Case: 19-14552 Date Filed: 04/29/2020 Page: 1 of 95 [PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________ No. 19-14552 ________________________ D.C. Docket No. 4:18-cv-00262-MW-CAS NANCY CAROLA JACOBSON, TERENCE FLEMING, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, versus FLORIDA SECRETARY OF STATE, NATIONAL REPUBLICAN SENATORIAL COMMITTEE, et al., Defendants-Appellants. ________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida ________________________ (April 29, 2020) Before WILLIAM PRYOR, JILL PRYOR, and LUCK, Circuit Judges. WILLIAM PRYOR, Circuit Judge: Case: 19-14552 Date Filed: 04/29/2020 Page: 2 of 95 This appeal requires us to decide whether several voters and organizations have standing to challenge a law that governs the order in which candidates appear on the ballot in Florida’s general elections. The law provides that candidates of the party that won the last gubernatorial election shall appear first for each office on the ballot and that candidates of the second-place party shall appear second. Several Democratic voters and organizations sued the Florida Secretary of State to enjoin enforcement of the law. They alleged that the law violates their rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments because candidates who appear first on the ballot—in recent years, Republicans—enjoy a “windfall vote” from a small number of voters who select the first candidate on a ballot solely because of that candidate’s position of primacy. After a bench trial, the district court permanently enjoined the Secretary—and the 67 county Supervisors of Elections, none of whom were made parties to this lawsuit—from preparing ballots in accordance with the law. We hold that the voters and organizations lack standing to sue the Secretary. None of them proved an injury in fact. And any injury they might suffer is neither fairly traceable to the Secretary nor redressable by a judgment against her because she does not enforce the challenged law. Instead, the Supervisors—county officials independent of the Secretary—are responsible for placing candidates on the ballot in the order the law prescribes. The district court lacked authority to enjoin those 2 Case: 19-14552 Date Filed: 04/29/2020 Page: 3 of 95 officials in this suit, so it was powerless to provide redress. Because the voters and organizations lack standing, we vacate and remand with instructions to dismiss for lack of justiciability. I. BACKGROUND As part of a comprehensive revision to the election code, the Florida Legislature enacted a statute in 1951 that governs the order in which candidates appear on the ballot in general elections. 1951 Fla. Laws 871 (originally codified at Fla. Stat. § 101.151(4) (1951)). The statute requires the candidate of the party that won the last gubernatorial election to appear first beneath each office listed on the ballot, with the candidate of the second-place party appearing second. Fla. Stat. § 101.151(3)(a). In the nearly 70 years since its enactment, the statute has placed Democrats first on the ballot in 20 general elections and Republicans first in 14, including the 10 most recent general elections. In 2018, three voters and six organizations that support the Democratic Party ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals