By Ben Solis
Gongwer News Service
Two state senators and nine representatives of the Michigan Legislature lacked standing to bring a federal lawsuit that argued a citizen using the initiative process to regulate federal elections was a violation of the Elections Clause in the U.S. Constitution, a 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled unanimously.
In a published opinion issued Friday written by Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton, joined by Judge John Bush and Judge Eric Murphy, the panel in Lindsey v. Whitmer (USCOA Docket No 24-1413) ruled the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan properly dismissed the case in favor the defendant under the Federal Civil Rules of Procedure.
The case arose after the group of Republican legislators – Sen. Jonathan Lindsey, Sen. Jim Runestad, Rep. James DeSana, Rep. Rachelle Smit, Rep. Steve Carra, Rep Joseph Fox, Rep. Matt Maddock, Rep. Angela Rigas, Rep. Josh Schriver, Rep. Neil Friske and Rep. Brad Paquette – challenged the legality of recent constitutional amendments passed by voters making sweeping changes to state voting laws.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Bureau of Elections Director Jonathan Brater were named as defendants.
The case was dismissed seven months after it was filed by U.S. District Judge Jane Beckering in April. Beckering granted the state’s motion to jettison the case on the basis that the legislators lacked standing. The ruling from Beckering did not address the merits of the Republicans’ arguments that ballot proposals decided by voters violate the Elections clause of the U.S. Constitution which says the time, place and manner of elections for Congress shall be determined “in each state by the Legislature thereof.”
It was a variation of the “independent state legislature theory” Republicans advanced in recent years, the idea being that only the legislatures can regulate federal elections. They were seeking a court ruling holding that Proposal 3 of 2018 and Proposal 2 of 2022, which enacted sweeping changes to elections in Michigan, violated the U.S. Constitution. Voters overwhelmingly passed both proposals.
Still, the Republicans persisted and appalled to the 6th Circuit.
Sutton and his colleagues last week found that Beckering committed no error in dismissing the case.
The panel ruled that Article III of the U.S. Constitution’s key purpose is to confine authority of the federal courts and permits courts to only hear and decide cases or controversies from plaintiffs with concrete interests, not abstract ones, and to prevent the judicial process from being used to usurp the powers of the separate political branches.
That said, the court said it has remained skeptical of legislators’ standing to challenge laws the diminish their official authority as legislative bodies. Sutton noted that the court once barred a full chamber of the Virginia Legislature from challenging redistricting laws in federal court for that very reason.
Such was the case with the lawsuit brought by Lindsey and others.
“Proof that the claimants do not represent a majority bloc of the legislature is the reality that the Legislature has enacted several laws that implement these constitutional amendments. In one, the Legislature required the secretary of state to automatically register qualified electors who applied for driver’s licenses, state identification cards, or changes of address,” Sutton wrote. “Unable to fit this lawsuit into the narrow exception for such institutional injuries, the claimants cannot turn to the federal courts to transform their legislative defeat into a judicial victory. In trying to fend off this conclusion, the legislators argue that … Michigan executive-branch officials nullified their votes by permitting citizen-led amendments to the Michigan Constitution that later infringed their legislative power. But this approach would inflate … (a) narrow exception into a gaping maw.”
Sutton argued that if they were correct in their reasoning, a Michigan legislator “could challenge any state constitutional amendment created by an initiative because all such amendments would invariably limit some legislative power.”
“That approach cannot be reconciled with the caselaw,” Sutton wrote. “Instead, we must follow (past precedent’s) general directive: The Michigan legislators lack standing when they do not have the votes ‘sufficient to defeat’ or enact a bill. … The legislators insist that the Elections Clause confers upon individual lawmakers a right to vote on federal election regulations and any deprivation of that right injures them. We decline this invitation to bore a good-for-Elections-Clause-only hole in (past precedent).”
Sutton further opined that just as Congress cannot create standing in Article III courts that does not exist, neither can the Michigan Legislature.
“The argument fails on its own terms anyway. The Michigan Constitution vests the legislative power in a ‘senate’ and ‘house of representatives,’ not individuals,” Sutton added. “That separate lawmakers cast separate votes does not alter the reality that legislators do not vote ‘as a prerogative of personal power.’ … Right or wrong about this point, it would not tell us whether the legislators have a cognizable injury that Article III empowers the federal courts to hear.
The legislators persist that the Supremacy Clause constrains the Michigan Constitution to the extent it violates the Elections Clause. That is true in the abstract. But the Supremacy Clause doesn’t establish standing. … It declares only the rule of decision when state and federal law clash.”
By that measure, Sutton said their station as U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges “gives us no right to change Supreme Court precedents or redraw the lines created by them.”
