Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona

570 U.S. 1

Case Year: 2013

Case Ruling: 7-2, Affirmed

Opinion Justice: Scalia

FACTS

In 1993, Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), often called the “Motor Voter Act,” in order to enhance voter registration by eligible citizens in federal elections. The act allows citizens to register to vote when applying for a driver’s license, by mail, or in person. The act also authorized the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to develop a uniform voter registration application form consistent with the provisions of the NVRA. The form developed by the EAC required (among other provisions) that the applicant, under penalty for perjury, attest to being a United States citizen by checking an appropriate box. No proof of citizenship is required beyond the applicant’s signature. The law requires the states to “accept and use” the federal form, but it also allows them to develop their own forms as long as they are consistent with the requirements of the federal form and as long as the state also accepts the federal form from any applicant who desires to use it.

Arizona developed its own registration form. Then in 2004, the state passed Proposition 200 by popular referendum. This law required voter registration applicants to provide proof of citizenship beyond merely signing a statement declaring citizenship status. Acceptable proof included a driver’s license or state-issued identification card number, a number associated with Native American tribal membership, naturalization certificate number, birth certificate, or passport. Arizona also requested that the EAC include its proof of citizenship requirement on the federal form used in the state, but the EAC declined to do so. Arizona then implemented its law and began rejecting any application that did not provide acceptable proof of citizenship.

A coalition of individuals and nonprofit organizations (including the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona) challenged Proposition 200. The lower courts held that Proposition 200 was not unconstitutional but that it conflicted with the NVRA and therefore was pre-empted.

 

JUSTICE SCALIA DELIVERED THE OPINION OF THE COURT..

  The Elections Clause, Art. I, §4, cl. 1, provides:
  “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in
  each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations,
  except as to the places of chusing Senators.”

The Clause empowers Congress to pre-empt state regulations governing the “Times, Places and Manner” of holding congressional elections. The question here is whether the federal statutory requirement that States “accept and use” the Federal Form pre-empts Arizona’s state-law requirement that officials “reject” the application of a prospective voter who submits a completed Federal Form unaccompanied by documentary evidence of citizenship.

The Elections Clause has two functions. Upon the States it imposes the duty to prescribe the time, place, and manner of electing Representatives and Senators; upon Congress it confers the power to alter those regulations or supplant them altogether. This grant of congressional power was the Framers’ insurance against the possibility that a State would refuse to provide for the election of representatives to the Federal Congress. “[E]very government ought to contain in itself the means of its own preservation,” and “an exclusive power of regulating elections for the national government, in the hands of the State legislatures, would leave the existence of the Union entirely at their mercy. They could at any moment annihilate it by neglecting to provide for the choice of persons to administer its affairs.” That prospect seems fanciful today, but the widespread, vociferous opposition to the proposed Constitution made it a very real concern in the founding era.

The Clause’s substantive scope is broad. “Times, Places, and Manner,” we have written, are “comprehensive words,” which “embrace authority to provide a complete code for congressional elections,” including, as relevant here and as petitioners do not contest, regulations relating to “registration.” In practice, the Clause functions as “a default provision; it invests the States with responsibility for the mechanics of congressional elections, but only so far as Congress declines to pre-empt state legislative choices.” Foster v. Love (1997). The power of Congress over the “Times, Places and Manner” of congressional elections “is paramount, and may be exercised at any time, and to any extent which it deems expedient; and so far as it is exercised, and no farther, the regulations effected supersede those of the State which are inconsistent therewith.” Ex parte Siebold (1880).

The straightforward textual question here is whether Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §16–166(F), which requires state officials to “reject” a Federal Form unaccompanied by documentary evidence of citizenship, conflicts with the NVRA’s mandate that Arizona “accept and use” the Federal Form. If so, the state law, “so far as the conflict extends, ceases to be operative.”Siebold. In Arizona’s view, these seemingly incompatible obligations can be read to operate harmoniously: The NVRA, it contends, requires merely that a State receive the Federal Form willingly and use that form as one element in its (perhaps lengthy) transaction with a prospective voter.

