Stencil v. Johnson
| Decision Date | 03 June 2022 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 22-C-0305 |
| Parties | Nancy A STENCIL, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Ronald H. JOHNSON, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Wisconsin |
Mark M. Leitner, Joseph S. Goode, Laffey Leitner & Goode LLC, Milwaukee, WI, for Plaintiffs.
Christopher O. Murray, Statecraft PLLC, Denver, CO, Julian Ellis, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP, Denver, CO, George Burnett, Law Firm of Conway Olejniczak & Jerry SC, Green Bay, WI, for Defendant Ronald H. Johnson.
Charles R. Spies, Dickinson Wright PLLC, Washington, DC, Robert Avers, Dickinson Wright PLLC, Ann Arbor, MI, Thomas G. Kreul, Schober Schober & Mitchell SC, New Berlin, WI, for Defendants Thomas P. Tiffany, Scott L. Fitzgerald.
Anthony F. LoCoco, Richard M. Esenberg, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty Inc., Milwaukee, WI, for Amicus Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty Inc.
Douglas M. Poland, Stafford Rosenbaum LLP, Madison, WI, for Amicus Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
DECISION AND ORDER
Ten Wisconsin citizens have filed this action against Ronald H. Johnson, Thomas P. Tiffany, and Scott F. Fitzgerald. The defendants are members of Wisconsin's delegation to the 117th Congress—Johnson is a U.S. Senator, while Tiffany and Fitzgerald are members of the House of Representatives. The plaintiffs do not seek relief against the defendants in their capacities as members of Congress. Instead, the plaintiffs seek relief against them in their capacities as private citizens who are running for reelection to the 118th Congress. According to the plaintiffs, between November 8, 2020, and January 6, 2021, the defendants engaged in or assisted with an insurrection or rebellion against the United States. Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that no person who has previously taken an oath to support the Constitution and has engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the Constitution may hold the office of Senator or Representative in Congress (among other offices). The plaintiffs contend that, because the defendants swore an oath to support the Constitution when they were first elected to Congress and, with respect to Tiffany and Fitzgerald, when they were elected to the Wisconsin Legislature, the defendants’ alleged acts of insurrection or rebellion between November 2020 and January 2021 render them ineligible to serve in the 118th Congress. The plaintiffs seek a declaratory judgment under the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201, establishing these matters. The plaintiffs believe that, if the court issues such a declaration, Wisconsin election administrators will remove the defendants’ names from the ballots for the primary and general elections to be held later this year. The defendants have moved to dismiss the complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6).
As discussed below, the plaintiffs’ suit is procedurally improper. A voter in an election does not have a direct legal relationship with a candidate for office that may be settled through use of the Declaratory Judgment Act. A voter may oppose candidates in the political arena and choose not to vote for them. If a voter believes that a candidate is ineligible for office, he or she may seek legal redress from election administrators. However, a voter may not seek legal relief relating to the candidate's eligibility for office against the candidate directly. The voter may not, for example, seek an injunction to prevent the candidate from continuing his candidacy. Similarly, if a candidate believes that a matter relating to his or her eligibility for reelection must be settled, the candidate may seek legal redress against election officials, but not against individual voters or the entire voting population of a district. Given the absence of a legal relationship between the parties to this action, any resolution of their dispute over whether the defendants would be ineligible to hold office if reelected would be an improper use of the Declaratory Judgment Act. For these and other reasons to be discussed below, the defendants’ motions to dismiss will be granted. Because the action will be dismissed on procedural grounds, I express no view on the merits of the plaintiffs’ allegations that the defendants engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against the United States.
