NEW YORK STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS v. LOPEZ TORRES

Legal Principle at Issue

Do state judicial appointments which are made by political party delegates elected by party members violate the First Amendment association rights of voters and candidates?

Action

Reversed. Petitioning party received a favorable disposition.

Facts/Syllabus

Respondent Margarita López Torres was elected in 1992 to the civil court for Kings County — a court with more limited jurisdiction than the Supreme Court — having gained the nomination of the Democratic Party through a primary election. Soon after her election, López Torres claims that party leaders began to demand she make patronage hires, and that her consistent refusal to do so caused the local party to oppose her unsuccessful candidacy at the Supreme Court nominating conventions in 1997, 2002, and 2003. 

The following year, López Torres — together with other candidates who had failed to secure the nominations of their parties, voters who claimed to have supported those candidates, and the New York branch of a public-interest organization called Common Cause — brought suit in federal court against the New York Board of Elections, which is responsible for administering and enforcing the New York election law. They contended that New York's election law burdened the rights of challengers seeking to run against candidates favored by the party leadership, and deprived voters and candidates of their rights to gain access to the ballot and to associate in choosing their party's candidates. As relevant here, they sought a declaration that New York's convention system for selecting Supreme Court justices violates their First Amendment rights, and an injunction mandating the establishment of a direct primary election to select party nominees for state Supreme Court justice.

The District Court issued a preliminary injunction granting the relief requested, pending the New York Legislature's enactment of a new statutory scheme, and unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed in 2006. The Second Circuit held that voters and candidates possess a First Amendment right to a "realistic opportunity to participate in [a political party's] nominating process, and to do so free from burdens that are both severe and unnecessary." New York's electoral law violated that right because of the quantity of signatures and delegate recruits required to obtain a Supreme Court nomination at a judicial convention, and because of the apparent reality that party leaders can control delegates. In the court's view, because "one-party rule" prevailed within New York's judicial districts, a candidate had a constitutional right to gain access to the party's convention, notwithstanding her ability to get on the general-election ballot by petition signatures. The Second Circuit's holding effectively returned New York to the system of electing Supreme Court justices that existed before the 1921 amendments to the election law. 

The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 2007.