OPINION AND ORDER The plaintiffs, New York State political organizations and their supporters, brought these actions to challenge recent amendments to the New York Election Law. The challenged amendments heightened the requirements that a political organization must meet in order to be recognized as a “party” under the Election Law. Specifically, the amendments at issue: increased the overall number of votes required for a political organization to qualify as a party (the “Party Qualification Threshold”), increased the frequency with which parties must requalify to retain their party status (the “Party Qualification Method”), and increased the number of signatures required for a non-party candidate to gain access to the ballot via an independent nominating petition (the “Petition Requirement”). The plaintiffs in the SAM Party action are the SAM (Serve America Movement) Party of New York and Michael J. Volpe, the Chairman of the SAM Party of New York (together, the “SAM Party” or “SAM Party plaintiffs”). The SAM Party plaintiffs specifically challenge the amended Party Qualification Method’s reliance on presidential-election returns (as opposed to only gubernatorial-election returns). The SAM Party plaintiffs argue that the amended Party Qualification Method, as applied to them, violates their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and association, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment equal protection and due process rights of the SAM Party and its supporters. The plaintiffs in the Hurley action are Linda Hurley, Rev. Rex Stewart, Robert Jackson, Richard N. Gottfried, Ryuh-Line Niou, Anita Thayer, Jonathan Westin, the New York State Committee of the Working Families Party, the Executive Board of the New York State Committee of the Working Families Party, and the Working Families Party of New York State (together, the “WFP” or “WFP plaintiffs”). The WFP plaintiffs bring freedom of association, equal protection, and due process challenges to the Party Qualification Method and the Party Qualification Threshold, facially and as applied to WFP. The WFP plaintiffs further allege that the amendments to the Election Law violate the New York State Constitution because they interfere with the right to “fusion voting.”1 The plaintiffs in the Libertarian Party action are the Libertarian Party of New York (“LPNY”), the Green Party of New York (“GPNY”), and individual members of both parties (together, the “LPNY plaintiffs”). The LPNY plaintiffs bring First and Fourteenth Amendment challenges to the Party Qualification Method, the Party Qualification Threshold, and the Petition Requirement. The LPNY plaintiffs allege that the amendments are unconstitutional on their face and as applied to the LPNY plaintiffs. The LPNY plaintiffs also allege that the amendments to the New York Election Law violate Article VII, Section 6 of the New York State Constitution because the amendments became law as provisions of a budget bill. All the plaintiffs brought suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §1983 against the New York State Board of Elections (the “Board”), as well as the Board’s chairs, commissioners, and executive directors in their official capacities. The defendants now move for summary judgment in each of the three referenced actions. For the reasons explained below, the defendants’ motion is granted. I. Although the cases are now in a different procedural posture, the questions at issue in this motion are similar to those that were posed by the plaintiffs’ previous preliminary injunction motions. In those motions, the plaintiffs sought to enjoin the application of the same amendments to the New York Election Law that are at issue here. In addition, the LPNY plaintiffs sought an injunction requiring the Board to reinstate the Libertarian and Green Parties as recognized parties for the 2022 gubernatorial election. The Court denied the preliminary injunction motions by the SAM Party plaintiffs and the WFP plaintiffs in an Opinion and Order dated September 1, 2020. See SAM Party v. Kosinski, 483 F. Supp. 3d 245 (S.D.N.Y. 2020) (“SAM Party I”). The Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that judgment on February 10, 2021, concluding that the SAM Party plaintiffs had not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of their claims. See SAM Party of N.Y. v. Kosinski, 987 F.3d 267 (2d Cir. 2021) (“SAM Party II”). This Court denied the LPNY plaintiffs’ preliminary injunction motion in an Opinion and Order dated May 13, 2021. See Libertarian Party of N.Y. v. N.Y. Bd. of Elections, No. 20-cv-5820, 2021 WL 1931058 (S.D.N.Y. May 13, 2021). An appeal of that decision is pending. See LPNY Docket No. 81. In SAM Party I, the Court concluded that the SAM and WFP plaintiffs had not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of their First and Fourteenth Amendment claims under the twostep Anderson-Burdick framework.2 At the first step, the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that the amendments to the Election Law caused them severe burdens. See SAM Party I, 483 F. Supp. 3d at 261. At the second step, the Court found that the interests offered by New York in support of the amendments were valid and sufficiently important to justify any burdens that the amendments imposed on the plaintiffs. See id. In SAM Party II, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reached the same conclusions with respect to the SAM Party plaintiffs’ claims. See 987 F.3d at 276, 278.3 In Libertarian Party of N.Y., this Court reached the same conclusions with respect to the LPNY plaintiffs’ claims, exploring in more detail the plaintiffs’ challenge to the Petition Requirement. See 2021 WL 1931058, at *8-11, *13. II. The factual background to these cases remains substantially