GA State Conf./NAACP v. Cox ( 1999 )

[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
FILED
No. 98-9347 U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
________________________ ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
08/11/99
THOMAS K. KAHN
D. C. Docket No. 1:97-CV-2340-WBH CLERK
GEORGIA STATE CONFERENCE OF NAACP BRANCHES,
SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE, et al.,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
versus
CATHY COX, in her representative capacity
as Secretary of State of Georgia,
GEORGIA STATE SENATE, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
_________________________
(August 11, 1999)
Before BLACK and BARKETT, Circuit Judges, and GOLD*, U.S. District Judge.
BLACK, Circuit Judge:
*
Honorable Alan S. Gold, U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Florida, sitting
by designation.
Appellants, individual citizens eligible to vote in Georgia elections, former
and future candidates for state office, and organizations whose members are
citizens eligible to vote in Georgia elections, brought this action against the
Georgia State Senate and its presiding officer, the Georgia House of
Representatives and its Speaker of the House, and the Georgia Secretary of State,
contending the system by which state elections are financed in Georgia violates
their rights to equal protection, freedom of expression, and freedom of association
found in the United States and Georgia Constitutions, as well as their rights under
the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Georgia Constitution. The district
court concluded Appellants did not have standing and dismissed their complaint
pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). We affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
In their complaint, Appellants contend the Georgia campaign finance system
excludes nonwealthy citizens from meaningful participation in the electoral
process. Appellants argue that certain state laws ensure the success of wealthy
candidates by exempting some campaign contributions from campaign finance
limits. According to Appellants, this system prevents nonwealthy candidates from
raising sufficient funds to run an effective campaign and prevents nonwealthy
voters from contributing meaningfully to a candidate. Appellants contend the laws
2
that ensure the success of wealthy candidates are: (1) Ga. Code Ann. § 21-5-41(c),
which exempts from campaign contribution limits contributions made by a
candidate or a member of the candidate’s immediate family to the candidate's own
campaign; (2) Ga. Code Ann. § 21-5-42(c), which exempts from campaign
contribution limits bona-fide loans made to a candidate or campaign committee;
and (3) Ga. Code Ann. § 21-5-33(b)(1)(D), which permits, with certain restrictions,
a candidate, a campaign committee, or a public officer holding elective office to
carry forward funds from one campaign cycle to the next.
As a remedy, Appellants seek a declaratory judgment stating the Georgia
campaign finance system violates their rights under the United States and Georgia
Constitutions. Additionally, Appellants seek an order “enjoining Defendants from
administering [the challenged provisions] without providing remedial measures
that reduce the dominance of wealth in Georgia State Senate elections and provide
an alternative public source of financing as well as meaningful contribution limits
to enable non-wealthy voters and candidates to participate on an equal and
meaningful basis in the state senate election process and to be heard in that
process.”2
2
In Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 96 S. Ct. 612 (1976) (per curiam), the Supreme Court
addressed many of the campaign finance provisions at issue in this case. Relevant to this case,
the Court struck down limits on expenditures made independently of the candidate’s campaign,
limits on expenditures by a candidate from personal and family resources, and limits on the
3
The district court dismissed Appellants’ claims for lack of standing. The
court concluded Appellants lacked standing because they failed to show they
suffered any cognizable injury in fact. The district court further noted a lack of
causal connection between any alleged injury and any actions taken by the
defendants, stating “no legislation or other state action . . . prevents a poor voter or
candidate from exercising his or her rights.”
II. DISCUSSION
We review the district court’s dismissal of Appellants’ claims de novo.
Harper v. Blockbuster Entertainment Corp., 139 F.3d 1385, 1387 (11th Cir.), cert.
denied, ___ U.S. ___, 119 S. Ct. 509 (1998).
Article III of the United States Constitution limits the power of federal
courts to adjudicating actual “cases” and “controversies.” U.S. Const. art. III, § 2,
cl. 1. This case-or-controversy doctrine fundamentally limits the power of federal
courts in our system of government, Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 750, 104 S. Ct.
3315, 3324 (1984), and helps to “identify those disputes which are appropriately
overall amount that a candidate can spend campaigning for office because the limits served no
compelling governmental interest. Id. at 39-59; 96 S. Ct. at 644-653. The Court did, however,
uphold limits on contributions made by individuals, groups, and political committees to a
campaign because of the tendency of such contributions to corrupt or give the appearance of
corruption. Id. at 23-58; 96 S. Ct. at 637-653. Appellants do not directly challenge Buckley, yet
the gravamen of their complaint implicates the core issues addressed by that decision as
explained in our discussion of the remedy sought by Appellants.
