Socialist Workers Party v. Leahy

Decision Date07 July 1998
Docket NumberNo. 97-4295,97-4295
Citation145 F.3d 1240
Parties11 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 1566 SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. David LEAHY, Supervisor of Elections, Dade County, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Randall C. Berg, Jr., Peter M. Siegel, Florida Justice Institute, Inc., Miami, FL, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

George L. Waas, Tallahassee, FL, William X. Candela, Miami, FL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Before ANDERSON, CARNES and MARCUS, Circuit Judges.

MARCUS, Circuit Judge:

This appeal arises out of plaintiff-appellants Socialist Workers Party ("SWP") and the Florida Green Party's ("FGP") challenge to the constitutionality of Section 103.121(3), Fla. Stat., a provision of Florida's election laws that requires the chairs and treasurers of political parties in Florida to file certain bonds. Because defendant-appellees Secretary of State Sandra Mortham and Florida's sixty-seven county supervisors of elections disavowed any authority to enforce the challenged statute and retracted prior enforcement efforts, the district court found the matter to be non-justiciable, granted defendant-appellees' motion for summary judgment, and denied SWP and FGP's motion for reconsideration. Since we find that the Secretary of State has on multiple occasions in the past threatened to enforce the bonding requirement against SWP and FGP, and that the Secretary of State continues to present a credible threat of future enforcement, we reverse the district court's entry of summary judgment in favor of defendant-appellee Secretary of State Mortham, and remand the case for proceedings on the merits of plaintiff-appellants' case against the Secretary of State. However, because we can find no basis for any of the county supervisors of elections to enforce the bonding requirement against plaintiff-appellants, we affirm the district court's entry of summary judgment in favor of the sixty-seven county supervisors of elections.

I.

The Secretary of State of Florida acts as the "chief election officer of the state" and bears the responsibility for the "general supervision and administration of the election laws...." Sections 97.012 & 15.13, Fla. Stat. Among her many responsibilities, the Secretary of State supervises the Director of the Division of Elections. She also administers the mechanism through which a group of individuals may register with the state of Florida as a "minor political party." 1 Along with other benefits, minor political parties are entitled to run qualifying candidates for elected office and to identify these candidates on election ballots as members of their parties.

Plaintiff-Appellants SWP and FGP are registered minor political parties in the state of Florida. The relevant facts begin when, on April 21, 1992, then Director of the Division of Elections Dorothy Joyce sent plaintiff-appellants a letter stating, in relevant part:

... Section 103.121(3) Florida Statutes, provides that the chairman and treasurer of an executive committee of any political party must provide adequate bond, not less than $10,000 to be filed with the Department of State.

Upon reviewing the statute, SWP and FGP became aware that Section 103.121(3) 2 additionally requires the chair and treasurer of each of its county executive committees to file a bond of at least $5,000 with the county supervisors of elections. Because SWP and FGP lacked the financial resources to pay the costs associated with posting the required bonds, it sought an advisory opinion from the Secretary of State concerning whether SWP and FGP could obtain a waiver of the bonding requirement. 3 On behalf of Jim Smith, then the Secretary of State, Assistant General Counsel Michael T. Cochran responded,

...

The answer ... is no.

Neither the Department of State, the Division of Elections, nor local filing officers, have authority to waive the bonding requirement....

....

Upon receiving the Secretary of State's advisory opinion, SWP and FGP filed this lawsuit against the Secretary of State and the sixty-seven county supervisors of elections, alleging that Section 103.121(3) violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.

Plaintiff-appellants initially sought a temporary restraining order ("TRO") and preliminary injunction barring application of the statute against them. When the district court denied the TRO and deferred ruling on the preliminary injunction, SWP and FGP appealed, contending that the district court's denial of the TRO was tantamount to a denial of their motion for preliminary injunction. We denied plaintiff-appellants' interlocutory appeal, and SWP and FGP dismissed the appeal so the mandate would issue.

