Republican Party of Louisiana v. Schedler et al

Filing 9

RULING granting 2 Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and Motion for Preliminary Injunction. The Louisiana Secretary of State, Tom Schedler, and the Louisiana Commissioner of Elections, Angie Rogers, are hereby ENJOINED from conducting qualifying for or elections for seats on the Republican State Central Committee pursuant to any other plan except the plan already provided to them by the Republican Party. Signed by Judge James J. Brady on 11/30/2011. (JDL)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA
REPUBLICAN PARTY OF LOUISIANA
VERSUS

CIVIL ACTION NO. 11-796-JJB

J. THOMAS “TOM” SCHEDLER, in his official
capacity as Louisiana Secretary of State, ET AL.
RULING AND ORDER ON APPLICATION FOR TEMPORARY RESTRAINING
ORDER AND MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION
Before the Court is an application for a temporary restraining order and a motion
for preliminary injunction (Doc. 2) filed by the Republican Party of Louisiana (“the
Party”), against Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler and Commissioner of
Elections Angie Rogers. The Party seeks 1) a declaration that a certain portion of
Louisiana election law, La. R.S. 18:443.2(7), unconstitutionally infringes its members’
constitutional rights of political association in violation of the First Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States (and similar provisions in the Louisiana Constitution),
and 2) an injunction prohibiting defendants from conducting election qualifying for the
2012 Republican State Central Committee (“RSCC”) seats pursuant to the state’s
default statutory plan and ordering the same officials to conduct qualifying in
accordance with their plan.
The Court held a status conference on November 28, 2011, wherein the parties1
made informal arguments and agreed that the Court should decide the issue on the
briefs submitted, the arguments made at the conference, and the law as the Court
1

Present at this conference were not only attorneys for the plaintiff and defendant, but also counsel for
the state attorney general, who was duly noticed and served in this matter pursuant to Fed. Rule Civ. P.
5.1. (Doc. 7). Robert Morgan and John Treen, two RSCC members involved as parties in the related
state court litigation, were also present at the conference, though Treen participated by phone.

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understands it to apply to this situation. Formal oral argument is impracticable due to
time constraints on the parties and the Court, considering the necessity of clarifying the
electoral timelines at issue in time for the Secretary of State’s office to meaningfully
comply with this ruling. Jurisdiction is based on a federal question, 28 U.S.C. § 1331,
since plaintiff is suing for breach of a constitutional right by a state actor within the
meaning of 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
I.
Louisiana election law provides for the election of state central committee
members of certain political parties in accordance with the party’s desired plan, with the
significant caveat that the plan must be submitted at least ninety days prior to
qualification of candidates for those seats.

La. R.S. 18:443.2(7). 2 If a plan is not

submitted by the party, the statutory default stipulates that one central committee
member shall be elected from each legislative district of both houses of the Louisiana
Legislature (i.e., one central committee member from each of the 105 House districts
and one member from each of the 39 Senate districts for a total of 144 members). Id.
Members of the RSCC will be elected during the municipal and presidential
primaries held on March 24, 2012. Qualifying for those elections takes place from
2

The provision provides in pertinent part:
Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, a state central committee of a recognized political
party with which thirty percent or less of the registered voters in the state are affiliated on the day of
the close of registration for the gubernatorial general election shall be established, composed,
apportioned, and elected as follows:
***
(7) A state central committee shall adopt a plan to provide for the number of members of such
committee and the apportionment thereof, and such plan shall be effective if the committee files a
copy of the plan with the secretary of state not later than the ninetieth day prior to the opening of
qualifying for the election of the members of such state central committee. If a state central
committee does not adopt and file a plan as provided herein, the membership of such state central
committee shall be composed of one hundred forty-four members with one member elected from
each of the districts from which members of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the
Legislature are elected.

