John HOYLE, individually and on behalf of Arkansas Taxpayers’ Rights Ass‘n, and as representative of the class of more than 100,000 Arkansans who petitioned for Proposed Constitutional Amendment 4 of 1998 and further as representative of the class of All Registered Voters of the State of Arkansas; Joe Hoyle; Earl Oxford; Tom Tinsley, Appellants, v. Sharon PRIEST, in her official capacity as Secretary of State, and in her capacity as Chairman of the State Board of Election Commissioners; Mike Huckabee, in his official capacity as Governor of the State of Arkansas; Doris Tate, in her official capacity as Sebastian County Clerk, as representative of the class of all county clerks and election officials of the State of Arkansas, Appellees.
No. 99-3473.
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
September 11, 2001.
265 F.3d 699
1999), cert. denied, 529 U.S. 1038, 120 S.Ct. 1534, 146 L.Ed.2d 348 (2000). The district court explicitly referred to the late date of the motion to amend as problematic and noted that the appellants had offered no valid reason for not amending their complaint in a more timely fashion.
The appellants filed a formal motion for leave to amend the complaint to name additional plaintiffs after the district court had entered its final order dismissing the case on May 1, 2000. They filed their appeal on May 24, 2000, and the district court subsequently denied the motion to amend as moot. After a complaint is dismissed, leave to amend may still be granted but a district court does not abuse its discretion in refusing to allow an amendment if it changes the theory of the case, summary judgment has already been granted, and no valid reason is shown for failing to present the new theory earlier. Humphreys v. Roche Biomedical Labs., Inc., 990 F.2d 1078, 1082 (8th Cir.1993). The motion for leave to amend here sought to add individuals who had signed the original pro se complaint in this case five years earlier. Adding new plaintiffs now alleging new civil rights violations would have required a new set of facts to be proven by each plaintiff against each defendant—in effect, a new theory for each new plaintiff. The appellants offer no reason for not seeking to add these individuals sooner, other than their alleged confusion caused by the allegedly ambiguous nature of the district court‘s class certification order. We have already rejected the contention that the district court‘s order was so confusing that they would not have known that class certification was denied on the individual claims of civil rights violations and resulting damages. We find no abuse of discretion.
We have considered all of the appellants’ remaining arguments and find them to be without merit.
III.
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
Brian G. Brooks, argued, Little Rock, AR (Wendy K. Michaelis, on the breif), for appellee.
Before HANSEN and HEANEY, Circuit Judges, and FENNER,1 District Judge.
HANSEN, Circuit Judge.
Appellants were sponsors of proposed Arkansas constitutional Amendment 4, which sought to abolish state property taxes and implement an alternative taxation regime based upon increased sales and use tax. The Arkansas Supreme Court ordered the proposition removed from the November 3, 1998, general-election ballot, holding that an insufficient number of signatures contained within the initiative petition mandated its removal. Roberts v. Priest, 334 Ark. 503, 975 S.W.2d 850, 856 (1998). Appellants filed this action in federal court asserting that Arkansas‘s voting initiative procedure violates their First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment
I.
A petition sponsor in Arkansas is required to submit a ballot title, text, and popular name to the Arkansas Attorney General for review and approval of an initiative. See
On July 2, 1998, appellants filed proposed Amendment 4 with the Arkansas Secretary of State for ballot certification. The sponsors were required to submit at least 71,955 qualified signatures in order for the initiative to be eligible for entry on the ballot. See
Appellants filed an amended complaint in the federal district court on May 17, 1999, challenging the constitutionality of the Arkansas initiative procedure under provisions of
II.
Appellants first contend that the process by which an initiative is given a substituted ballot title by the Attorney General violates their right to due process as guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, because the sponsor of a ballot initiative has no avenue of redress to challenge the Attorney General‘s actions until after the necessary signatures are collected. “[T]he right to a state initiative process is not a right guaranteed by the United States Constitution, but is a right created by state law.” Dobrovolny v. Moore, 126 F.3d 1111, 1113 (8th Cir.1997), cert. denied, 523 U.S. 1005, 118 S.Ct. 1188, 140 L.Ed.2d 319 (1998). Accordingly, the procedures required to be followed in the initiative process are state created and defined. Id. Therefore, “[t]he state retains the authority to interpret [the] scope and availability of any state-conferred right or interest.” Id. (internal quotations omitted).
Through
Appellants also argue that the district court erred when it concluded that Arkansas has a legitimate state interest in making the signing of a ballot petition a crime in certain instances and that core political speech is not impeded under this process. In order to qualify for ballot certification under Arkansas law, a proposed constitutional amendment must receive signatures of legal voters, consisting of at least ten percent of the total number of votes cast for the office of governor in the preceding general election.
In support of appellants’ motion to dismiss, the Arkansas Secretary of State contended that the registered voter requirement was necessary to ensure “that ballot measures enjoy significant support of interested citizens who are registered to vote on them.” (J.A. at 37.) The state‘s mandate counting only signatures of registered voters toward petition certification may make it more difficult to have an issue placed on the ballot, but such a hurdle is not constitutionally impermissible. See, e.g., Wellwood v. Johnson, 172 F.3d 1007, 1009 (8th Cir.1999) (holding Arkansas‘s increase in number of signatures required on local-option ballot petitions did not violate the Constitution). Notably, a panel of our court held in Dobrovolny that a similar
As Justice Glaze of the Arkansas Supreme Court stated, “if initiative-petition signers were not required to be registered voters, the Secretary of State would have no list of voters to verify petitions circulated pursuant to [Arkansas Constitution] Amendment 7.” Roberts, 975 S.W.2d at 856 (Glaze, J., concurring). The registered voter requirement seeks to exclude those signatures that are falsely obtained or forged and aims to protect the state‘s initiative process from abuse. See Hargis v. Hall, 196 Ark. 878, 120 S.W.2d 335, 339 (1938) (holding that the express purpose of Amendment 7 is to ensure petition signatures are genuine). Because the state law regulating the initiative procedure does not restrict political speech and the state‘s interest in protecting the integrity of its initiative process is paramount, we hold that the challenged requirement is constitutionally sound.
Appellants contend that the Voting Rights Act,
Even if appellants had standing to pursue this claim, their contention is without merit. The specific Arkansas statute punishing persons who violate the Arkansas law regulating initiative and referendum petitions subjects a citizen to a Class A misdemeanor—not a felony—for knowingly signing a ballot petition when that citizen is not legally eligible.
III.
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court.