Vargas v. Strake

• Decision Date: 25 July 1983
• Docket Number: No. 81-2457,81-2457
• Citation: 710 F.2d 190
• Parties: Margarita M. VARGAS and Efrem Bernal, etc., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. George W. STRAKE, Jr., etc., et al. Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 190

710 F.2d 190

Margarita M. VARGAS and Efrem Bernal, etc., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. George W. STRAKE, Jr., etc., et al. Defendants-Appellants.

No. 81-2457.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

July 25, 1983.

Martha H. Allan, Asst. Atty. Gen., John W. Fainter, First Asst. Atty. Gen., Richard E. Gray, Executive Asst. Atty. Gen., Paul R. Gavia, Asst. Atty. Gen., Austin, Tex., for Strake.

Theodore C. Hake, Edinburg, Tex., for Saldana.

Roy S. Dale, Brownsville, Tex., for Rivera.

Carinhas & Morrow, Thomas Sullivan, Brownsville, Tex., for plaintiffs-appellees.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Before INGRAHAM, REAVLEY and POLITZ, Circuit Judges.

REAVLEY, Circuit Judge:

This case is an appeal from a district court judgment declaring unconstitutional Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5949(2) (Supp.1982), which requires a person to be a United States citizen in order to be eligible for appointment as a notary public in the State of Texas. We reverse.

Factual and Procedural Background

This action challenging the constitutionality of art. 5949(2) was originally brought by Margarita M. Vargas who, at the time of filing, was a citizen of the Republic of Mexico but a resident alien of the United States, lawfully registered with the Immigration & Naturalization Service and living in Texas. Vargas completed much of her education in this country, including college; she has been employed as a legal secretary and is presently the secretary/receptionist for a real estate firm in Brownsville. After she began the suit, she obtained United States citizenship.

A second party, Efrem Bernal, was later added as an individual plaintiff. Bernal has at all times been and still is a citizen of the Republic of Mexico, but he, too, has been a lawful resident alien in this country for some years now. Bernal has been employed for several years as a paralegal assistant by Texas Rural Legal Aid, Inc. Prior to that, he was employed by AMOS, Inc., a migrant legal services program in Plymouth, Indiana. From 1974 to 1978 Bernal served as a notary public for Marshall County, Indiana.

The defendants/appellants in this action are the Texas Secretary of State and the county clerks of Cameron and Hidalgo counties. The county clerks uniformly require all applicants for the position of notary public to complete a standardized application form, which is then forwarded to the Secretary of State for consideration.

In 1979 Vargas applied to become a notary public in Texas; at that time she was still a citizen of Mexico but lawfully residing within Texas. Pursuant to established procedures, her application was received by the Texas Secretary of State. The record reveals that whenever that office receives applications from noncitizens, it either sets an administrative hearing or, if the applicant is also applying for citizenship, holds the application in abeyance pending final action of federal authorities on the application for citizenship. In Vargas' case the latter route was followed.

In 1978 Bernal had also applied to become a notary public in Texas. The Secretary of State denied his application. Bernal appealed that decision, obtaining a state administrative hearing, but the result of the hearing was that the Secretary's decision was upheld.

In the present action, Vargas and Bernal sought a declaratory judgment pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Secs. 2201, 2202 that art. 5949(2) was unconstitutional because it violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, insofar as it denied a lawful resident alien the opportunity to attain appointment as a notary public in Texas. No contention was made that the Texas law was an economic disadvantage to the plaintiffs. Both Vargas and Bernal admitted that neither were threatened with loss of employment or pay because they were not notaries.

Applying a strict scrutiny standard, the court held that the statute was unconstitutional as violative of the equal protection clause. The court further held that the citizenship requirement could not be upheld even under the less stringent rational relationship test. It therefore granted declaratory relief and permanently enjoined the defendants from refusing to consider Vargas and Bernal for appointment as notaries public in Texas on the ground of their citizenship status.

The defendants have brought the present appeal, raising four issues: (1) whether the action is moot as to Vargas, because she is now a United States citizen (and because only the declaratory judgment/injunctive relief portion of the district court's order is in issue); (2) whether the court erred in holding that plaintiff Bernal was not required to exhaust administrative remedies (by appealing the denial of his application by the administrative tribunal into the Texas state court system); (3) whether the district court applied an incorrect legal standard in judging the constitutionality of the statute in question (and the connected issue of the constitutionality of the statute under the appropriate standard); and (4) whether Vargas and Bernal were entitled to an award of costs and attorneys' fees.