The plaintiffs allege that the events surrounding the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021, amounted to an insurrection or rebellion and that the defendants’ conduct between the time of the presidential election in November 2020 and the Joint Session of Congress on January 6 amounted to participation in or assistance with the insurrection. (Compl. ¶ 3.) Through this lawsuit, the plaintiffs seek to establish their allegations and have the court declare that the defendants engaged in or aided an insurrection and therefore are prevented from holding office by Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides as follows:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
The defendants have moved to dismiss the complaint on various grounds, including that the plaintiffs lack standing under Article III of the Constitution to seek relief in federal court, that any decision by this court would be an advisory opinion, and that the Declaratory Judgment Act does not authorize the plaintiffs’ suit.1
The Declaratory Judgment Act provides in relevant part that, "[i]n a case of actual controversy within its jurisdiction ... any court of the United States ... may declare the rights and other legal relations of any interested party seeking such declaration, whether or not further relief is or could be sought." 28 U.S.C. § 2201(a). The phrase "case of actual controversy" in the Act refers to the type of "Cases" and "Controversies" that are justiciable under Article III of the United States Constitution. MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc. , 549 U.S. 118, 127, 127 S.Ct. 764, 166 L.Ed.2d 604 (2007) (quoting Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Haworth , 300 U.S. 227, 240, 57 S.Ct. 461, 81 L.Ed. 617 (1937) ). For a suit for declaratory relief to be proper, it must be "definite and concrete, touching the legal relations of parties having adverse legal interests," must "be ‘real and substantial,’ " and must "admi[t] of specific relief through a decree of a conclusive character, as distinguished from an opinion advising what the law would be upon a hypothetical state of facts." Id. The Supreme Court has summarized the general requirements as follows: "Basically, the question in each case is whether the facts alleged, under all the circumstances, show that there is a substantial controversy, between parties having adverse legal interests, of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment." Maryland Cas. Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co. , 312 U.S. 270, 273, 61 S.Ct. 510, 85 L.Ed. 826 (1941).
In the present case, it is important to emphasize several prerequisites to a federal court's entertaining a suit under the Declaratory Judgment Act. First, as previously noted, the court may exercise jurisdiction only if the dispute qualifies as a "Case" or "Controversy" under Article III. Although the case-or-controversy requirement encompasses several legal doctrines, the doctrine most relevant to the present case is that of standing, which consists of three elements. First, the plaintiff must have suffered an "injury in fact"—an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) "actual or imminent, not ‘conjectural’ or ‘hypothetical.’ " Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992). Second, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of—the injury must be "fairly ... trace[able] to the challenged action of the defendant, and not ... th[e] result [of] the independent action of some third party not before the court." Id. Third, it must be "likely," as opposed to merely "speculative," that the injury will be "redressed by a favorable decision." Id. at 561, 112 S.Ct. 2130.
The second relevant prerequisite to a suit for declaratory relief is an independent source of federal jurisdiction. The Declaratory Judgment Act is "procedural only." Skelly Oil Co. v. Phillips Petroleum Co. , 339 U.S. 667, 671, 70 S.Ct. 876, 94 L.Ed. 1194 (1950) (quoting Aetna , 300 U.S. at 240, 57 S.Ct. 461 ). Although in passing the Act "Congress enlarged the range of remedies available in the federal courts," it "did not extend their jurisdiction." Id. Thus, a plaintiff seeking to obtain a declaratory judgment in federal court must identify a separate source of federal subject-matter jurisdiction. See, e.g., DeBartolo v. Healthsouth Corp. , 569 F.3d 736, 741 (7th Cir. 2009). Typically, that means showing either that the requirements of diversity jurisdiction are met, see 28 U.S.C. § 1332, or that a suit for coercive (i.e., non-declaratory) relief involving the matter at issue would arise under federal law, see 28 U.S.C. § 1331.
A prerequisite that is closely related to the need for an independent jurisdictional source is "the existence of a judicially remediable right." Schilling v. Rogers , 363 U.S. 666, 677, 80 S.Ct. 1288, 4 L.Ed.2d 1478 (1960). This requirement has been interpreted to mean that a party may not bring an action for...
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If Not Voters, Then Who?
...from holding office based on the January 6, 2021 events at the United States Capitol lacked standing. See, e.g., Stencil v. Johnson, 605 F. Supp. 3d 1109 (E.D. Wis. 2022). In Stencil, the plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment that three members of Wisconsin’s Congressional delegation wer......