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December 7-9, 2011. Under the statutory 90-day pre-qualification requirement, the plan
must have been submitted to the Secretary of State by September 8, 2011. However,
the Party contends that delays in information dissemination regarding important
demographic considerations the Republican Party takes into account when formulating
RSCC member districts—electoral mapping of districts, precinct allocation among
districts, and the like—occurred due to Census data publication, legislative
reapportionment, and preclearance of those districts by the Department of Justice.
Because of those delays—some inherent in the reapportionment process due to
Louisiana’s past compliance history with federal voting rights laws, some unique to the
situation at hand—the Secretary of State did not receive confirmation of precinct
boundaries until late August of this year and thus was unable to provide complete
information of the electoral changes to the Party until September 6, 2011. The Party
therefore only had, in essence, 48 hours to submit an election plan in compliance with
the statute.
Because of the information deficit, the Party’s Executive Committee (a body
distinct from the RSCC) authorized the Party’s executive director to give notice to the
Secretary of State prior to the deadline that the Party simply wished for RSCC elections
to be held according to the plan the Party used for the 2008 elections. The executive
director did so via letter and volunteered to help iron out any logistical difficulties should
implementation of their submitted plan conflict with the new precinct boundaries
applicable to the 2012 elections (since the new precinct allocation differs from the last
RSCC election in 2008). The Secretary of State’s office rejected the plan as insufficient
and impracticable, owing largely to the parish changes in precinct allocation.

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Meanwhile, RSCC member John Treen filed suit in state court seeking to have
the default statutory plan implemented and an injunction against the Party’s plan issued.
The state court suit asserted statutory non-compliance as its basis and raised no
constitutional claim, and the sole defendant was the Secretary of State. Robert Morgan,
another RSCC member, was permitted to intervene. On November 16, 2011, a state
district judge issued an injunction preventing the Secretary of State from using the
Party’s plan in the election and ordering him to use the default statutory plan for the
election.
The Party then filed this action on November 21, 2011, seeking to have the
statute declared unconstitutional and thus prevent the Secretary of State from
conducting qualifying under the statutory default plan as an unconstitutional application
of the statute.
II.
A. Standard of Review
Rule 65 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure authorizes equitable relief in the
form of a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) or a preliminary injunction. To obtain
such relief, a plaintiff must prove the four elements traditionally demanded by equity:
(1) Likelihood of success on the merits;
(2) Likelihood of suffering irreparable harm in the absence of the relief sought;
(3) The threatened injury to plaintiff outweighs the threatened harm to defendant;
and
(4) The relief is in the public interest.
See, e.g., Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008).
B. Procedural and Jurisdictional Considerations

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At the outset, though, the Court must deal with several procedural impediments
which might arguably preclude reaching the merits of this matter.
First, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine prevents lower federal courts from sitting in
direct review of state court decisions in the absence of congressional authorization.
District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983); Rooker v.
Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923). The state court order issued in the related
litigation might be threatened by this Court exercising jurisdiction.

However, the

Supreme Court in Lance v. Dennis, 546 U.S. 459 (2006), concluded that RookerFeldman does not bar a federal suit when the federal plaintiff was not a party to the
state court judgment. Here, the Republican Party of Louisiana was not a party to the
state court proceeding, and thus Rooker-Feldman does not bar this suit.
Second, principles of abstention do not control here. All the parties agree that
the state court litigation is final. Exercising jurisdiction in this case and reaching a
determination on the merits will therefore not infringe upon the jurisdiction or decisionmaking process of the state court. Any concern about violating federalism principles are
thus minimal here.
Third, the Anti-Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2283, does not prevent action by the
Court in this case. Indeed, it authorizes it. The statute reads:
A court of the United States may not grant an injunction to stay proceedings
in a State court except as expressly authorized by Act of Congress, or
where necessary in aid of its jurisdiction, or to protect or effectuate its
judgments.
28 U.S.C. § 2283. The federal statute which plaintiff uses as a vehicle to assert its
constitutional claim, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, has been recognized as an “expressly

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authorized” exception to the Act.

Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U.S. 225, 237 (1972).

