Amber JONES; Deanna Lack, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Kent COLEMAN; Henry Fincher; Patricia Heim; Tom Lawless; Norma Lester; Tom Morton, in their official capacities as members of the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 16-5908
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
Argued: February 1, 2017. Decided and Filed: February 15, 2017
848 F.3d 744
In advancing a contrary position, the Secretary leans heavily on another decision of the Commission: Secretary of Labor, Mine Safety & Health Administration v. Jim Walter Resources, Inc., 22 F.M.S.H.R.C. 21 (2000). Jim Walter held that an off-site supply shop, which stored hard hats, safety glasses, nails, conveyor belts, belt structures, oil filters, and other supplies exclusively for the use of the shop‘s parent company, was a “coal or other mine.” Id. at 22, 25. We disagree. For the same reasons we reject the Commission‘s decision here, we reject Jim Walters as well. We of course are not bound by an incorrect Commission decision. Once the agency tries to extend its jurisdiction to off-site shops and off-site equipment, the language of the statute provides no stopping point, leaving the scope of its jurisdiction to the whims of the Secretary. Far better, it seems to us, to stand by the text and context of
Alpha, it is true, needs facilities like Maxxim‘s to repair equipment and manufacture new parts. But that reality does not transform the Sidney shop into a mine any more than it could have transformed the Jeffrey Company plant into a mine in the past or a Caterpillar plant into a mine in the future. Our court rejected a similar argument in the context of a road and bridge constructed by a mining company. Even though the road and bridge were the “only means of getting the minerals from the surface mine to the loadout facility” and even though they were used in the process, that did not make them mines under
For these reasons, we grant the petition for review and reverse the Commission‘s decision to exercise jurisdiction over the Maxxim facility.
Before: BATCHELDER, SUTTON, and KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judges.
OPINION
ALICE M. BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge.
This case calls upon us to decide whether the district court properly abstained from exercising its jurisdiction in a case alleging that Tennessee‘s Campaign Financial Disclosure Act,
I. BACKGROUND
Appellants Amber Jones and Deanna Lack are parents of school-age children in White County, Tennessee. In the fall of 2015, Jones and Lack, together with several other parents, formed an unincorporated group called the Association for Accurate Standards in Education (“AASE“). AASE opposed another group of parents’ advocating for removal of a social studies textbook that includes discussion of Islam from the public schools in White County. Approximately eight persons, all part-time volunteers, comprise AASE. It does not have a separate bank account, and it does not keep regular records of money collected or spent. There are no formal membership requirements, and there are no regular in-person meetings. Jones serves as the president of the group, and Lack serves as the secretary; there is no treasurer. Approximately five or six people have donated to AASE since its formation, but no individual donation has exceeded $200; indeed total donations to AASE have yet to reach $500.
Several seats on the White County Board of Education were up for election in August 2016, and the parents comprising AASE wanted the group to support and oppose candidates for at least two seats on the Board of Education. Appellants believed their message would be amplified if it were delivered through AASE. At the time, Appellants did not want AASE to make direct campaign contributions to candidates, but they intended for AASE to spend less than $250 on independent expenditures, including yard signs, stickers, and brochures.
In October 2015, Appellants met with members of Williamson Strong, an unincorporated group of parents that disseminates information and facilitates discussion about school board candidates and election issues in nearby Williamson County, Tennessee. It was then that Appellants learned that the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance (“the Registry“) had fined Williamson Strong $5,000 for failing to certify a treasurer or file financial disclosure statements. “In finding that [Williamson Strong] is a political campaign committee1 subject to these requirements,
Appellants sued the officials of the Registry—Appellees Kent Coleman, Henry Fincher, Patricia Heim, Tom Lawless, Norma Lester, and Tom Morton—in their official capacities under
II. DISCUSSION
A. Standard of Review
We have appellate jurisdiction under
B. Standing
The Registry argues that Appellants lack standing to bring either an as-applied or a facial (i.e., “overbreadth“)
Based on the allegations in the Complaint and the aforementioned stipulation in Williamson Strong, we are satisfied that Appellants meet both the constitutional requirements for standing, see Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992), and the somewhat relaxed prudential standing requirements for First Amendment challenges. See Am. Booksellers, 484 U.S. at 392; Prime Media, Inc. v. City of Brentwood, 485 F.3d 343, 350 (6th Cir. 2007).
C. Pullman Abstention
“The doctrine of abstention, under which a [d]istrict [c]ourt may decline to exercise or postpone the exercise of its jurisdiction, is an extraordinary and narrow exception to the duty of a [d]istrict [c]ourt to adjudicate a controversy properly before it.” Cty. of Allegheny v. Frank Mashuda Co., 360 U.S. 185, 188 (1959); see also Colo. River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 817 (1976) (describing the “virtually unflagging obligation of the federal courts to exercise the jurisdiction given them“). One exception to this general rule is based on the avoidance of “needless friction with state policies,” and “a premature constitutional adjudication.” R.R. Comm‘n of Tex. v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496, 500 (1941). Pullman abstention, as this exception has come to be called, does not “involve the abdication of federal jurisdiction, but only the postponement of its exercise,” Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U.S. 167, 177 (1959), which differentiates it from other forms of federal judicial abstention. E.g., Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971).
In Pullman, the Supreme Court “held that federal courts should abstain
Where there is an action pending in state court that will likely resolve the state-law questions underlying the federal claim, we have regularly ordered abstention. Similarly, when the state-law questions have concerned matters peculiarly within the province of the local courts, we have inclined toward abstention. On the other hand, where the litigation has already been long delayed, or where it has seemed unlikely that resolution of the state-law question would significantly affect the federal claim, the Court has held that abstention should not be required.
