Garcia v. Hobbs

691 F.Supp.3d 1254

Benancio GARCIA III, Plaintiff, v. Steven HOBBS, in his official capacityas Secretary of State of Washington, and the State of Washington, Defendants.

CASE NO. 3:22-cv-05152-RSL-DGE-LJCV

United States District Court, W.D. Washington, at Tacoma

Signed September 8, 2023

Caleb Acker, Pro Hac Vice, Phillip M. Gordon, Pro Hac Vice, Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC, Haymarket, VA, Dallin Holt, Pro Hac Vice, Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC, Phoenix, AZ, Jason Brett Torchinsky, Pro Hac Vice, Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC, Washington, DC, Andrew R. Stokesbary, Chalmers Adams Backer & Kaufman LLC, Seattle, WA, for Plaintiff.

Karl David Smith, Attorney General's Office, Olympia, WA, for Defendant Steven Hobbs.

Andrew R.W. Hughes, Erica R. Franklin, Attorney General's Office, Seattle, WA, Cristina Sepe, Attorney General's Office, Olympia, WA, for Defendant State of Washington.

OPINION AND ORDER DISMISSING PLAINTIFF'S CLAIM AS MOOT

DAVID G. ESTUDILLO, ROBERT S. LASNIK, United States District Judge

Chief District Judge DAVID G. ESTUDILLO authored the majority opinion, in which District Judge ROBERT S. LASNIK joined. Circuit Judge LAWRENCE J.C. VANDYKE filed a dissenting opinion.¹

Plaintiff Benancio Garcia III brings suit arguing that Washington Legislative District 15 ("LD 15") in the Yakima Valley is an illegal racial gerrymander in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Panel sat for a three-day trial from June 5th to June 7th to hear evidence regarding Plaintiff's Equal Protection Clause claim.² In light of the court's decision in Soto Palmer, the Court DISMISSES Plaintiff's claim as moot.

I MOOTNESS

"[T]he judicial power of federal courts is constitutionally restricted to 'cases' and 'controversies.' " Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 94, 88 S.Ct. 1942, 20 L.Ed.2d 947 (1968). "There is thus no case or controversy, and a suit becomes moot, when the issues presented are no longer live or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome." Chafin v. Chafin, 568 U.S. 165, 172, 133 S.Ct. 1017, 185 L.Ed.2d 1 (2013) (cleaned up). Article III's case-or-controversy requirement prevents federal courts from issuing advisory opinions. See id. A party must have "a specific live grievance," and cannot seek to litigate an "abstract disagreement over the constitutionality" of a law or other government action. Lewis v. Cont'l Bank Corp., 494 U.S. 472, 479, 110 S.Ct. 1249, 108 L.Ed.2d 400 (1990) (cleaned up).

The Court finds that Plaintiff's challenge to the constitutionality of LD 15 is moot given the Soto Palmer court's finding that LD 15 violates § 2 of the Voting Rights Act ("VRA"). Plaintiff seeks declaratory relief determining that LD 15 "is an illegal racial gerrymander in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment" and an injunction "enjoining Defendant from enforcing or giving any effect to the boundaries of [ ] [LD 15], including an injunction barring Defendant from conducting any further elections for the Legislature based on [ ] [LD 15]." (Dkt. No. 14 at 18.) Plaintiff further requests the Court order a new legislative map be drawn. (Id.)

The Soto Palmer court determined that LD 15 violated § 2 of the VRA's prohibition against discriminatory results. See Soto Palmer, 686 F.Supp.3d at 1233-34. In so deciding, the court found LD 15 to be invalid and ordered that the State's legislative districts be redrawn. Id. at 1235-36. Since LD 15 has been found to be invalid and will be redrawn (and therefore not used for further elections), the Court cannot provide any more relief to Plaintiff. Plaintiff does not assert that any new district drawn by the Washington State Redistricting Commission ("Commission") would be a "mere continuation[ ] of the old, gerrymandered district[ ]." North Carolina v. Covington, 585 U.S. 969, 138 S. Ct. 2548, 2553, 201 L.Ed.2d 993 (2018). Plaintiff therefore lacks a specific, live grievance, and his case is moot.

