U.S. Supreme Court

ARIZONA ET AL. v. INTER TRIBAL COUNCIL OF ARIZONA, INC., ET AL.


June 17, 2013

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

JUSTICE SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court.

The National Voter Registration Act requires States to "accept and use" a uniform federal form to register voters for federal elections. The contents of that form (colloquially known as the Federal Form) are prescribed by a federal agency, the Election Assistance Commission. The Federal Form developed by the EAC does not require documentary evidence of citizenship; rather, it requires only that an applicant aver, under penalty of perjury, that he is a citizen. Arizona law requires voter-registration officials to "reject" any application for registration, including a Federal Form, that is not accompanied by concrete evidence of citizenship. The question is whether Arizona's evidence-of-citizenship requirement, as applied to Federal Form applicants, is preempted by the Act's mandate that States "accept and use" the Federal Form.

Over the past two decades, Congress has erected a complex superstructure of federal regulation atop state voter-registration systems. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) "requires States to provide simplified systems for registering to vote in federal elections." The Act requires each State to permit prospective voters to "register to vote in elections for Federal office" by any of three methods: simultaneously with a driver's license application, in person, or by mail. 

This case concerns registration by mail. Section 1973gg-2(a)(2) of the Act requires a State to establish procedures for registering to vote in federal elections "by mail application pursuant to section 1973gg-4 of this title." Section 1973gg-4 , in turn, requires States to "accept and use" a standard federal registration form. §1973gg-4(a)(1) . The Election Assistance Commission is invested with rulemaking authority to prescribe the contents of that Federal Form. The EAC is explicitly instructed, however, to develop the Federal Form "in consultation with the chief election officers of the States." The Federal Form thus contains a number of state-specific instructions, which tell residents of each State what additional information they must provide and where they must submit the form. Each state-specific instruction must be approved by the EAC before it is included on the Federal Form.

To be eligible to vote under Arizona law, a person must be a citizen of the United States. This case concerns Arizona's efforts to enforce that qualification. In 2004, Arizona voters adopted Proposition 200, a ballot initiative designed in part "to combat voter fraud by requiring voters to present proof of citizenship when they register to vote and to present identification when they vote on election day." Proposition 200 amended the State's election code to require county recorders to "reject any application for registration that is not accompanied by satisfactory evidence of United States citizenship." The proof-of-citizenship requirement is satisfied by (1) a photocopy of the applicant's passport or birth certificate, (2) a driver's license number, if the license states that the issuing authority verified the holder's U.S. citizenship, (3) evidence of naturalization, (4) tribal identification, or (5) "[o]ther documents or methods of proof ... established pursuant to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986." The EAC did not grant Arizona's request to include this new requirement among the state-specific instructions for Arizona on the Federal Form. Consequently, the Federal Form includes a statutorily required attestation, subscribed to under penalty of perjury, that an Arizona applicant meets the State's voting requirements (including the citizenship requirement), but does not require concrete evidence of citizenship.

The two groups of plaintiffs represented here-a group of individual Arizona residents (dubbed the Gonzalez plaintiffs, after lead plaintiff Jesus Gonzalez) and a group of nonprofit organizations led by the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona (ITCA)-filed separate suits seeking to enjoin the voting provisions of Proposition 200....

II

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 preempt 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 preempts 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 ("shall be prescribed") 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." The Federalist No. 59 (A. Hamilton). 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 preempt state legislative choices." 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."

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."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. See also Brief for State Petitioners 40 ("An airline may advertise that it 'accepts and uses' e-tickets ... , yet may still require photo identification before one could board the airplane").

"Words that can have more than one meaning are given content, however, by their surroundings." 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's reading is also difficult to reconcile with neighboring provisions of the NVRA. Section 1973gg-6(a)(1)(B) provides that a State shall "ensure that any eligible applicant is registered to vote in an election ... if the valid voter registration form of the applicant is postmarked" not later than a specified number of days before the election. (Emphasis added.) Yet Arizona reads the phrase "accept and use" in §1973gg-4(a)(1) as permitting it to reject a completed Federal Form if the applicant does not submit additional information required by state law. That reading can be squared with Arizona's obligation under §1973gg-6(a)(1) only if a completed Federal Form is not a "valid voter registration form," which seems unlikely. It is improbable that the statute envisions a completed copy of the form it takes such pains to create as being anything less than "valid."

The Act also authorizes States, "[i]n addition to accepting and using the" Federal Form, to create their own, state-specific voter-registration forms, which can be used to register voters in both state and federal elections. This permission works in tandem with the requirement that States "accept and use" the Federal Form. States retain the flexibility to design and use their own registration forms, but the Federal Form provides a backstop: No matter what procedural hurdles a State's own form imposes, the Federal Form guarantees that a simple means of registering to vote in federal elections will be available. Arizona's reading would permit a State to demand of Federal Form applicants every additional piece of information the State requires on its state-specific form. If that is so, the Federal Form ceases to perform any meaningful function, and would be a feeble means of "increas[ing] the number of eligible citizens who register to vote in elections for Federal office." 

Finally, Arizona appeals to the presumption against preemption sometimes invoked in our Supremacy Clause cases. 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." 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. There is good reason for treating Elections Clause legislation differently: The assumption that Congress is reluctant to preempt does not hold when Congress acts under that constitutional provision, which empowers Congress to "make or alter" state election regulations. Art. I, §4, cl. 1 . When Congress legislates with respect to the "Times, Places and Manner" of holding congressional elections, it necessarily displaces some element of a preexisting legal regime erected by the States. Because the power the Elections Clause confers is none other than the power to preempt, the reasonable assumption is that the statutory text accurately communicates the scope of Congress's preemptive intent. Moreover, the federalism concerns underlying the presumption in the Supremacy Clause context are somewhat weaker here. Unlike the States' "historic police powers," 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." 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 hold that 42 U.S.C. §1973gg-4 precludes Arizona from requiring a Federal Form applicant to submit information beyond that required by the form itself. 


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 §1973gg-4(a)(1) preempts 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 §1973gg-4(a)(1) 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 Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §16-166(F) and §1973gg-4(a)(1) and, thus, no preemption...

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. See Art. I, §2, cl. 1 (House); Amdt. 17 (Senate). The States also have the default authority to regulate federal voter registration. See Art. I, §4, cl. 1 . 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 [*2271] the applicant happens to fill out and submit, but that is how the Court reads the NVRA. The Court interprets one provision, 42 U.S.C. §1973gg-6(a)(1)(B) , to mean that, if an applicant fills out the federal form, a State must register the applicant without requiring proof of citizenship. But the Court does not question Arizona's authority under another provision of the NVRA, §1973gg-4(a)(2) , to create its own application form that demands proof of citizenship; nor does the Court dispute Arizona's right to refuse to register an applicant who submits that form without the requisite proof. I find it very hard to believe that this is what Congress had in mind.

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 preempt 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.