4
resolved through judicial process.” Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 155, 110
S. Ct. 1717, 1722 (1990) (citation omitted).
Perhaps the most important of the Article III doctrines grounded in the case-
or-controversy requirement is that of standing. Allen, 468 U.S. at 750, 104 S. Ct. at
3324. “In essence the question of standing is whether the litigant is entitled to
have the court decide the merits of the dispute or of particular issues.” Warth v.
Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498, 95 S. Ct. 2197, 2205 (1975).
To establish standing, a plaintiff must first have suffered an “injury in fact.”
Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S. Ct. 2130, 2136 (1992).
The injury must be an invasion of a legally protected interest that is sufficiently
concrete and particularized rather than abstract and indefinite. Id.; see also FEC v.
Akins, 524 U.S. 11, __ 118 S. Ct. 1777, 1785 (1998). Second, there must be a
causal connection between the injury and the challenged action of the defendant
which is not too attenuated. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560, 112 S. Ct. at 2136; Allen, 468
U.S. at 751, 104 S. Ct. at 3324. Third, it must be likely rather than speculative that
“the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561, 112
S. Ct. at 2136 (citations and internal quotations omitted). In determining whether a
plaintiff has established standing, we keep in mind the “Art[icle] III notion that
federal courts may exercise power only in the last resort, and as a necessity” and
5
when the dispute is one “traditionally thought to be capable of resolution through
the judicial process.” Allen, 468 U.S. at 752, 104 S. Ct. at 3325 (citation and
internal quotation omitted).
A. Injury in Fact
Appellants claim they have suffered a cognizable injury in fact in that they,
as nonwealthy voters and candidates, are excluded from meaningful participation
in the electoral process. As support for this proposition, Appellants rely
principally on the white primary case of Terry v. Adams, 345 U.S. 461, 73 S. Ct.
809 (1953).
In Terry, the Supreme Court addressed the continuing efforts by white
citizens, including state-sanctioned actors, to exclude blacks from exercising their
right to vote. Each spring, before the official Democratic Party Primary, the
private Jaybird Democratic Association would conduct a pre-primary to endorse
candidates for election, using the same process provided for by Texas state law
governing primary elections, but permitting only whites to vote. Id. at 469, 470-
476; 73 S. Ct. at 814-816 (Frankfurter, J.). Endorsed candidates then entered the
democratic primary. These candidates usually went unchallenged because
candidates did not enter the race apart from the Jaybird primary system. Id. at 472,
73 S. Ct. at 814-815 (Frankfurter, J.). As the Court noted, the official elections
6
“became no more than perfunctory ratifiers of the choice that [had] already been
made [in the Jaybird primary].” Id. at 469, 73 S. Ct. at 813 (Black, J., announcing
Judgment of the Court, joined by Douglas and Burton, JJ.). In concluding the
Jaybird primary violated the Fifteenth Amendment, the Court reasoned “[t]he
Jaybird primary has become an integral part, indeed the only effective part, of the
elective process that determines who shall rule and govern in the county.” Id. at
469, 73 S. Ct. at 813 (Black, J., announcing Judgment of the Court, joined by
Douglas and Burton, JJ.).
Appellants’ reliance on Terry and other ballot access cases is misplaced.
Those cases require only that each voter be entitled to a single, equal vote. See,
e.g., Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 380-381, 83 S. Ct. 801, 808-809 (1963) (“The
idea that every voter is equal to every other voter in his State, when he casts his
ballot in favor of one of several competing candidates, underlies many of our
decisions. . . . The conception of political equality from the Declaration of
Independence, to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and
Nineteenth Amendments can mean only one thing--one person, one vote.”); see
also Morse v. Republican Party of Va., 517 U.S. 186, 201-210, 116 S. Ct. 1186,
1197-1201 (1996) (Stevens, J., announcing Judgment of the Court, joined by
Ginsburg, J.) (in holding political parties’ delegate fee for state convention fell
7
within the preclearance requirements of the Voting Rights Act the Court stated the
requirement “does not merely curtail [voters’] voting power, but abridges their
right to vote itself.”); Harper v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections, 383 U.S. 663, 666-
668, 86 S. Ct. 1079, 1081-1082 (1966) (invalidating state poll tax because it
effectively denied the right to vote). In Terry, the combined actions of private and
public participants violated the Constitution because “county election officials
have participated in and condoned a continued effort effectively to exclude
Negroes from voting.” Id. at 476, 73 S. Ct. at 816 (Frankfurter, J.). In contrast
here, no one group has conspired to exclude another group of voters from the
electoral process. Additionally, no one has been denied the right to vote or equal
access to the ballot. See Albanese v. FEC, 78 F.3d 66, 69 (2d Cir. 1996) (“Unlike
the plaintiffs in Terry, plaintiffs here are not prevented from voting in any
election.”).
Appellants nevertheless contend Terry requires “meaningful participation”
in the overall electoral process. The ballot access cases, however, do not recognize
the right to equal influence in the overall electoral process. See FEC v.
Massachusetts Citizens For Life, Inc., 479 U.S. 238, 257, 107 S. Ct. 616, 627
(1986) (“Political ‘free trade’ does not necessarily require that all who participate
in the political marketplace do so with exactly equal resources.”) (citations
8
omitted); Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. at 48-49, 96 S. Ct. at 649 (“[T]he concept that
government may restrict the speech of some elements of our society in order to
enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment.")
(citations omitted).
In sum, Appellants’ reliance on Terry and the other ballot access cases is
misplaced because these cases only recognize that each voter is entitled to a single,
equal vote. As no one has been denied the right to vote or access to the ballot,
Appellants have failed to allege any legally cognizable injury in fact.3
B. Causal Connection
Appellants have also failed to establish the second prong of the standing
inquiry. Appellants’ alleged inability meaningfully to participate in and influence
elections is attributable to the conduct and resources of private individuals, not the
state. See Jones, 131 F.3d at 1323 (9th Cir. 1997) (“Here, there is no state action
putting wealthy voters in a better position to contribute to campaigns than
nonwealthy voters.”). Individual voters remain free to associate and pool their
resources to support the candidate of their choosing under Georgia’s campaign
finance system and candidates remain free to rely on their own resources, which
3
In many ways, the injuries claimed by Appellants consist of the type of abstract and
indefinite generalized grievance shared in substantial measure by all citizens and better suited for
resolution by the political processes rather than by this Court. See Akins, 524 U.S. at ___, 118 S.
Ct. at 1785-1786.
9
may include fundraising abilities, name recognition, speaking, organizational, and
leadership abilities, as well as popular and easily understood positions on the
issues, to be successful at the polls. The extent of voter and candidate influence is
based on individual efforts, not state action.
C. Redressability
Finally, Appellants have failed to show their alleged injury is likely to be
redressed by a favorable decision. Appellants ask the district court to strike down
Ga. Code Ann. §§ 21-5-41(c), -42(c), -33(b)(1)(D), which provide exemptions
from or exceptions to election spending limits. The challenged provisions,
however, are mandated by the Constitution. See Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. at 54,
96 S. Ct. at 651; see also Colorado Republican Fed. Campaign Comm. v. FEC,
518 U.S. 604, 627, 116 S. Ct. 2309, 2321 (1996) (“The central holding in
Buckley . . . is that spending money on one’s own speech must be permitted.”
(citation omitted)) (Kennedy, J., joined by Rehnquist, C.J., and Scalia, J.,
concurring in the Judgment and dissenting in part). To invalidate these provisions
would therefore render the entire scheme of spending limits unconstitutional.
Appellants additionally request that the district court enjoin Appellees from
enforcing the challenged provisions without providing remedial measures, such as
further spending limits or public funding of campaigns. In effect, this is a request
10
that the district court order the State of Georgia to enact legislation either to bar
private conduct that would otherwise be permissible or to provide a benefit that is
not required by law.
III. CONCLUSION
As Appellants have failed to satisfy the three prongs of the standing inquiry,
we conclude the district court properly dismissed Appellants’ complaint on the
ground that they lacked standing.4
AFFIRMED.
4
Appellants also assert their claims under the Georgia Constitution. Appellants allege
the Georgia Constitution provides them with broader protections than the United States
Constitution. However, Appellants have not alleged any injury fairly traceable to state action,
nor have they provided any support for their position that the Georgia Constitution restricts the
type of private action we have here. We therefore affirm the dismissal of Appellant’s state
Constitutional claims.
11