The Third Circuit Court of Appeals issued a unanimous ruling today upholding a lower court’s decision striking down the county organizational line in this year’s Democratic primary, meaning that Democrats will continue running under new office-block ballots in their June 4 contests.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi issued a preliminary injunction preventing Democrats from using the county line – the powerful primary ballot design system that groups party-endorsed candidates in shared rows or columns – after Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) and several other congressional candidates filed a lawsuit arguing that the line constituted irreparable harm to their campaigns. (Because the plaintiffs in the case were all Democrats, Quraishi decided that the Republican line was not impacted and could remain in place.)
His ruling was quickly appealed to the Third Circuit by most of the state’s county clerks as well as the Camden County Democratic Committee (CCDC). The clerks dropped their appeal after the third Circuit declined to issue halt Quraishi’s order, but the Camden Democrats – joined by several other party committees – forged ahead.
At oral arguments last week, CCDC lawyer Bill Tambussi contended that the county line allows parties to exercise their constitutionally protected rights to associate with their preferred candidates and assist voters in finding those candidates. Claims from Kim and his fellow anti-line plaintiffs that the line harmed their constitutional rights, Tambussi argued, should be ignored.
In its opinion today, the Third Circuit emphatically disagreed.
“Nothing in the preliminary injunction prohibits the CCDC from including county parties’ slogans on the ballot, endorsing candidates, communicating those endorsements, or associating by any other constitutional means,” Circuit Judge Kent Jordan wrote in the opinion of the court. “The injunction simply means that the CCDC does not get to bracket its preferred candidates together on the ballot… Any harm to the state’s or the CCDC’s interests is outweighed by the burdens on the Plaintiffs’ associational rights.”
Tambussi and the other pro-line attorneys who argued the case last week also made the point that the New Jersey Supreme Court has upheld the county line in the past, but Jordan said that has no bearing on his views of the case – and he noted that another prominent New Jersey legal figure, Attorney General Matt Platkin, recently said he believes the line is unconstitutional.
“Some New Jersey state cases have upheld the county line ballot system,” Jordan wrote. “But we owe no deference to a state court’s interpretation of the United States Constitution… And it is not insignificant that the New Jersey Attorney General has opted in this case to forego any defense of the statutes allowing the county-line ballots. Indeed, his letter to the District Court constitutes a ringing condemnation of those statutes, given the factual record presented here.”
Jordan, a judge from Delaware, was a member of the three-judge panel that heard the case; also assigned to the case were Circuit Judges Cheryl Ann Krause and Arianna Freeman, both from Pennsylvania.
Quraishi’s ruling, and the Third Circuit opinion affirming that ruling, have a relatively narrow scope thanks to the nature of the original lawsuit; Kim only asked for a preliminary injunction related to this year’s primary, and Quraishi narrowed it further to apply only to Democrats.
But there is also a separate, longer-term case sitting before Quraishi that aims to completely strike down the county line once and for all. Quraishi wrote last month that he thinks arguments against the line are likely to eventually succeed on the merits, and the Third Circuit concurred today.
“Based on the record developed in the District Court, there is a very substantial likelihood that the Plaintiffs will succeed on the merits of their First Amendment claims under the Anderson-Burdick framework,” Jordan wrote.
If the line is one day struck down, that would be a monumental event in New Jersey politics. Political parties and bosses derive much of their power in the state from the ability to shape the ballot in their favor and guide voters towards their chosen candidates in lower-profile races; without the line, they would have to develop entirely new strategies to retain that power.
For now, though, the Third Circuit ruling means that any Democrat running in this year’s primary will run without the benefits or drawbacks of the county line – just like candidates in the other 49 states already do.
“The Third Circuit’s precedential, unanimous, swift decision affirming the District Court’s preliminary injunction is monumental,” the three attorneys who represented the anti-line plaintiffs – Flavio Komuves, Yael Bromberg, and Brett Pugach – said in a statement after the decision was released. “It ensures fair ballots in the applicable upcoming primary elections, and makes clear that New Jersey’s anti-democratic practice of the county line places an unconstitutional ‘governmental thumb on the scale’ and will not be tolerated by the courts.”
This story was updated at 5:46 p.m. with comment from Komuves, Bromberg, and Pugach.
Third Circuit county line ruling