Public Integrity Alliance v. City of Tucson, No. 15-16142 (9th Cir. 2015)
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Plaintiffs, five Tucson voters and a non-profit corporation called PIA, filed suit challenging the constitutionality of Tucson’s hybrid system for electing members of its city council. The Supreme Court has held that the primary and general elections are a “single instrumentality for choice of officers.” Because the primary and general elections are two parts of a “unitary” process, a citizen’s right to vote in the general election may be meaningless unless he is also permitted to vote in the primary. Because the constituency of the representative to be elected remains static throughout the election process, the geographical unit must also remain static
throughout that process. In this case, such mismatches between voters at different stages of a single election cycle are not constitutionally permissible. The court concluded that the practical effect of the Tucson system is to give some of a representative’s constituents - those in his home ward - a vote of disproportionate weight. The court held that every otherwise eligible voter who will be a constituent of the winner of the general election must have an equal opportunity to participate in each election cycle through which that candidate is selected. Because all Tucsonans have an equal interest in determining who the nominees will be, the city may not exclude out-of-ward voters from the primaries. Thus, the court rejected the city's final argument that the hybrid system is a reasonable “residency restriction” on the right to vote. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's judgment in favor of the city.
Court Description: Civil Rights. The panel reversed the district court’s judgment in favor of the City of Tucson in an action challenging the constitutionality of Tucson’s hybrid system for electing members of its city council. Tucson is divided into six wards of approximately equal population, and each ward is allotted one seat on the city council. Under the first step of the hybrid system each ward holds its own primary limited to residents of that ward. The winners of the ward primaries advance to the general election, where they compete against the other candidates nominated from that ward. In the general election, all Tucson residents can vote for one council member from each ward that held a primary during the same election cycle. The panel first held that in determining the system’s constitutionality, the primary and general elections must be considered in tandem as two parts of a single election cycle, rather than two separate contests judged independently of one another. The panel determined that the practical effect of the Tucson system is to give some of a representative’s constituents—those in his home ward—a vote of disproportionate weight. That is the very result the Supreme Court’s one person, one vote jurisprudence is meant to 4 PUBLIC INTEGRITY ALLIANCE V. CITY OF TUCSON foreclose. The panel held that every otherwise eligible voter who will be a constituent of the winner of the general election must have an equal opportunity to participate in each election cycle through which that candidate is selected. The panel rejected Tucson’s argument that the hybrid system is a reasonable “residency restriction” on the right to vote. The panel held that when two groups of citizens share identical interests in an election, the city may not use a residency requirement to exclude one group while including the other. The panel concluded that excluding out-of-ward voters from the primary election discriminates among residents of the same governmental unit in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Dissenting, Judge Tallman stated that the Constitution does not require Tucson to draw its district borders in a particular way for different local elections. He concluded that Tucson’s hybrid system is constitutional, and the majority erred in holding otherwise.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on April 27, 2016.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on September 2, 2016.
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