Gongwer News Service
Two state senators and nine representatives of the Michigan Legislature lacked standing to bring a federal lawsuit that argued a citizen using the initiative process to regulate federal elections was a violation of the Elections Clause in the U.S. Constitution, a 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled unanimously.
In a published opinion issued Friday written by Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton, joined by Judge John Bush and Judge Eric Murphy, the panel in Lindsey v. Whitmer (USCOA Docket No 24-1413) ruled the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan properly dismissed the case in favor the defendant under the Federal Civil Rules of Procedure.
The case arose after the group of Republican legislators – Sen. Jonathan Lindsey, Sen. Jim Runestad, Rep. James DeSana, Rep. Rachelle Smit, Rep. Steve Carra, Rep Joseph Fox, Rep. Matt Maddock, Rep. Angela Rigas, Rep. Josh Schriver, Rep. Neil Friske and Rep. Brad Paquette – challenged the legality of recent constitutional amendments passed by voters making sweeping changes to state voting laws.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Bureau of Elections Director Jonathan Brater were named as defendants.
The case was dismissed seven months after it was filed by U.S. District Judge Jane Beckering in April. Beckering granted the state’s motion to jettison the case on the basis that the legislators lacked standing. The ruling from Beckering did not address the merits of the Republicans’ arguments that ballot proposals decided by voters violate the Elections clause of the U.S. Constitution which says the time, place and manner of elections for Congress shall be determined “in each state by the Legislature thereof.”
It was a variation of the “independent state legislature theory” Republicans advanced in recent years, the idea being that only the legislatures can regulate federal elections. They were seeking a court ruling holding that Proposal 3 of 2018 and Proposal 2 of 2022, which enacted sweeping changes to elections in Michigan, violated the U.S. Constitution. Voters overwhelmingly passed both proposals.
Still, the Republicans persisted and appalled to the 6th Circuit.
Sutton and his colleagues last week found that Beckering committed no error in dismissing the case.
The panel ruled that Article III of the U.S. Constitution’s key purpose is to confine authority of the federal courts and permits courts to only hear and decide cases or controversies from plaintiffs with concrete interests, not abstract ones, and to prevent the judicial process from being used to usurp the powers of the separate political branches.
That said, the court said it has remained skeptical of legislators’ standing to challenge laws the diminish their official authority as legislative bodies. Sutton noted that the court once barred a full chamber of the Virginia Legislature from challenging redistricting laws in federal court for that very reason.
Such was the case with the lawsuit brought by Lindsey and others.
“Proof that the claimants do not represent a majority bloc of the legislature is the reality that the Legislature has enacted several laws that implement these constitutional amendments. In one, the Legislature required the secretary of state to automatically register qualified electors who applied for driver’s licenses, state identification cards, or changes of address,” Sutton wrote. “Unable to fit this lawsuit into the narrow exception for such institutional injuries, the claimants cannot turn to the federal courts to transform their legislative defeat into a judicial victory. In trying to fend off this conclusion, the legislators argue that … Michigan executive-branch officials nullified their votes by permitting citizen-led amendments to the Michigan Constitution that later infringed their legislative power. But this approach would inflate … (a) narrow exception into a gaping maw.”
Sutton argued that if they were correct in their reasoning, a Michigan legislator “could challenge any state constitutional amendment created by an initiative because all such amendments would invariably limit some legislative power.”
“That approach cannot be reconciled with the caselaw,” Sutton wrote. “Instead, we must follow (past precedent’s) general directive: The Michigan legislators lack standing when they do not have the votes ‘sufficient to defeat’ or enact a bill. … The legislators insist that the Elections Clause confers upon individual lawmakers a right to vote on federal election regulations and any deprivation of that right injures them. We decline this invitation to bore a good-for-Elections-Clause-only hole in (past precedent).”
Sutton further opined that just as Congress cannot create standing in Article III courts that does not exist, neither can the Michigan Legislature.
“The argument fails on its own terms anyway. The Michigan Constitution vests the legislative power in a ‘senate’ and ‘house of representatives,’ not individuals,” Sutton added. “That separate lawmakers cast separate votes does not alter the reality that legislators do not vote ‘as a prerogative of personal power.’ … Right or wrong about this point, it would not tell us whether the legislators have a cognizable injury that Article III empowers the federal courts to hear.
The legislators persist that the Supremacy Clause constrains the Michigan Constitution to the extent it violates the Elections Clause. That is true in the abstract. But the Supremacy Clause doesn’t establish standing. … It declares only the rule of decision when state and federal law clash.”
By that measure, Sutton said their station as U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges “gives us no right to change Supreme Court precedents or redraw the lines created by them.”
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