Justia U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in Election Law
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Defendant appealed a judgment against him following a jury trial where he was convicted of one count of conspiring to illegally donate  monies to a political campaign and one count of aiding and abetting over $25,000 of such donations. Defendant argued that the district court erred in giving the standard jury instruction on willfulness: that “a person acts ‘willfully’ when he acts with a ‘bad purpose’ to disobey or disregard the law. Further, Defendant challenged the district court’s refusal to 1) instruct the jury that for count one, a co-conspirator must knowingly and willfully join the conspiracy with the “intent of achieving [the alleged conspiracy’s] unlawful objectives, namely violation of the federal election laws;” and 2) to provide e a good faith defense charge.   The Second Circuit affirmed. The court explained it is not necessary for the government to prove that the defendant was aware of the specific provision of the law that he is charged with violating.” Further, the district court charged the jury that the government needed to prove  Defendant acted willfully, knowingly, and voluntarily. As the district court aptly noted, “to have found that Defendants acted willfully, the jury had to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that they intentionally did something that the law forbids, the opposite of good faith.” Where, as here, the district court correctly instructed the jury as to knowledge and willfulness and the defendant’s theory was thus “effectively presented elsewhere in the charge,” its refusal to provide a separate “good faith defense” instruction is not reversible error. View "United States v. Kukushkin" on Justia Law

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The State of New York enacted new party-qualification requirements in the spring of 2020, requiring political organizations to earn the greater of 130,000 votes or 2 percent of the vote in elections for President and for Governor to achieve party status and the automatic place on the ballot it confers. In this appeal, the SAM Party and its chairman challenged the district court's denial of their motion for a preliminary injunction against the party-qualification requirements.The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment, holding that appellants are not likely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment claim because the burden imposed by the presidential-election requirement is (1) not severe and (2) justified by the State's interest in uncluttered ballots, effective electoral competition, and the preservation of resources dedicated to public financing of elections. Therefore, the district court appropriately denied the SAM Party's motion for a preliminary injunction. View "SAM Party of New York v. Kosinski" on Justia Law

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The Rockland County, New York school district is 65.7% white, 19.1% black, 10.7% Latino, and 3.3% Asian. In 2017-2018, 8,843 students attended public schools, while 29,279 students attended private schools, primarily Jewish yeshivas; 92% of public school students are black or Latino, while 98% of private-school students are white. School board candidates run for a specific seat in at-large elections; all eligible district voters vote in each race. Influential members of the private-school community have an informal slating process by which Board candidates are selected and promoted. An Orthodox Rabbi controls a slating organization that has secured victory for the white community’s preferred candidate in each contested election. Although the Organization has slated some successful minority candidates, minority voters did not prefer these candidates. Only those with connections to the Organization have been selected. When vetted, candidates were not asked about their policy views.The Second Circuit affirmed that the election system resulted in dilution of black and Latino votes, violating the Voting Rights Act, 52 U.S.C. 10301. The Act does not require a finding that racial motivations caused election results. The court properly relied on expert findings, that used data derived through Bayesian Improved Surname Geocoding rather than the traditional Citizen Voting Age Population data. The totality of the circumstances supports a finding of impermissible vote dilution, given the near-perfect correlation between race and school-type; the scant evidence that policy preferences caused election results; the blatant neglect of minority needs; the lack of minority-preferred election success; the white-dominated slating organization; and the District's bad faith throughout the litigation. View "Clerveaux v. East Ramapo Central School District" on Justia Law

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The Libertarian Party of Connecticut and two of its affiliated candidates filed suit alleging that the State violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by requiring candidates for office to collect signatures from electors before appearing on the general election ballot. The district court denied the motion for a preliminary injunction on the ground that plaintiffs failed to demonstrate a clear or substantial likelihood of success on the merits.Applying the Anderson-Burdick framework, the Second Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment and concluded that Connecticut's laws do not impose a severe burden on plaintiffs' rights and the State's interest in requiring candidates for office to demonstrate some support before appearing on the ballot justified those laws. The district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that Connecticut's laws impose only a reasonable, nondiscriminatory burden. In this case, the petitioning period ran for 218 days and the evidence demonstrates that petitioning was possible even under the challenging conditions in the State of Connecticut. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the State has the undoubted right to require candidates to make a preliminary showing of substantial support in order to qualify for a place on the ballot, and the signature requirements are an appropriate means of vindicating the State's interest. View "Libertarian Party of Connecticut v. Lamont" on Justia Law

