Mississippi State Democratic Party v. Barbour, Civil Action No. 4:06CV29-P-B.
| Decision Date | 08 June 2007 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 4:06CV29-P-B. |
| Citation | 491 F.Supp.2d 641 |
| Parties | MISSISSIPPI STATE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, and Mississippi State Democratic Party Executive Committee, Plaintiffs, v. Haley BARBOUR, Governor; Jim Hood, Attorney General; Eric Clark, Secretary of State, In their Official Capacities as Members of the Mississippi Board of Election Commissioners, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Mississippi |
Ellis Turnage, Attorney, Cleveland, MS, for Plaintiffs.
Harold Edward Pizzetta, III, Mississippi Attorney General's Office, Jackson, MS, for Defendants.
These matters come before the court upon the defendants' motion for summary judgment [30-1] and the plaintiffs' motions for judicial notice [34-1 and 35-1] and cross-motion for summary judgment [38-1]. After due consideration of the motions and the responses filed thereto, the court is prepared to rule.
On February 10, 2006 the plaintiffs filed their Complaint in which they seek a judgment declaring that Mississippi's primary elections statute, Miss.Code Ann. § 23-15-575, unconstitutionally infringes on the Mississippi Democratic Party and the Mississippi State Democratic Party Executive Committee's First Amendment right of association. More specifically, the plaintiffs seek a judgment (1) declaring Miss.Code Ann. § 23-15-575 (1972) unconstitutional; (2) declaring the Mississippi Attorney General's Hemphill Opinion, 2003 WL 356426 (Miss.A.G. January 16, 2003) inconsistent with U.S. Supreme Court's decision in California Democratic Party v. Jones, 530 U.S. 567, 572, 120 S.Ct. 2402, 147 L.Ed.2d 502 (2000); and (3) "declaring Mississippi's primary system unconstitutional to the extent that it places upon the general election ballot as the nominee of the Party for any office the name of an individual who has been selected through a voting system in which the Party has been deprived of the ability to limit participation in nominee selection to those the Party has determined should be included." Complaint, Prayer for Relief, ¶ 3.
In other words, the plaintiffs argue that the current primary system in Mississippi is unconstitutional because without party registration or any other way to enforce § 23-15-575, the Democrats have no mechanism to prevent non-Democrats from voting in their primaries thereby allowing the possibility of party-raiding — i.e., when dedicated members of one party vote in the primary of an opposing party in order to alter the outcome of the primary in favor of their own party's candidate in the resulting general election.
The plaintiffs also seek an injunction permanently restraining the State defendants from:
1. conducting any partisan primary without affording the Party reasonable opportunity in advance of that primary to exercise its rights to define participation in that primary;
2. conducting any partisan primary without implementing a reasonable mechanism for that primary to effectuate the Party's exercise of its right to limit participation in that primary and without providing a means for the Party to verify who participated in its primary and to be able to communicate with its supporters and members who identified themselves by participating in the primary with regard to Party issues, meetings and endorsements; and
3. encouraging or facilitating, directly or indirectly, party raiding by republican and independent voters in connection with any partisan primary except to the extent expressly authorized by the Party for that primary.
Complaint, Prayer for Relief, ¶ 4.
The complaint also states that the "Plaintiffs bring this action as a class action pursuant to Rule 23(a) and (b)(2), Fed.R.Civ.P., on behalf of a class defined as `all present and future citizens and registered voters who are members and supporter [sic] of the Mississippi State Democratic Party in the State of Mississippi.'" Complaint, ¶ 5. However, since no motion for class certification has ever been filed during the sixteen months after the filing of the Complaint, any such motion to certify a class is time-barred.
Four days after filing the Complaint, the plaintiffs moved for a preliminary injunction seeking a preliminary ruling granting the relief requested in the Complaint. On May 10, 2006 the court denied the motion for preliminary injunction, concluding that the plaintiffs failed to meet the exacting standards of a preliminary injunction requiring them to demonstrate (1) a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; (2) a substantial threat of irreparable injury if the injunction is not issued; (3) that the threatened injury outweighs any damage the injunction might cause to the non-movant; and (4) that the injunction will not disserve the public interest. Plains Cotton Co-op. Ass'n v. Goodpasture Computer Serv. Inc., 807 F.2d 1256, 1259 (5th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 821, 108 S.Ct. 80, 98 L.Ed.2d 42 (1987).
