Case: Strayhorn v. Williams

This is a case about a prospective candidate's alleged delay in being able to run her campaign due to the Secretary of State's decision to conduct a manual review of all signatures on her application to run as the governor as an independent.

On March 24, 2006, the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts who sought to become an independent candidate in the 2006 Texas gubernatorial election, along with two registered voters in Texas, filed this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. The plaintiffs claimed that the defendant's decision to manually review the Plaintiff candidate’s signatures (rather than statistical sampling) created an unnecessary burden on the her ability to run her election. The plaintiff brought a federal claim under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal constitution for impinging upon her right to associate for political purposes. Specifically, the plaintiff alleged that the burden imposed on her by the Secretary not completing an expeditious review by performing a statistical sample was unnecessary and violated her right of political association. The plaintiff also brought a state claim under the Texas Election Code, seeking an injunction pursuant to Section 273.081, which provides that a court may grant an injunction to a candidate who is threatened with harm from an action taken by an election authority that is contravention of the Election Code. The plaintiff asserted that the requirement that the review be "as soon as practicable" would require the defendant to use a statistical analysis if it became clear that a manual review will take longer. 

Represented by private counsel, the plaintiffs sought an injunction requiring the defendant to review the validity of the potential candidate's petitions immediately and in a manner that would produce a determination in the most expedited time possible, a declaration that defendant's manual review of her petition violated the Texas Election Code, and grant an injunction preventing the defendant from using exclusively a non-statistical manual review. 

The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts filed her declaration of intent to run for the Texas Election Code as an independent. Pursuant to the Texas Election Code, in order to run for governor as an independent, a prospective candidate must tender an application and petitions containing valid signatures equal to at least 1% of the total votes cast for governor in the most recent Texas election, which at the time equaled 45,540 signatures. Also pursuant to the Texas Election Code, an independent candidate has approximately two months between the date of the primary and the filing deadline to gather and file the signatures with the defendant, who then reviews it as soon as practicable. In reviewing petitions that are required to contain over 1,000 signatures, the defendant may, in his discretion, use statistical sampling methods to determine if the petitions contain a sufficient number of valid signatures. In this case, however, the defendant elected not to do a statistical sample but instead opted to review all petitions one signature at a time. The defendant indicated that he would complete the process by the statutory deadline of 55 days before the general election day. As a result, the plaintiff filed the lawsuit on March 24, 2006, alleging that she was hindered in her efforts of campaigning for governor and this put her at a disadvantage in comparison to the major party candidates. 

On April 21, 2006, the plaintiffs filed a motion to set a pre-trial conference, as the parties were considering a settlement proposal and the plaintiffs believed that a settlement conference with the Court would be conducive to the potential settlement of the matter. The Court granted the motion for a pretrial conference, set for April 26, 2006.

The Court held a bench trial on May 1, 2006. Following the bench trial on May 10, 2006, the Court held that the defendant's declared intention to verify petition signatures submitted by independents seeking to appear on the ballot as candidates using a signature-by-signature review method was a reasonable and nondiscriminatory restriction upon the First and Fourteenth Amendment of voters. The Court additionally found that the defendant was not required under the Constitution to perform statistical sampling in this instance, and the plaintiffs' requested relief of requiring such statistical sampling was denied. In making its finding, the Court emphasized that the legislature provided the defendant the choice in determining that the signature-by-signature review was required to discover whether each signer has neither voted in a party primary nor signed another independent candidate's petition. The Court also emphasized that the state had a legitimate interest in establishing the seriousness of an independent candidate, and it may do so by requiring a reasonable number of people support that candidate. Thus, the election-code provision and the defendant's construction of them were not sufficiently severe to warrant strict scrutiny. Moreover, the Court held that the defendant's decision to verify each petition signature did not impose unreasonable, discriminatory restrictions, and any restrictions were sufficiently justified by Texas's interests. As such, final judgment was entered on May 10, 2006, and the Court ordered that the plaintiffs' claims and request for a preliminary injunction were denied.

This case is now closed.