Therefore the Court’s equitable powers are not restrained by the Anti-Injunction Act.
III.
Having concluded that no procedural or jurisdictional bar forbids this Court from
hearing this case or limits the granting of equitable relief, the Court will proceed to
discuss the merits of the action.
The state court order at issue here (Doc. 1-12, pp. 1-2) granted an injunction
against Secretary of State Schedler:
a) Prohibiting him from holding an election of the Republican State Central
Committee using the same composition as that of the previous Committee;
and,
b) Ordering him to schedule the election, without delay, of the Republican State
Central Committee providing for one hundred forty-four members, with one
member elected from each of the districts from which members of the House
of Representatives and the Senate of the Legislature are elected, as provided
by law.
The correctness of this decision, rendered under state statutory law, is irrelevant to the
matter at hand. No constitutional arguments were presented in that case. The decision
rests solely on state statutory grounds, as the petition of the state court plaintiff makes
clear. (See Petition for Declaratory Judgment and Injunction in Treen v. Schedler, No.
606,633, 19th Judicial District Court, Section “D”, Parish of East Baton Rouge).
While the Court is concerned with the speed and informality with which the
parties have presented their arguments, the only alternative to the present course of
action is inaction. Inaction in this case would allow the constitutional rights of the Party,
its members and officers—and by extension, all voters in the Republican primary—to
fall by the wayside. Pressing deadlines call for speedy resolution, even at the risk of
marginal error, lest the procedural niceties defeat the vindication of substantive rights.
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While States have broad power to regulate the time, place, and manner of
elections, the State must nonetheless observe the limits established by the First
Amendment rights of the State’s citizens. Tashjian v. Republican Party of Conn., 479
U.S. 208, 217 (1986). Numerous cases hold that strict scrutiny applies to state laws
which place burdens upon the constitutional rights of political parties and their
members. See, e.g., Eu v. San Francisco County Democratic Central Committee, 489
U.S. 214 (1989).

Such burdens can only be justified if the State shows the law

“advances a compelling state interest … and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest.”
Id. at 222 (citations omitted). 3 States cannot enact laws “to prevent the parties from
taking internal steps affecting their own process for the selection of candidates”
because “determination of the structure which best allows [the party] to pursue its
political goals, is protected by the Constitution.” Tashjian, 479 U.S. at 224. “Freedom
of association also encompasses a political party’s decisions about the identity of, and
the process for electing, its leaders.” Eu, 489 U.S. at 229.
The statute at issue here, La. R.S. 18:443.2(7), burdens the Party’s decision in
selecting its leadership by forcing it to submit an election plan for the approval of state
election officials within a certain time frame.

While the regulation on its face may

contain sufficient neutrality of purpose and demonstrate narrow tailoring in the
abstract—an issue the Court need not and does not decide today—enforcement of the
statute in this scenario deprives the Party of any meaningful opportunity to draw
electoral districts for the RSCC (and thus select its leaders) as it desires. The choice
regarding what criteria and data inputs govern the districting of RSCC seats is left to the
3

At times, the Court has called for tailoring which results in “the least drastic means to achieve [the
State’s] ends.” Illinois State Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U.S. 173, 185 (1979).

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sole discretion of the party, not the State. Cf. Eu, 489 U.S. at 232-33 (“[A] State cannot
substitute its judgment for that of the party as to the desirability of a particular internal
party structure….”).

The Party in this instance chose to rely on updated Census

information and updated precinct allocations in order to choose Party leadership which
would align with electoral information applicable to public offices. That information was
not available to the Party until September 6, 2011, only two days before the statutory
deadline imposed on the RSCC for submitting its election plan. The Court therefore has
little trouble in concluding that, at least in this factual scenario, the Party’s ability to draw
the electoral boundaries for its leadership was infringed by the State’s default rule that,
absent a validly submitted election plan, the Party’s leadership would be composed of a
certain number of members and elected in accordance with boundaries drawn by the
State.

Without adequate time to process the updated electoral information and

compose an election plan for the RSCC members in accordance with its established
criteria, the State’s statutory default plan operated in this instance to burden the
associational rights of the Party and the RSCC.
Having found that the Party’s associational rights were burdened by the State,
the question turns to whether the State’s law satisfies strict scrutiny. A State has an
indisputable compelling interest in preserving the integrity of the election process. Eu,
489 U.S. at 231 (citing Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U.S. 752, 761 (1973)). States may
enact laws that interfere with a party’s internal affairs when necessary to ensure that
elections are honest and fair. Id. (citation omitted). It may well be true that the present
regulation governs the Party’s internal governance only as an “indirect consequence of
laws necessary to the successful completion of a party’s external responsibilities in