On remand, the district court certified a defendant class consisting of all sixty-seven Florida county supervisors of elections. Additionally, it certified defendant-appellee David Leahy, the Supervisor of Elections for Dade County, as the defendant class representative. The parties engaged in discovery. In the course of her deposition, Joyce testified on behalf of the Secretary of State that the Secretary of State had no authority to enforce the bonding requirements of Section 103.121(3) and that the Secretary did not intend to apply the statute. Based on this evidence, as well as the fact that, in the district court's view, the Secretary of State had not attempted to enforce the bonding requirement against SWP and FGP, the district court concluded that plaintiff-appellants had failed to demonstrate an actual "case or controversy" as required by Article III of the Constitution. Consequently, on May 24, 1996, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of defendant-appellees and against plaintiff-appellants. SWP and FGP moved for reconsideration.

While their motion was pending and less than one month after the district court ruled that no case or controversy existed, on June 20, 1996, David Rancourt, 4 Joyce's successor as Director of the Division of Elections, sent plaintiff-appellants, as well as all other political parties that had not submitted evidence of complying with the bonding requirement, a letter by certified mail that stated:

A review of our records reflects that a copy of the $10,000 bond has not been filed with this office. This bond is required by law pursuant to section 103.121(3), Florida Statutes. Failure to file a copy of the bond will result in removal of your minor party status with this state.

(emphasis added). Letters identical to the June 20, 1996 letter were also sent to the Libertarian Party, the Conservative Party, the American Party, the United States Taxpayers Party of Florida, the Independence Party of Florida, the Natural Law Party of Florida, the Independent Party, and the Reform Silly Party. In response to this letter, SWP and FGP filed an Emergency Motion for Relief from Judgment and again requested a preliminary injunction. Although agents of the Secretary of State advised plaintiff-appellants in discussions that the letter had been sent in error, Rancourt did not send a letter retracting the June 20, 1996 letter to plaintiff-appellants or to any other recipients of the June 20 letter until August 26, 1996, notably only after the district court urged the Secretary of State to send such notification. The Secretary of State again denied that she had authority to enforce the bonding requirement and asserted that she did not intend to attempt to enforce it.

The district court denied the plaintiff-appellants' motions, holding that the explicitly threatened harm was not justiciable. This appeal followed.

II.

We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. Graham v. Butterworth, 5 F.3d 496, 498 (11th Cir.1993) (citing Key West Harbour Dev. Corp. v. City of Key West, 987 F.2d 723, 726 (11th Cir.1993)), cert. denied, 114 S.Ct. 2136, 511 U.S. 1128, 128 L.Ed.2d 866 (1994). Summary judgment is proper if "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c).

Article III of the Constitution limits the jurisdiction of federal courts to "cases" and "controversies." Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 559, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 2136, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992). The case-or-controversy constraint, in turn, imposes a dual limitation on federal courts commonly referred to as "justiciability." United States v. Florida Azalea Specialists, 19 F.3d 620, 621-22 (citing Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 94-95, 88 S.Ct. 1942, 1949-50, 20 L.Ed.2d 947 (1968)). Basically, justiciability doctrine seeks to prevent the federal courts from encroaching on the powers of the other branches of government and to ensure that the courts consider only those matters that are presented in an adversarial context. Id. Because the judiciary is unelected and unrepresentative, the Article III case-or-controversy limitation, as embodied in justiciability doctrine, presents an important restriction on the power of the federal courts. See Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 750, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 3324, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984) (quoting Vander Jagt v. O'Neill, 699 F.2d 1166, 1178-79 (D.C.Cir.1983) (Bork, J., concurring)). We consider the impact of this limitation on SWP and FGP's case against the Secretary of State and the sixty-seven supervisors of elections.

A. The Secretary of State

Three strands of justiciability doctrine--standing, ripeness, and mootness--play an important role in the determination of whether the plaintiff-appellants' case against the Secretary of State presents an Article III case or controversy. At an "irreducible constitutional minimum," standing doctrine requires a plaintiff to make the following three showings:

(1) the plaintiff must...

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