Fish v. Kobach

309 F.Supp.3d 1048

Steven Wayne FISH, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.Kris KOBACH, in his official capacity as Secretary of State for the State of Kansas, Defendant.

Parker Bednasek, Plaintiff,

v.Kris Kobach, in his official capacity as Secretary of State for the State of Kansas, Defendant.

Case No. 16–2105–JAR–JPO

Case No. 15–9300–JAR–JPO

United States District Court, D. Kansas.

Signed June 18, 2018

Dale E. Ho, Pro Hac Vice, R. Orion Danjuma, Pro Hac Vice, Sophia Lin Lakin, Pro Hac Vice, Emily Rong Zhang, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Neal A. Steiner, Pro Hac Vice, Daphne T. Ha, Rebecca Kahan Waldman, Dechert, LLP, New York, NY, Angela M. Liu, Dechert LLP, Chicago, IL, Lauren Bonds, American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, Overland Park, KS, Stephen D. Bonney, Bonney Arbitration & Mediation, Kansas City, MO, for Plaintiffs.

Garrett Robert Roe, Kansas Secretary of State, Susan Becker, Topeka, KS, Kris Kobach, Lecompton, KS, for Defendant.

JULIE A. ROBINSON, CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

CASES CONSOLIDATED FOR TRIAL

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

To register to vote, one must be a United States citizen. The Kansas legislature passed the Secure and Fair Elections ("SAFE") Act in 2011, which included a new requirement that Kansans must produce documentary proof of citizenship ("DPOC") when applying to register to vote. These cases were consolidated for trial because they both challenge the DPOC law as a method for enforcing the citizenship qualification. In Case No. 16–2105, the Fish Plaintiffs challenge the law as it applies to "motor voter" applicants—individuals who apply to register to vote at the same time they apply for or renew their driver's license online or at a Division of Motor Vehicles ("DOV") office. Plaintiffs include the Kansas League of Women Voters, as well as several Kansas residents who applied to register to vote when applying for a driver's license, but were denied voter registration for failure to submit DPOC. One claim remained for trial in that case alleging that under the Election Clause in Article 1 of the United States Constitution, the Kansas DPOC law is preempted by § 5 of the National Voter Registration Act ("NVRA"), which provides that voter registration applications may only require the minimum amount of information necessary for a State to determine applicants' eligibility to register to vote, and to perform its registration duties.

In Case No. 15–9300, Plaintiff Parker Bednasek challenges the DPOC law on constitutional grounds. His remaining claim for trial is brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, based on a violation of the right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.¹ Mr. Bednasek's claim is not limited to motor-voter applicants.

The seven-day bench trial in these matters concluded on March 19, 2018. After hearing and carefully considering the evidence presented by the parties at trial, this Court first resolves the remaining motions by Plaintiffs to exclude expert testimony, and next issues its Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law under Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(a). As explained more fully below, the Court grants in part and denies in part the motion to exclude Dr. Steven Camarota, and grants the motion to exclude Patrick McFerron. Under the test set forth by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals that governs whether the DPOC law violates § 5 of the NVRA, the Court finds in favor of Plaintiffs in the Fish case. The Court further finds in favor of Plaintiff Bednasek on his constitutional challenge to the law. Declaratory and injunctive relief is granted in both matters as set forth in this opinion. Further, the Court imposes specific compliance measures given Defendant's history of non-compliance with this Court's orders. And, the Court imposes sanctions responsive to Defendant's repeated and flagrant violations of discovery and disclosure rules.

I. Motions to Exclude Defense Experts Camarota and McFerron

The parties filed several motions to exclude expert testimony before trial. The Court orally ruled on all but two: Plaintiffs' written Motion to Exclude the Testimony and Report of Steven A. Camarota,² and Plaintiffs' oral and written motion to exclude the expert testimony of Patrick McFerron under Rule 702, Daubert , and the rule against hearsay.³ These experts were offered by Defendant in both cases. The Court discusses each in turn after setting forth the appropriate legal standards.