unchanged from the background at the preliminary injunction stage. While the pertinent facts are set out again here, a more comprehensive discussion of the parties’ backgrounds and the history of the New York Election Law can be found in this Court’s preliminary injunction opinions. See id. at *1-5; SAM Party I, 483 F. Supp. 3d at 250-54. Under the New York Election Law, a political organization that supports candidates for public office can be designated either as a “party” or an “independent body.” N.Y. Elec. Law §1-104(3), (12). Because party status carries important privileges,4 a political organization that supports candidates for public office would generally prefer to be a party rather than an independent body. The amendments to the Election Law at issue, which were enacted in Sections 9 and 10 of Part ZZZ of the 2020-2021 Fiscal Year New York State Budget Bill, make it more difficult for political organizations to obtain and retain party status. For 85 years, New York conferred party status on any political organization whose candidate in the prior gubernatorial election received at least 50,000 votes. Mulroy Decl., SAM Party Docket No. 84, Ex. 24 12. This meant that political organizations had to qualify or requalify as parties every four years. The challenged amendments to the Election Law changed the frequency of party qualification and the number of votes needed to qualify. In order for a political organization to gain or retain party status under the amended law, its chosen candidate must receive the greater of 130,000 votes or 2 percent of votes cast in the previous presidential or gubernatorial election, whichever is more recent. N.Y. Elec. Law §1-104(3). Thus, political organizations must now quality or requalify as parties every two years, and they need more votes to do so. Independent bodies (political organizations that are not parties) are not provided with a guaranteed ballot berth. Rather, independent bodies must nominate candidates for public office through independent nominating petitions. Independent nominating petitions must include signatures of a specified number of registered voters, depending on the office for which the candidate is being nominated. N.Y. Elec. Law §6-142. Before the challenged amendments, the signature requirement for an independent nominating petition for statewide office was 15,000 signatures. Brehm Decl., SAM Party Docket No. 113 57. Under the amended law, nominating petitions for statewide office must be signed by the lesser of 45,000 registered voters or 1 percent of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election. N.Y. Elec. Law §6-142(1).5 The challenged amendments were based on recommendations of the New York State Campaign Finance Review Commission (the “Commission”), which was established by the New York legislature to “examine, evaluate and make recommendations for new laws with respect to how the State should implement…a system of voluntary public campaign financing for state legislative and statewide public offices, and what the parameters of such a program should be.” 2019 N.Y. Sess. Laws, Ch. 59, Part XXX §1(a). The legislature instructed the Commission to make its recommendations “in furtherance of the goals of incentivizing candidates to solicit small contributions, reducing the pressure on candidates to spend inordinate amounts of time raising large contributions for their campaigns, and encouraging qualified candidates to run for office.” Id. The Commission was also instructed to “determine and identify new election laws” relating to, among other things, “rules and definitions governing: candidates’ eligibility for public financing; party qualifications; multiple party candidate nominations and/or designations.” Id. §2(j). In addition, the Commission was directed to design the public campaign finance system such that it could be administered with costs under $100 million annually. Id. §3. The Commission was directed to submit its report by December 1, 2019. Id. §1(a). Initially, Part XXX provided that the Commission’s recommendations “shall have the full effect of law unless modified or abrogated by statute prior to December 22, 2019.” Id. However, the New York State Supreme Court, Niagara County, held that this was an impermissible delegation of lawmaking authority. See Hurley v. Pub. Campaign Fin. & Election Comm’n, 129 N.Y.S.3d 243, 261 (Sup. Ct. 2020). The legislature proceeded to enact the Commission’s recommendations into law in Sections 9 and 10 of Part ZZZ of the 2020-2021 Fiscal Year New York State Budget Bill. The Commission’s Report to the Governor (the “Report”) recommended, among other things, the challenged amendments to the Party Qualification Threshold, Party Qualification Method, and Petition Requirement. In explaining its recommendation to increase the frequency of party certification and the number of votes required for certification, the Commission stated: the “ability of a party to demonstrate bona fide interest from the electorate is paramount in ensuring the success of a public campaign finance system,” and “setting a rational threshold for party ballot access, based on a demonstration of credible levels of support from voters in this state, helps to ensure that the political parties whose candidates will draw down on public funds under the public matching program reflect the novel and distinct ideological identities of the electorate of New Yorkers who ultimately fund this public campaign finance program.” Report, Hallak Decl., LPNY Docket No. 70, Ex. A, at 14. The Commission believed that increasing the party ballot access threshold and the frequency of party certification would further New York’s “longstanding policy” of maintaining “proportionality between the number of voters in New York State and