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The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's order of a preliminary injunction entered in favor of Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and candidates for delegate seats who, if elected, would be pledged to Yang and fellow Democratic candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders. Yang, his delegates, and the Sanders delegates challenged the New York State Board of Elections' decision to remove all qualified candidates from the ballot, with the exception of former Vice President Joseph Biden, and cancel the Democratic presidential primary. The Board cancelled the Democratic presidential primary based on the coronavirus pandemic, claiming that doing so would further the State's interests in minimizing social contacts to reduce the spread of the virus and in focusing its limited resources on the management of other contested primary elections.At issue in this appeal was whether Yang, his delegates, and the Sanders delegates have demonstrated an entitlement to preliminary injunctive relief that reverses the effects of the Board's decision by requiring Yang and Sanders to be reinstated to the ballot, and the Democratic presidential primary to be conducted along with the other primary elections set for June 23, 2020.The court held that plaintiffs and the Sanders delegates have adequately established their entitlement to preliminary injunctive relief on the basis that the Board's decision unduly burdened their rights of free speech and association. The court held that plaintiffs and the Sanders delegates have made a strong showing of irreparable harm absent injunctive relief; demonstrated a clear or substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their claims under the First and Fourteenth Amendments; and demonstrated that the balance of the equities tips in their favor and that the public interest would be served adequately by the district court's preliminary injunction. The court held that the district court did not err or abuse its discretion in granting the application for a preliminary injunction, which was carefully tailored to secure the constitutional rights at stake and to afford the Board sufficient time and guidance to carry out its obligations to the electorate and to the general public. View "Yang v. Kosinski" on Justia Law

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In this interlocutory appeal, defendants challenged the district court's denial of their motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction a complaint alleging that Connecticutʹs redistricting plan, which counts incarcerated individuals in the district in which their prison is located rather than the district in which they permanently reside, violates the ʺone person, one voteʺ principle of the Fourteenth Amendment.The Second Circuit affirmed in part the district court's order to the extent it held that the Eleventh Amendment bar on suits against states does not apply to plaintiffsʹ claim and denied defendantsʹ motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. However, the court held that the district court lacked jurisdiction to deny defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, because this case involves a challenge to the constitutionality of the apportionment of a statewide legislative body, which must be heard by a three-judge district court under 28 U.S.C. 2284(a). Therefore, because this case falls within section 2284(a) and plaintiffs' claim presents a substantial federal question, the court remanded for the district court to refer the matter to a three-judge court for further proceedings. View "NAACP v. Merrill" on Justia Law

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Vermont's campaign finance law, Vt. Stat. Ann. tit. 17, 2901 et seq., which imposes additional restrictions on candidates who choose to receive public campaign finance grants, did not violate the First Amendment. Former and prospective candidates for public office in Vermont and a political party filed suit challenging provisions that prohibit publicly financed candidates from accepting contributions or making expenditures beyond the amount of the grants and announcing their candidacies or raising or expending substantial funds before a certain date.The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the candidates' claims for failure to state a claim and held that, because candidates may freely choose either to accept public campaign funds and the limitations thereon or to engage in unlimited private fundraising, those limitations did not violate First Amendment rights. The court also found that the candidates were not entitled to a fee award because they could not be considered prevailing parties. View "Corren v. Donovan" on Justia Law

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Citizens United filed suit challenging the regulations promulgated by the Attorney General's office that required non-profit organizations to disclose their donors on a yearly basis. The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of all claims, except the due process claim, for failure to state a claim. The court found that the mere requirement on a tax‐exempt organization to disclose its donor list to a state's authority charged with regulating non‐profits did not impermissibly chill speech or assembly rights. Furthermore, it did not operate as a prior restraint on non‐profits' solicitation of donations. Finally, the court reversed the dismissal of the due process claim for lack of ripeness and remanded so that the claim could be dismissed with prejudice for failure to state a valid claim. View "Citizens United v. Schneiderman" on Justia Law

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Plaintiffs filed suit challenging the constitutionality of certain contribution restrictions within New York City's campaign finance laws. Plaintiffs claimed that the laws’ restrictions on contributions unduly burdened their protected political speech in violation of the First Amendment and denied them equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court denied plaintiffs' request for injunctive relief and dismissed their claims challenging the constitutionality of the contribution restrictions. Several years later, the Supreme Court issued its decision in McCutcheon v. FEC. Plaintiffs contend in their Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion for reconsideration that McCutcheon established, inter alia, a more rigorous standard of review with respect to the government’s burden of proof and what constitutes a permissible governmental interest, a standard under which the “pay to play” rules do not pass muster. The court concluded that neither of plaintiffs' purported effects, considered alone or in combination, satisfies the threshold requirement under the third clause of Rule 60(b)(5) that the judgment sought to be reconsidered apply prospectively. In this case, the February 2009 order at issue was immediately final and required nothing of the parties or the district court going forward; it did not apply prospectively. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of plaintiffs' Rule 60(b) motion. View "Tapper v Hearn" on Justia Law

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VRLC is a non-profit corporation and VRLC-FIPE is a political committee formed under Vermont law. VRLC challenged three disclosure provisions of Vermont's election laws as unconstitutionally vague and violating freedom of speech. The court concluded that the Vermont statutory disclosure provisions concerning electioneering communications and mass media activities are constitutional and did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment's due process guarantee due to vagueness nor the First Amendment's free speech guarantee; Vermont's "political committee" definition did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment's due process guarantee because of vagueness nor violate the First Amendment's free speech guarantee; and Vermont may impose contribution limits on VRLC-PC, an entity that makes contributions to candidates, and the statute's contribution limits were constitutionally applied to VRLC-FIPE, which claims to be an independent-expenditure-only PAC. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants. View "Vermont Right to Life Committee v. Sorrell, et al." on Justia Law