About the Case

In 2015, the Birmingham City Council voted to raise the local minimum wage above the federal minimum wage. In response, state legislators adopted a law requiring the entire state to use the federal minimum wage, effectively overriding the decision of the duly elected city council in Birmingham to provide workers in the city with a higher minimum wage. The Alabama NAACP, along with members of the Alabama Black Legislative Caucus and individual Birmingham residents, sued the state for intentionally discriminating against black voters under the Fourteenth Amendment and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA).   

A federal district court dismissed the plaintiffs’ suit, holding that Alabama and its officials had immunity from a VRA challenge under the 11th Amendment grant of “sovereign immunity.” The court’s decision ignored the clear intent by Congress to override state sovereign immunity under the VRA, unanimous decades-long precedent holding that the VRA overrides sovereign immunity, and over one hundred years of Supreme Court precedent allowing suits against state officials regardless of sovereign immunity. The plaintiffs have appealed the court’s decision to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

What’s At Stake

While the 11th Amendment’s grant of sovereign immunity typically shields states from lawsuits brought by private citizens, there are two important exceptions, recognized by the Supreme Court, under which a state may be sued for violating a citizen’s federal constitutional rights. The district court ignored both of these exceptions, which are vital to citizens’ ability to vindicate their rights against unlawful state action.

First, the 14th and 15th Amendments (adopted after the 11th Amendment) expanded federal power to ensure states complied with the federal Constitution, particularly its guarantees of nondiscrimination. These amendments, passed after the Civil War to abolish slavery and grant citizens equal protection under the law and the right to vote regardless of race, gave Congress the power to override state sovereign immunity by enacting statutes that provide for private lawsuits against the states to vindicate those rights. It has long been recognized that Congress created a right for private plaintiffs to sue states in federal court under Section 2 of the VRA and this right has played a vital role in ensuring the effectiveness of the VRA as an instrument for eliminating racial discrimination in voting.

Second, even where there is sovereign immunity, the Court recognized over a hundred years ago, in a case called Ex Parte Young, that individuals may sue state officials to prevent them from enforcing state laws that violate the federal constitution. The Ex Parte Young doctrine has been critical in allowing private plaintiffs to vindicate their constitutional rights and protect themselves from unlawful and unconstitutional state action. After Shelby County invalidated the “coverage formula” in Section 4 of the VRA - which subjected states and other jurisdictions with a history of discriminatory voting laws to federal preclearance - Section 2 is the primary vehicle available for citizens to challenge states and prevent state officials from enforcing racially discriminatory voting laws.

The district court’s failure to recognize the VRA’s overriding of sovereign immunity and its further failure to correctly apply the Ex Parte Young doctrine directly contradicts Supreme Court precedent and would effectively close the courthouse door on private suits under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. In partnership with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Campaign Legal Center submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the plaintiffs, urging the Eleventh Circuit to correct these errors. 

About the Case

On July 24, 2012, Illinois Liberty PAC (ILP) filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois challenging the constitutionality of Illinois’ state contribution limits. The case is now on its second trip up to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Importance of Contribution Limits

This lawsuit is part of a larger legal strategy among campaign finance reform opponents to undermine all campaign finance laws. Illinois’ contribution limits, like those of the 44 other states that have similar controls, are designed to protect the integrity of the democratic process. Contribution limits are one of the last remaining tools states can use to protect the health of our democracy — because limiting direct contributions to candidates has always been upheld as a vital and constitutional way to prevent quid pro quo corruption and its appearance. Even the Roberts Court has recognized as much.

ILP’s arguments would threaten base contribution limits across the country, and the district court rightly rejected them.

Case Details

Specifically, ILP challenged the $50,000 limit on contributions from political action committees to state candidates and the $5,000 limit on contributions from individuals to candidates, arguing that the law authorizes political parties and corporations to make far larger contributions than PACs and individuals, respectively, and therefore discriminates against PACs and individual donors. The district court refused to grant ILP a preliminary injunction against the law, and the appeals court affirmed that decision; the district court then upheld the limits after a trial.

Here, ILP is claiming that Illinois discriminates against individual donors and PACs by giving them lower limits than corporations and political parties. The Supreme Court has said that legislatures may consider how donations from different entities may corrupt elected officials, and create different contribution limits for each type of donor. ILP is attempting to sidestep or subvert these precedents so that individuals and PACs can donate more money to Illinois candidates and parties.

In addition to its First Amendment claim, ILP has challenged Illinois’ contribution limits under the Equal Protection Clause. This tactic, too, has become a trend among those hostile to campaign finance laws. A line of cases states that equal protection claims trigger strict scrutiny when they involve infringements of fundamental rights. ILP is bringing this claim to increase the level of scrutiny normally applied to contribution limits––something that courts have consistently said plaintiffs cannot do.

CLC has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in this case, along with the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice, Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, Common Cause Illinois, Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, and League of Women Voters Illinois.

About the Case

UPDATE: On Sept. 29, 2017, the city of Pasadena settled the lawsuit, agreeing to make greater than $1 million in payment, covering the plaintiffs' legal fees and court costs. This is a victory because it leaves in place the requirement that Pasadena use its redistricting plan for the remainder of the decade, as well as the district court's preclearance system.

Read the opinion.

Prior to the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, gutting a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the City of Pasadena, Texas (along with the entire state of Texas) was required to “preclear” all voting changes with federal authorities. This preclearance process was designed to make sure that jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting could not put in place voting changes that would have a harmful effect on minority voters.

Almost immediately after Shelby County was decided, Pasadena changed its governmental electoral structure to diminish the voting power of the growing Latino community. It changed its districting plan from eight single-member districts to a hybrid map with six single-member districts and two at-large districts and in the process eliminated a Latino district. Voting-age Latino citizens in Pasadena challenged the discriminatory map.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas found that Pasadena’s adoption of the new plan was motivated by discriminatory intent and violated the Voting Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment. As a remedy for this constitutional violation, the court invoked a provision of the Voting Rights Act, Section 3(c), to place Pasadena under preclearance once again (“bail-in”) until 2023 to ensure that it cannot continue to engage in discrimination in voting.

What’s At Stake

In the wake of Shelby County, Section 3(c) of the Voting Rights Act—that authorizes courts to place states and political subdivisions under preclearance in response to violations of the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendment—is a key tool to prevent discrimination in voting before it happens. This case is one of the first to order Section 3(c) preclearance “bail-in” post-Shelby County.

On appeal, the State of Texas (not a party to the case), filed a friend-of-the-court brief questioning the court’s preclearance order. Texas is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to set an impossibly high bar for Section 3(c) relief in an attempt to eliminate its utility as a tool against discrimination.

CLC submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Pasadena. The brief explains the importance of Section 3(c) as a tool to protect our democracy from discrimination, the validity of the court’s order in this case of intentional discrimination, and Section 3(c) appropriateness under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), Texas State Conference of the NAACP, ACLU, ACLU Texas, Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC), League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ), Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Voting Rights Institute (VRI) also signed on to the brief.