Taken in isolation, the mandate that a State “accept and use” the Federal Form is fairly susceptible of two interpretations. It might mean that a State must accept the Federal Form as a complete and sufficient registration application; or it might mean that the State is merely required to receive the form willingly and use it somehow in its voter registration process. Both readings—“receive willingly” and “accept as sufficient”—are compatible with the plain meaning of the word “accept.” And we take it as self-evident that the “elastic” verb “use,” read in isolation, is broad enough to encompass Arizona’s preferred construction. In common parlance, one might say that a restaurant accepts and uses credit cards even though it requires customers to show matching identification when making a purchase.

“Words that can have more than one meaning are given content, however, by their surroundings.” Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc. (2001). And reading “accept” merely to denote willing receipt seems out of place in the context of an official mandate to accept and use something for a given purpose. The implication of such a mandate is that its object is to be accepted as sufficient for the requirement it is meant to satisfy. For example, a government diktat that “civil servants shall accept government IOUs for payment of salaries” does not invite the response, “sure, we’ll accept IOUs—if you pay us a ten percent down payment in cash.” Many federal statutes contain similarly phrased commands, and they contemplate more than mere willing receipt. . . .

Arizona appeals to the presumption against pre-emption sometimes invoked in our Supremacy Clause cases. See, e.g.,Gregory v. Ashcroft (1991). Where it applies, “we start with the assumption that the historic police powers of the States were not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.” Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp. (1947). That rule of construction rests on an assumption about congressional intent: that “Congress does not exercise lightly” the “extraordinary power” to “legislate in areas traditionally regulated by the States.” We have never mentioned such a principle in our Elections Clause cases. Siebold, for example, simply said that Elections Clause legislation, “so far as it extends and conflicts with the regulations of the State, necessarily supersedes them.” There is good reason for treating Elections Clause legislation differently: The assumption that Congress is reluctant to pre-empt does not hold when Congress acts under that constitutional provision, which empowers Congress to “make or alter” state election regulations. When Congress legislates with respect to the “Times, Places and Manner” of holding congressional elections, it necessarily displaces some element of a pre-existing legal regime erected by the States. Because the power the Elections Clause confers is none other than the power to pre-empt, the reasonable assumption is that the statutory text accurately communicates the scope of Congress’s pre-emptive intent. Moreover, the federalism concerns underlying the presumption in the Supremacy Clause context are somewhat weaker here. Unlike the States’ “historic police powers,” Rice, the States’ role in regulating congressional elections—while weighty and worthy of respect—has always existed subject to the express qualification that it “terminates according to federal law.” Buckman Co. v. Plaintiffs’ Legal Comm. (2001). In sum, there is no compelling reason not to read Elections Clause legislation simply to mean what it says.

We conclude that the fairest reading of the statute is that a state-imposed requirement of evidence of citizenship not required by the Federal Form is “inconsistent with” the NVRA’s mandate that States “accept and use” the Federal Form. If this reading prevails, the Elections Clause requires that Arizona’s rule give way.

We note, however, that while the NVRA forbids States to demand that an applicant submit additional information beyond that required by the Federal Form, it does not preclude States from “deny[ing] registration based on information in their possession establishing the applicant’s ineligibility.” The NVRA clearly contemplates that not every submitted Federal Form will result in registration. . . .

We hold that [NVRA] precludes Arizona from requiring a Federal Form applicant to submit information beyond that required by the form itself. Arizona may, however, request anew that the EAC include such a requirement among the Federal Form’s state-specific instructions, and may seek judicial review of the EAC’s decision under the Administrative Procedure Act.

  The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.

JUSTICE THOMAS, DISSENTING.

This case involves the federal requirement that States “accept and use” the federal voter registration form created pursuant to the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). The Court interprets “accept and use,” with minor exceptions, to require States to register any individual who completes and submits the federal form. It, therefore, holds that [the NVRA] pre-empts an Arizona law requiring additional information to register. As the majority recognizes, its decision implicates a serious constitutional issue—whether Congress has power to set qualifications for those who vote in elections for federal office.

I do not agree, and I think that both the plain text and the history of the Voter Qualifications Clause, U.S. Const., Art. I, §2, cl. 1, and the Seventeenth Amendment authorize States to determine the qualifications of voters in federal elections, which necessarily includes the related power to determine whether those qualifications are satisfied. To avoid substantial constitutional problems created by interpreting [the NVRA] to permit Congress to effectively countermand this authority, I would construe the law as only requiring Arizona to accept and use the form as part of its voter registration process, leaving the State free to request whatever additional information it determines is necessary to ensure that voters meet the qualifications it has the constitutional authority to establish. Under this interpretation, Arizona did “accept and use” the federal form. Accordingly, there is no conflict between [the Arizona law and the NVRA] and, thus, no pre-emption. . . .