A. Standards

The Court has broad discretion in deciding whether to admit expert testimony.⁴ The proponent of expert testimony must show "a grounding in the methods and procedures of science which must be based on actual knowledge and not subjective belief or unaccepted speculation."⁵ First, the Court must determine whether the expert is "qualified by 'knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education' to render an opinion."⁶ "[A] district court must [next] determine if the expert's proffered testimony...has 'a reliable basis in the knowledge and experience of his discipline.' "⁷ To determine reliability, the court must assess "whether the reasoning or methodology underlying the testimony is scientifically valid."⁸ The district court must further inquire into whether the proposed testimony is sufficiently "relevant to the task at hand."⁹

It is within the discretion of the trial court to determine how to perform its gatekeeping function under Daubert .¹⁰ The most common method for fulfilling this function is a Daubert hearing, although such a process is not specifically mandated.¹¹ In this case, the parties proffered each experts' testimony, which the Court provisionally admitted subject to later review under Rule 702 and Daubert .

B. Steven A. Camarota

Defendant called Dr. Camarota to testify about the impact of the Kansas DPOC law on voter registration and participation rates. Specifically, Defendant offered Dr. Camarota "as an expert...in the fields of demography, census data, voter registration statistics, and voter participation statistics."¹² Dr. Camarota earned a Ph.D. in American Government with a focus on policy analysis from the University of Virginia. He is currently the Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies ("CIS"), where his primary responsibility for the last nineteen years has been to analyze United States Census Bureau data. In this position, he helped construct the American Community Survey, which is a large annual survey conducted by the Census Bureau that includes questions about citizenship and voting. Dr. Camarota has also published peer-reviewed articles and book chapters about census data relating to immigration issues, but not on any issue related to voting. He has served as a peer reviewer for several scholarly journals. Dr. Camarota has published many non-peer-reviewed conference papers and reports for the Census Bureau and CIS, and he has testified before Congress several times about Census Bureau Data, mostly as it relates to immigration issues.

In his report and testimony, Dr. Camarota looked at Kansas administrative data provided by the SOS's Office, and data from the Current Population Survey ("CPS"), a large Census Bureau survey that asks about registration and voting in November of every other year when federal elections are held. Dr. Camarota observed that the administrative data showed an increase in registration and turnout between October 2010 and October 2014. Dr. Camarota then compared registration and voting rates in Kansas between November 2010 and November 2014, before and after the effective date of the DPOC law, based on the CPS data. Dr. Camarota also compared the Kansas registration and turnout rates to those rates nationally, and in neighboring states without DPOC laws, and found that there was no significant deviation. Dr. Camarota opined that because registration and turnout rates in Kansas increased between 2010 and 2014, the DPOC law did not unduly burden Kansans' ability to register and vote.

The Court finds that Dr. Camarota is qualified to testify as an expert in this case about Census Bureau data, including the CPS. His education and work experience qualify him to explain and present this Census data. However, the Court does not find him qualified to interpret these survey results as they relate to the DPOC law, particularly to the extent he challenges Professor Michael McDonald, whose expertise and scholarship in election law is extensive, and who more closely evaluated the administrative data. Dr. Camarota's experience at CIS is limited to scholarship and reports that generally deal with immigration and citizenship issues, not election issues such as voter registration. He has never published peer-reviewed research on the subjects relevant to this litigation, nor do his non-peer-reviewed articles contain analysis of the issues relevant to this case. To the extent Defendant offers Dr. Camarota as an expert on "voter registration statistics, and voter participation rates" beyond presenting Census Bureau data, that opinion is excluded. Dr. Camarota is qualified as an expert to explain the results of CPS data showing voter registration and turnout changes in Kansas between 2010 and 2014. And he is certainly qualified to explain how the CPS data was collected and whether it is reliable. But Dr. Camarota is not qualified to explain the reasons for the change in data between 2010 and 2014, or to insert assumptions into the record based on studies or academic literature regarding voter registration and turnout. These are not his areas of expertise.

The limitations of Dr. Camarota's expertise in this field were similarly evident in the recent NVRA case of Bellitto v. Snipes .¹³ There, the district court initially limited his testimony because he was not qualified to "offer testimony as to the degree of accuracy of...rates [of voter registration from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey]."¹⁴ That case went to trial and the district court issued its findings of fact and conclusions of law after...