ed.2d 744 (1974).

In this regard, the Libertarians are short on specifics, relying primarily on a strained analogy between Washington's ballot access procedures and the laws at issue in Anderson v. Celebrezze. Anderson involved a challenge to Ohio laws requiring independent candidates to file petitions signed by at least 5,000 voters five months before major parties chose their candidates, and nearly eight months before the general election. See 460 U.S. at 782-83, 103 S.Ct. at 1566. In overturning those requirements, the Court concluded that:

An early filing deadline may have a substantial impact on independent-minded voters. In election campaigns, particularly those which are national in scope, the candidates and the issues simply do not remain static over time. Various candidates rise and fall in popularity; domestic and international developments bring new issues to center stage and may affect voters' assessments of national problems. Such developments will certainly affect the strategies of candidates who have already entered the race; they may also create opportunities for new candidacies. Yet Ohio's filing deadline prevents persons who wish to be independent candidates from entering the significant political arena established in the State by a Presidential election campaign--and creating new political coalitions of Ohio voters--at any time after mid to late March.

Id. at 790, 103 S.Ct. at 1570-71 (citations and footnote omitted). The Court also found that Ohio's early filing made it difficult for independent candidates to gather the required 5,000 signatures because of voter apathy and the difficulty in attracting media coverage at such an early date, because of adverse winter weather during the time signatures had to be collected, and because the real issues in the campaign remained unclear when campaigning for the primary elections had not yet begun. Id. at 792, 103 S.Ct. at 1571, citing Bradley v. Mandel, 449 F.Supp. 983, 986 (D.Md.1978).

Taking their cue from Anderson, the Libertarians contend that by being forced to declare their candidacies approximately one month before major party candidates, they lose the opportunity to respond to changes in the political landscape and thus to garner support from voters who may be dissatisfied with the major parties' positions. The problem with this argument is that, while the Libertarians claim to suffer exactly the same disabilities that the Court found unconstitutional in Anderson, their situation is vastly different.

First, minor party candidates in Washington are required to announce barely more than a month before major party candidates, not five months earlier. While it is easy to see how issues and events arising between a late winter filing deadline and a general election the following November might dramatically affect opportunities for candidacy in a national presidential race, it is far less likely that significant new opportunities might develop in state and local races during the thirty-day interval challenged by the Libertarians.

Second, the difficulty of obtaining 5,000 signatures in the dead of winter in Ohio, five months before major party nominating conventions and eight months before the general election, is readily apparent. The Libertarians' task of obtaining 25 or 200 signatures in the late spring roughly 30 days before the major party filing deadline and approximately 75 days before the election pales by comparison. Cf., McLain v. Meier, 851 F.2d 1045, 1051 (8th Cir.1988) (approving scheme requiring 7,000 signatures 55 days before primary); Dr. John Hagelin for President Committee of Kansas v. Graves, 804 F.Supp 1377, 1383 (D.Kan.1992) (approving scheme requiring 5,000 signatures 91 days before election).

Finally, unlike Anderson...