the ability of political parties that assert a bona fide representative status for those voters.” Id. The Commission concluded that these changes would “increase voter participation and voter choice, since voters will now be less confused by complicated ballots with multiple lines for parties that may not have any unique ideological stances,” and that the higher thresholds would enable voters to “make more resolute choices between candidates” because they could “rely upon the knowledge that [the represented] parties have sufficient popular support from the electorate of this state.” Id. at 14-15. The Commission also noted that its “primary motivation for…addressing party ballot access [was] to craft a public campaign finance system that remains within the enabling statute’s limitation of a $100 million annual cost.” Id. at 14. In selecting a “rational” vote qualification threshold, the Commission considered New York’s historical experience as well as other states’ party qualification criteria and nominating petition thresholds. See id. at 41-47. The Commission considered the frequency with which other states require parties to requalify, the number of votes required to requalify, whether qualification thresholds are made in reference to presidential and/or gubernatorial elections, whether states have public campaign finance systems, and whether states permit fusion voting. See id. The Commission ultimately recommended requiring party certification every two years, and increasing the party ballot access threshold to 2 percent of the total votes cast for governor or president, or 130,000 votes, whichever is greater. The 2 percent vote threshold was a compromise based upon the information considered and competing policy views, and the Commission initially considered, but ultimately rejected, a 3 percent threshold. See id. at 51 (Statement of Commissioner Kimberly A. Galvin), 67 (Statement of Commissioner John M. Nonna), 133 (Minutes from November 25 Meeting at Westchester Community College). One commissioner noted “widespread agreement” that the previous 50,000-vote threshold (which was set in 1935) was too low, and cited a statement from Dan Cantor, then-Director of the Working Families Party, that raising the threshold will “require minor parties to show substantial popular support and will reduce ballot clutter.” Id. at 62 (Statement of Commissioner Jay S. Jacobs). As a “corollary” to increasing the party ballot access threshold, the Commission also recommended increasing the number of signatures required for independent nominating petitions. Id. at 15 (Commission’s findings). The Commission noted the “historical gap in updating this number,” id. at 133 (Minutes from November 25 Meeting): since 1922, when the signature requirement was set at 15,000, New York’s electorate has experienced nearly a four-fold increase. Brehm Decl. 58. The Commission voted 8-1 to increase the signature requirement for statewide nominating petitions to 45,000. Report at 135 (Minutes from November 25 Meeting). III. The minor party plaintiffs have had mixed success in attaining party status under the New York Election Law and in nominating candidates through independent nominating petitions. The SAM Party attained party status under the Election Law in 2018, after its gubernatorial ticket received over 50,000 votes. Defendants’ Statement of Material Facts (“DSMF”), SAM Party Docket No. 115-1 34. As of November 2020, the SAM Party had 649 enrolled members, representing 0.0048 percent of New York’s 13.56 million registered voters. Id. 35. Because the SAM Party chose not to run a candidate in the 2020 presidential election, SAM lost its party status and became an independent body following the certification of the results of that election. Id. 41. Michael J. Volpe, the Chairman of the SAM Party of New York, states that SAM focuses on local elections and seeks to “avoid getting prematurely embroiled in, or associated with, one side or the other of the ideological divide.” Volpe Decl., SAM Party Docket No. 124 10. Therefore, Volpe states that SAM will not endorse a candidate for president as a matter of principle, because doing so would be “inimical to SAM’s core messaging.” Id. WFP gained party status in 1998 after qualifying in the 1998 gubernatorial election. DSMF 42. As of February 2021, WFP had 48,207 enrolled members, representing 0.36 percent of New York’s registered voters. Id. 44. In four of the last seven elections, WFP achieved the greater of 130,000 votes or 2 percent of the vote for president or governor, id. 43, meaning that WFP would have qualified as a party following those elections even under the amended Election Law. Indeed, in the 2020 presidential election, in which WFP cross-nominated the Democratic Party’s nominees for president and vice president — Joseph R. Biden and Kamala D. Harris — WFP received 386,010 votes on its ballot line and retained its party status under the amended law. Id.
48-50. LPNY is the New York State affiliate of the national Libertarian Party, which LPNY alleges is the third-largest political party in the United States. LPNY Compl. 7. As of November 2020, LPNY had 21,551 enrolled members, or 0.16 percent of New York’s registered voters. DSMF 57. LPNY operated as an independent body in New York between 1974 and 2018, submitting independent nominating petitions in each presidential and gubernatorial election except the 1986 gubernatorial election. Id. 53. LPNY obtained party status in New York for the first time in 2018, when its gubernatorial ticket received 95,033 votes. Id. 55. However, LPNY failed to retain party status under the amended vote threshold following the 2020 presidential election because its presidential ticket received 60,234 votes, or 0.70 percent of the total votes cast. Id.