Although the issues herein appear to have become moot as to Vargas (because she can reapply for a commission as a notary public having now attained citizenship), they are clearly not moot as to Bernal (nor do the defendants argue that they are). Moreover, Bernal was clearly not required to appeal into the state court system the denial of his application by the administrative tribunal as a prerequisite to challenging the constitutionality of the statute in federal court. See Public Utilities Commission v. United States, 355 U.S. 534, 539-40, 78 S.Ct. 446, 450-51, 2 L.Ed.2d 470 (1958). We turn to the heart of this controversy--the constitutionality of art. 5949(2).

Constitutionality of the Citizenship Requirement in art. 5949(2)

Noting that classifications based on alienage have generally been subjected to close judicial scrutiny, ¹ the district court applied a "strict scrutiny" standard in judging the constitutionality of art. 5949(2) and struck down the statute because it could find no compelling state interest to uphold it. The court alternatively held that even if the constitutionality of the statute were considered under the less stringent "rational relationship" test, ² it was unconstitutional because the "functions performed by notaries public, while aiding in the smooth operation of a multitude of day-to-day affairs, are for the most part ministerial, lacking the close relationship with governmental policymaking and discretionary concerns .... [t]he citizenship requirement in this case is wholly unrelated to the achievement of any valid state interest."

The latest word from the Supreme Court addressing the sensitive topic of state classifications dealing with aliens may be found in Cabell v. Chavez-Salido, 454 U.S. 432, 102 S.Ct. 735, 70 L.Ed.2d 677 (1982). The district court did not have the benefit of the Court's analysis in Cabell, as that decision was handed down by the Supreme Court subsequent to the decision here. With the advantage of the Cabell decision we conclude that the constitutionality of art. 5949(2) must be judged under a rational relationship test and, further, that when so judged, the constitutionality of the statute must be upheld.

In Cabell the Court attempted to summarize the precise contours of its previous holdings in the area of state classifications affecting aliens. In that case resident aliens were refused employment by a California county as deputy probation officers. They filed suit in federal court seeking a judgment declaring unconstitutional a California statute which required a person to be a United States citizen in order to be a peace officer or to occupy any state, county or local governmental position declared by state law to possess powers of a peace officer. A three-judge district court panel declared the California statute unconstitutional, but the Court, by a five to four vote, reversed.

Writing the majority opinion, Justice White recognized that under the Court's holdings in Sugarman v. Dougall, 413 U.S. 634, 93 S.Ct. 2842, 37 L.Ed.2d 853 (1973) and other cases, "citizenship is not a relevant ground for the distribution of economic benefits, [but] it is a relevant ground for determining membership in the political community." 454 U.S. at 438, 102 S.Ct. at 739. State restrictions that affect lawfully resident aliens primarily in an economic fashion will be subject to heightened or strict judicial scrutiny. Id. ³ Conversely, strict scrutiny will not be applied when the restriction serves primarily a political function:

"[O]ur scrutiny will not be so demanding where we deal with matters resting firmly within a State's constitutional prerogatives [and] constitutional responsibility for the establishment and operation of its own government, as well as the qualifications of an appropriately designated class of public office holders." Sugarman v. Dougall, supra, 413 U.S., at 648, 93 S.Ct., at 2850. We have thus "not abandoned the general principle that some state functions are so bound up with the operation of the State as a governmental entity as to permit the exclusion from those functions of all persons who have not become part of the process of self government." Ambach v. Norwick, 441 U.S. 68, 73-74, 99 S.Ct. 1589, 1593, 60 L.Ed.2d 49 (1979). And in those areas the state's exclusion of aliens need not "clear the high hurdle of 'strict scrutiny,' because [that] would 'obliterate all the distinctions between citizens and aliens, and thus depreciate the historic value of citizenship.' " Foley v. Connelie, 435 U.S. 291, 295, 98 S.Ct. 1067, 1070, 55 L.Ed.2d 287 (1978) (citations omitted).

Id. (footnote omitted).

The Cabell Court also explained that the Sugarman decision should be regarded as establishing a two-step process for determining whether a particular state restriction on legally...