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ensuring the order and fairness of elections.” Eu, 489 U.S. at 232. But regardless of
the intensity and urgency of the State’s interest, it must yield to constitutional
imperatives when it lacks the narrow tailoring required to sustain the law.
Here, the Court can only conclude that the law as applied to the Republican
Party in this case fails to demonstrate the requisite level of tailoring. The Secretary of
State’s attorneys admitted that their office could process an RSCC plan submitted as
late as mid-December. Given the exigencies facing the Party’s leadership in either
attempting to comply with an excessively short statutory deadline or facing a Stateimposed upheaval in its internal governing body, the Party was faced with a classic
catch-22: either quickly submit a plan without undergoing thorough scrutiny by the
RSCC and other Party channels, or submit itself to the State’s default election plan at
odds with Party wishes. While the Secretary of State’s office may have been within its
statutory rights to refuse to recognize an election plan submitted by the Party on
authority of the Executive Committee as opposed to the RSCC, in doing so it allowed a
triumph of form over substance. Moreover, while the Secretary of State’s office may
perhaps take cognizance of the Party’s internal bylaws in determining whether a plan
was validly submitted, under the circumstances present here, doing so impermissibly
infringed upon the Party’s paramount rights of constitutionally protected freedom of
association by denying it a meaningful opportunity to submit a valid RSCC election plan.
This denial becomes even more constitutionally intolerable since the law imposes a 90day pre-qualifying requirement on election plan submission by the RSCC despite
allowing longer deadlines (i.e., deadlines closer to the beginning of qualifying) for other
matters, like a January 13, 2012 deadline for submitting propositions.

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Because La. R.S. 18:443.2(7) applies in this case to infringe upon the
Republican Party of Louisiana’s constitutionally protected rights of political association
without narrow tailoring, the Court must find its application unconstitutional in this case.
IV.
Based on the foregoing discussion, the Party has shown a likelihood of success
on the merits. Moreover, they have demonstrated a substantial likelihood of suffering
irreparable harm—the loss of the Party’s and its members’ ability to govern their internal
affairs and decide how their governing body shall be elected—in the absence of
equitable relief. The threatened injury to the plaintiffs also outweighs the threatened
harm to the defendant.

The Secretary of State has admitted to being capable of

administering and implementing the plan the Party has already given it.

Thus the

State’s interest in an orderly election will still be vindicated, minimal costs will be
incurred for its expedited consideration of the Party’s plan, and the Party nonetheless
gets to use its plan rather than being subjected to the statutory default plan. Because
all parties still have a chance to come out winners in this ordeal, the equities tip strongly
in favor of the plaintiff. Finally, the relief requested is in the public interest. The voters
at large, and obviously Republican primary voters in particular, have an interest in
having the political party they affiliate with governed according to the standards the
Party sets. For these reasons, the four traditional elements for equitable relief are
present in this case.
V.
Of course, declaring the statute unconstitutional would be a hollow victory for the
Party if the Secretary of State is still compelled by the state court order to conduct the

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election under the unconstitutional statutory default plan. Fortunately, the Constitution
provides an answer—and a remedy. The Supremacy Clause declares:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in
Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under
the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;
and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the
Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
U.S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 2.
The state court order decided a case and issued injunctive relief based wholly on
a reading of state statutory law. As the Court previously noted, this may well be a
correct reading of this isolated provision of state law. This Court, however, has had the
benefit of briefing on what the Constitution of the United States says on the matter. The
Court must respectfully conclude that 42 U.S.C. § 1983 authorizes an injunction
countermanding the state court order. To whatever extent the state court order requires
otherwise, this Court orders the Louisiana Secretary of State and the Louisiana
Commissioner of Elections to comply with this Court’s order.
VI.
Accordingly, the Court GRANTS without security the Republican Party’s
application for a temporary restraining order and motion for preliminary injunction.
The Louisiana Secretary of State, Tom Schedler, and the Louisiana
Commissioner of Elections, Angie Rogers, are hereby ENJOINED from conducting
qualifying for or elections for seats on the Republican State Central Committee pursuant
to any other plan except the plan already provided to them by the Republican Party.
Signed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on November 30, 2011.

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JAMES J. BRADY, DISTRICT JUDGE
11
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA

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