Id. (internal citations omitted).
The application of Pullman abstention results in significant financial and time burdens on the parties and acts almost as an exhaustion requirement, requiring the federal court plaintiff to seek an authoritative state court construction of the state-law issue before a federal court will entertain her claim. See Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, 520 U.S. 43, 76 (1997) (“Pullman abstention proved protracted and expensive in practice, for it entailed a full round of litigation in the state court system before any resumption of proceedings in federal court.“). Since the Supreme Court created the Pullman doctrine, most states have adopted certification procedures, which permit the state‘s highest court to consider novel questions of state law that have been “certified” by a federal court. See id. (citations omitted). The Supreme Court has indicated that a district court‘s certification of a novel issue of state law may be preferable to its abstaining under Pullman. “Certification today covers territory once dominated by a deferral device called ‘Pullman abstention‘.... Certification procedure, in contrast, allows a federal court faced with a novel state-law question to put the question directly to the State‘s highest court, reducing the delay, cutting the cost, and increasing the assurance of an authoritative response.” Id. at 75-76.
Perhaps because of the time, energy, and resources involved in resolving a case after a federal district court invokes Pullman abstention, the Supreme Court has “been particularly reluctant to abstain in cases involving facial challenges based on the First Amendment.” City of Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 467 (1987) (collecting cases). This is especially true in cases challenging overbroad laws that have no limiting construction. See Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. 479, 489-90 (1965) (“[A]bstention ... is inappropriate for cases [in which] ... statutes are justifiably attacked on their face as abridging free expression....“). “In such case[s] to force the plaintiff who has commenced a federal action to suffer the delay of state court proceedings might itself effect the impermissible chilling of the very constitutional right he seeks to protect.” Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U.S. 241, 252 (1967).
“In cases involving a facial challenge to a statute,” the threshold question
D. Application
The Tennessee Campaign Financial Disclosure Act regulates, among other things, the disclosure of financial contributions to political campaign committees.
(A) A combination of two (2) or more individuals, including any political party governing body, whether state or local, making expenditures, to support or oppose any candidate for public office or measure, but does not include a voter registration program;
(B) Any corporation or any other organization making expenditures, except as provided in subdivision (4), to support or oppose a measure; or
(C) Any committee, club, corporation, association, or other group of persons which receives contributions or makes expenditures to support or oppose any candidate for public office or measure during a calendar quarter in an aggregate amount exceeding two hundred fifty dollars ($250).
It is
The district court determined that abstention was warranted while Williamson Strong was being reviewed in state administrative proceedings. According to the district court, the central issue in Williamson Strong is whether the Williamson Strong group is classified as a political campaign committee under
But the district court‘s reasoning, like a house built on sand, cannot stand. The district court‘s reliance on Williamson Strong to clarify the scope of
Moreover, we do not find
Furthermore, the Supreme Court has called on federal courts to exercise their jurisdiction in cases in which the statute is not ambiguous, even if the statute has never been interpreted by a state court. See Baggett, 377 U.S. at 375; see also Harman, 380 U.S. at 535; Hill, 482 U.S. at 469. Here, contrary to the district court‘s statement, the Tennessee Supreme Court has expounded on the predecessor to
Moreover, T.C.A. § 2-10-102(10) [the predecessor to § 2-10-102(12)] was drafted to encompass any combination of two or more persons within the meaning of a ‘political campaign committee’ to insure that every group participating in a particular election to attempt to affect the voting outcome could not avoid the disclosure requirements. The General Assembly clearly intended that referenda campaigns would be included in the disclosure of the Act.
No significant dispute exists in this case that, as written, the Act applies to the Plaintiffs. Under T.C.A. § 2-10-102(10) [now subsection (12)], these churches are combinations of two or more individuals making expenditures to support or oppose a measure, § 2-10-102(10)(A), or are organizations making expenditures to support or oppose a measure, § 2-10-102(10)(B), or are associations or other groups of persons that receive contributions or make expenditures to support or oppose any measure during a calendar quarter in an aggregate amount exceeding [$250,] 2-10-102(10)(C).
Id. at 902 (emphasis added).
But the Tennessee Supreme Court also acknowledged that the Act does not impose burdens on “clubs, committees, associations, or other groups not otherwise covered by the Act,” which permits such groups “to receive or spend the aggregate of $250 per calendar quarter to attempt to influence an election outcome without being defined as a political campaign committee.” Id. at 905;
Although we decline to reach the merits of the parties’ arguments today, we echo the Supreme Court‘s strong aversion to the invocation of Pullman abstention when a state statute is being challenged on First Amendment grounds and when that statute is not obviously susceptible to a limiting construction. See Hill, 482 U.S. at 467-71. We reiterate that abstention is “the exception and not the rule,” id. at 467 (citing Colo. River, 424 U.S. at 813), and that district courts should engage in a thorough analysis of the state-law issue before abstaining under Pullman. Additionally, when a state has made certification available, as Tennessee has done,5 we urge district courts to carefully
Separate and apart from the free-speech problems with applying Pullman abstention here, when the plaintiff has requested preliminary injunctive relief, a district court ought ordinarily to grant it when it abstains. “As we see the matter ... the abstention order did in effect deny preliminary injunctive relief and effectively shut the federal courthouse door upon plaintiffs in their search for timely vindication of their federal constitutional claims.” Daniel v. Waters, 515 F.2d 485, 492 (6th Cir. 1975).
III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court‘s order staying the case, and we remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.