Traditional principles of judicial restraint also counsel against resolving Plaintiff's Equal Protection Clause claim. "A fundamental and longstanding principle of judicial restraint requires that courts avoid reaching constitutional questions in advance of the necessity of deciding them." Lyng v. Nw. Indian Cemetery Protective Ass'n, 485 U.S. 439, 445, 108 S.Ct. 1319, 99 L.Ed.2d 534 (1988); see also Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold Rsrv. v. Wold Eng'g, P.C., 467 U.S. 138, 157, 104 S.Ct. 2267, 81 L.Ed.2d 113 (1984) ("It is a fundamental rule of judicial restraint, however, that this Court will not reach constitutional questions in advance of the necessity of deciding them."). The court's decision in Soto Palmer makes any decision in the instant case superfluous. A new Commission will draw new legislative districts in the Yakima Valley and, if challenged thereafter, the propriety of the new districts will be decided by analyzing the motivations and decisions of new individuals who constitute the Commission.³ The Court cannot and will not presume that the new Commission will be motivated by the same factors that motivated its predecessor. Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, and to unnecessarily decide a constitutional issue where there are alternate grounds available or where there is an absence of a case or controversy is to overstep our "proper, limited role in our Nation's governance." Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U.S. —, 143 S. Ct. 2355, 2384, 216 L.Ed.2d 1063 (2023) (Kagan, J., dissenting).

Our dissenting colleague disagrees that the instant case is moot. In his view, the Commissioners racially gerrymandered the 2021 Washington Redistricting Map in violation of the Equal Protection Clause and therefore "the map was 'void ab initio.' " Additionally, the dissent argues that longstanding principles of judicial restraint and constitutional avoidance are inapplicable here because the decision in Soto Palmer does not completely moot the relief sought by Plaintiff. These arguments are uncompelling.

First, the view that LD 15 was void ab initio presupposes that Plaintiff established an Equal Protection violation. To the contrary, a full analysis of the record presented does not yield such a result. The Court declines to issue an advisory opinion on the validity of Plaintiff's Equal Protection claim, however. Rather, it is sufficient to note only that we disagree with the dissent's summary and interpretation of the facts surrounding the creation of LD 15. Importantly, the Commissioners' testimony on the specific issue of whether race predominated in the formation of LD 15 is absent from the dissent's summary of the facts, and the Court encourages readers to examine the Commissioners' testimony in full.⁴ This testimony weighs heavily against finding that race predominated in the drawing of LD 15 and against finding an Equal Protection violation.⁵

It is also erroneous to argue that "resolving Soto Palmer in the Soto Palmer plaintiffs' favor does not moot Garcia." As noted, LD 15 will be redrawn and will not be used in its current form for any future election. The Soto Palmer court has therefore granted Plaintiff complete relief for purposes of our mootness analysis. See New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n, Inc. v. City of New York, New York, — U.S. —, 140 S. Ct. 1525, 1526, 206 L.Ed.2d 798 (2020) (vacating judgment as moot where New York City amended its laws to grant "the precise relief that petitioners requested in the prayer for relief in their complaint" notwithstanding requests for declaratory and injunctive relief from future constitutional violations).⁶

Our colleague argues that this case is not moot because Plaintiff may obtain partial injunctive and declaratory relief. Specifically, the Court could declare that LD 15 was an illegal racial gerrymander and enjoin the state from "performing an illegal racial gerrymander when it redraws the map." This type of relief is insufficient to avoid a finding of mootness. It goes without saying that a federal court may only direct parties to undertake activities that comply with the Constitution, and the Soto Palmer court's directive to the State to redraw LD 15 properly presumes that the State will comply with the Constitution when it does so lest the future district be challenged once again. Cf. Holloway v. City of Virginia Beach, 42 F.4th 266, 275 (4th Cir. 2022) (rejecting argument that VRA case was not moot and Plaintiffs were entitled to court order "directing implementation of a new system that 'compl[ies] with Section 2' " of the VRA in light of changes to state law that provided otherwise complete relief).

The dissent asserts that "the order in Soto Palmer ensures that [Garcia] will not receive what he argues is a constitutionally valid legislative map" because his "claimed injury is not merely capable of repetition; it almost is certain to repeat itself." In the dissent's opinion, Garcia will most certainly suffer injury because Soto Palmer "ordered that the State engage in even more racial gerrymandering" than that claimed by Garcia in this case. But this claimed injury from a future legislative district is speculative because compliance with § 2 of the VRA, as ordered in Soto Palmer, would not result in a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. See Cooper v. Harris, 581 U.S. 285, 306, 137 S.Ct. 1455, 197 L.Ed.2d 837 (2017) ("States enjoy leeway to take race-based actions reasonably judged necessary under a proper interpretation of the VRA."); see also Milligan, 143 S. Ct. at 1516-17 ("[F]or the last four decades, this Court and the lower federal courts have repeatedly applied the effects test of § 2 as interpreted in Gingles and, under certain circumstances, have authorized race-based redistricting as a remedy for state districting maps that violate § 2.").

As the dissent concedes, "the Supreme Court has given States 'leeway' to draw lines on the basis of race in redistricting when States have...