The Voter Qualifications Clause, U.S. Const., Art. I, §2, cl. 1, provides that “the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature” in elections for the federal House of Representatives. The Seventeenth Amendment, which provides for direct election of Senators, contains an identical clause. That language is susceptible of only one interpretation: States have the authority “to control who may vote in congressional elections” so long as they do not “establish special requirements that do not apply in elections for the state legislature.” Congress has no role in setting voter qualifications, or determining whether they are satisfied, aside from the powers conferred by the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-Fourth, and Twenty-Sixth Amendments, which are not at issue here. This power is instead expressly reposed in the States. . . .

. . . I would not require Arizona to seek approval for its registration requirements from the Federal Government, for, as I have shown, the Federal Government does not have the constitutional authority to withhold such approval. Accordingly, it does not have the authority to command States to seek it. As a result, the majority’s proposed solution does little to avoid the serious constitutional problems created by its interpretation.

. . . I would, therefore, hold that Arizona may “reject any application for registration that is not accompanied by satisfactory evidence of United States citizenship,” as defined by Arizona law.

  I respectfully dissent.

JUSTICE ALITO, DISSENTING.

The Court reads an ambiguous federal statute in a way that brushes aside the constitutional authority of the States and produces truly strange results.

Under the Constitution, the States, not Congress, have the authority to establish the qualifications of voters in elections for Members of Congress. The States also have the default authority to regulate federal voter registration. Exercising its right to set federal voter qualifications, Arizona, like every other State, permits only U.S. citizens to vote in federal elections, and Arizona has concluded that this requirement cannot be effectively enforced unless applicants for registration are required to provide proof of citizenship. According to the Court, however, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) deprives Arizona of this authority. I do not think that this is what Congress intended.

I also doubt that Congress meant for the success of an application for voter registration to depend on which of two valid but substantially different registration forms the applicant happens to fill out and submit, but that is how the Court reads the NVRA. . . .

These results are not required by the NVRA. Proper respect for the constitutional authority of the States demands a clear indication of a congressional intent to pre-empt state laws enforcing voter qualifications. And while the relevant provisions of the Act are hardly models of clarity, their best reading is that the States need not treat the federal form as a complete voter registration application.

In light of the States’ authority under the Elections Clause of the Constitution, I would begin by applying a presumption against pre-emption of the Arizona law requiring voter registration applicants to submit proof of citizenship. Under the Elections Clause, the States have the authority to specify the times, places, and manner of federal elections except to the extent that Congress chooses to provide otherwise. And in recognition of this allocation of authority, it is appropriate to presume that the States retain this authority unless Congress has clearly manifested a contrary intent. . . . The presumption against pre-emption applies with full force when Congress legislates in a “field which the States have traditionally occupied,”Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp. (1947), and the NVRA was the first significant federal regulation of voter registration enacted under the Elections Clause since Reconstruction.

The Court has it exactly backwards when it declines to apply the presumption against pre-emption because “the federalism concerns underlying the presumption in the Supremacy Clause context are somewhat weaker” in an Elections Clause case like this one. To the contrary, Arizona has a “ ‘compelling interest in preserving the integrity of its election process’ ” that the Constitution recognizes and that the Court’s reading of the Act seriously undermines. Purcell v. Gonzalez (2006). . . .

Needless to say, when Congress believes that some overriding national interest justifies federal regulation, it has the power to “make or alter” state laws specifying the “Times, Places and Manner” of federal elections. But we should expect Congress to speak clearly when it decides to displace a default rule enshrined in the text of the Constitution that serves such important purposes. . . .

The NVRA does not come close to manifesting the clear intent to pre-empt that we should expect to find when Congress has exercised its Elections Clause power in a way that is constitutionally questionable. Indeed, . . . the better reading of the Act would be that Arizona is free to require those who use the federal form to supplement their applications with proof of citizenship. . . .

  I therefore respectfully dissent.