Significantly, the court disagreed with the plaintiffs' primary position in their motion for preliminary injunction that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision it California Democratic Party v. Jones necessarily invalidated Mississippi's primary elections statute. The primary system at issue in Jones was a blanket primary whereas Mississippi has a "semi-closed" or facially1 closed primary. Under the new system in California, "[a]ll persons entitled to vote, including those not affiliated with any political party, shall have the right to vote ... for any candidate regardless of the candidate's political affiliation." Jones, 530 U.S. at 569,120 S.Ct. 2402. "Whereas under the closed primary each voter received a ballot limited to candidates of his own party, as a result of Proposition 198 each voter's primary ballot now lists every candidate regardless of party affiliation and allows the voter to choose freely among them." Id. (emphasis added). Unlike the blanket primary in Jones, Miss. Code Ann. § 23-15-575 requires: "No person shall be eligible to participate in any primary election unless he intends to support the nominations made in the primary in which he participates." This language clearly limits participation in a primary to those who "intend" to support that party in the general election as opposed to allowing all voters to pick and choose among all primary candidates regardless of party.
On January 31, 2007 the defendants filed their motion for summary judgment. In their motion the defendants posit that the plaintiffs' claims should be dismissed with prejudice for the following essential reasons: (1) the parties, and not the State defendants, administer Mississippi's partisan primaries; (2) § 23-15-575 permits the Democratic Party to operate a semi-closed primary; (3) while asserting that § 23-15-575 violates the Party's right to exclude voters from its primary, the Party has yet to implement § 23-15-575; (4) the Democratic Party has no intention to operate a "closed primary" and is seeking an impermissible advisory opinion; (5) the Democratic Party's claims are not justiciable because the Democratic Party has no injury in fact and their claims are contingent upon future events and therefore not ripe for judicial intervention; (6) the Jones decision did not address nor prohibit the primary system used by Mississippi and other states; and (7) § 23-15-575 is a reasonable, nondiscriminatory regulation.
In response the plaintiff's filed a cross-motion for summary judgment, an itemization of undisputed facts, and two motions for the court to take judicial notice of certain factual findings in prior federal court decisions and historical facts regarding the history of voting in Mississippi.
In their cross-motion for summary judgment, the plaintiffs argue that their claims are justiciable because the plaintiffs have standing and the claims are ripe. The plaintiffs have standing, they argue, because, as the Mississippi Democratic Party and the State Democratic Executive Committee, they have no statutory authority to enforce the closed nature of § 23-15-275 given there is no party registration and no way to verify whether a prospective primary voter "intends" to support the same party in the primary and the general election. The plaintiffs argue that their claims are ripe because they involve the question of whether the current primary system in Mississippi violates the plaintiffs' associational rights given they have no means to enforce § 23-15-275 and this question affects past and future primaries. The plaintiffs ultimately argue that § 23-15-575 is unconstitutional because it infringes on their right to disassociate from non-Democrats who currently have the ability to vote in their party nomination process.
Summary judgment should be entered only if "[t]here is no genuine issue as to any material fact and ... the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). The party seeking summary judgment has the initial burden of demonstrating through the evidentiary materials that there is no actual dispute as to any material fact in the case. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986).
On motion for summary judgment, "[t]he inquiry performed is the threshold inquiry of determining whether there is a need for a trial — whether, in other words, there are any genuine factual issues that properly can be resolved only by a finder of fact because they may reasonably be resolved in favor of either party." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 250, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). In determining whether this burden has been met, the court should view the evidence introduced and all factual inferences from that evidence in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion. Id. Furthermore, "the plain language of Rule 56(c) mandates the entry of summary judgment,...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Parson v. Alcorn
...of each party who wins the greatest number of votes” becomes the nominee of that party.” Id.5 See Miss. State Democratic Party v. Barbour, 491 F.Supp.2d 641, 652–53 (N.D.Miss.2007) (noting that the “majority of states” hold closed primaries and characterizing Virginia's system as a “faciall......
-
McDaniel v. Cochran
...23–15–575. See Miss. State Democratic Party v. Barbour, 529 F.3d 538 (5th Cir.2008) ; Miss. State Democratic Party v. Barbour, 491 F.Supp.2d 641 (N.D.Miss.2007), overruled on other grounds by Barbour, 529 F.3d 538. Since that time, neither of the major political parties has sought to adopt ......