Case: Blodgett v. Hughs

This case is about a Texas law (House Bill 1888) that prohibits temporary early-voting locations unless they operate the same weekdays as the main early voting location and are open for at least eight hours on each of those days. On November 26, 2019, a 96-year-old registered voter living in Austin along with Texas Young Democrats and Texas College Democrats filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (Austin). They sued the Texas Secretary of State under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Represented by private counsel, they sought declaratory relief, an injunction prohibiting enforcement of HB 1888 insofar as it eliminates or severely restricts the availability of temporary polling places, and attorneys’ fees. They claimed that HB 1888 curtailed temporary or mobile voting locations, thereby reducing voting opportunities for young and elderly voters without reliable access to transportation, in violation of the First, Fourteenth, and Twenty-Sixth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act. The case was assigned to District Judge Earl Yeakel.

On December 12, 2020, the Texas Secretary of State filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that sovereign immunity barred the suit, that plaintiffs lacked standing to sue because their injuries were speculative, and that HB 1888 was constitutional because it did not burden plaintiffs’ right to vote. On December 30, 2019, the court consolidated the case with Texas Democratic Party v. Hughs, another case also challenging HB 1888 (lead case docket no. 1:19-CV-1063).

On August 11, 2020, the district court largely denied the Texas Secretary of State’s motion to dismiss. The court held that the claims against the Secretary satisfied the Ex parte Young exception to sovereign immunity because the invalidity of Texas election statutes are traceable to the State of Texas and its Secretary of State, who serves as the state’s chief election officer. Further, the court held that plaintiffs had standing because there was a substantial risk HB 1888 would burden their ability to vote in upcoming elections. But the district court did dismiss the 96-year-old registered voter’s ADA violation claims because he brought them under Section 1983 instead of the ADA statute, which provides the exclusive remedy for disability discrimination. The Texas Secretary of State appealed the decision.

On June 1, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s judgment on sovereign immunity and remanded the case with instructions to dismiss. The circuit court explained that Ex parte Young allows federal courts to enjoin a state official from enforcing state laws that conflict with federal law only if the state official has “some connection” to the state law’s enforcement and is threatening to exercise that authority. Here, the circuit court held that the Secretary had no connection to the enforcement of these provisions of the Texas Election Code because local officials are responsible for administering those statutes. On remand, the district court dismissed the consolidated cases on July 28, 2021.