Nashville Student Organizing Committee v. Hargett

155 F. Supp. 3d 749, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 170137, 2015 WL 9307284
District Court, M.D. Tennessee·Decided December 21, 2015·No. Case No. 3:15-cv-00210·Published·Cited by 8 cases

Opinion

MEMORANDUM

ALETA A. TRAUGER, United States District Judge

Pending before the court is a Motion to Dismiss filed by the defendants (Docket No. 42), to which the plaintiffs have filed a Response in Opposition (Docket No. 48), and the defendants have filed a Reply (Docket No. 49). For the reasons discussed herein, the motion will be granted.

BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

This is an action challenging, in part, the constitutionality of Tennessee’s voter identification law, Tenn. Code Ann. § 2-7-112 (the “Tennessee Voter ID Law”). Pursuant [751]*751to § 2-7-112(a)(l), in order to vote in person, a voter must present “one (1) form of identification that bears the name and photograph of the voter,” subject to certain exemptions for voters who are indigent or who have a religious objection to being photographed. Under § 2-7-112(c), acceptable forms of photo identification include: Tennessee-issued driver licenses; valid Tennessee-issued non-driver photo identifications (available pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-50-336); valid United States passports; valid United States military identification cards; valid employment identification cards issued by the State of Tennessee or the United States; employee identification cards issued by the State of Tennessee for retired state employees; and valid identification cards issued by the State of Tennessee or the United States, with an express exception for any identification cards “issued to a student by an institution of higher education.”

On March 4, 2015, the plaintiffs — a group comprised of several individual Tennessee students together with the Nashville Student Organizing Committee, a nonprofit organization advocating for social justice and civil rights — initiated this action. (Docket No. 1.) On September 9, 2015, with leave of court, they filed the First Amended Complaint (the “Complaint”), which is the current operative pleading. (Docket No. 36.) According to the Complaint, all of the individual plaintiffs are students at public or private universities and colleges in Tennessee, and current residents of Tennessee, who do not possess any of the forms of photo identification acceptable under the Tennessee Voter ID Law. (Docket No. 36 ¶¶ 11-17.) They do, however, possess student identification cards from their Tennessee schools as well as photo identification cards issued by other states. They are registered to vote in Tennessee (or have submitted applications for registration) but are unable to vote without first obtaining an acceptable form of photo identification. Id. Six of the individual plaintiffs are between the ages of 18 and 19; the seventh is thirty years old. Id.

The Complaint contains two causes of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983: 1) a claim that the Tennessee Voter ID Law’s exclusion of student identification cards from the list of acceptable forms of voter identification violates the Twenty-Sixth Amendment’s prohibition against denying or abridging someone’s right to vote on the basis of age; and 2) a claim, on behalf of those plaintiffs who are students of Tennessee public colleges and universities that the Tennessee Voter ID Law violates the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by differentiating between their student identification cards and the identification cards issued by the same institutions to current and retired faculty members and staff. The Complaint seeks both declaratory and injunctive relief. Specifically, the plaintiffs request: 1) an order declaring that the Tennessee Voter ID Law violates the Fourteenth and Twenty-Sixth Amendments of the United States Constitution, and 2) a permanent injunction requiring the defendants to accept as voter identification, under the Tennessee Voter ID Law, student identification cards “issued by any accredited, not-for-profit postsecondary educational institution in Tennessee.” (Docket No. 36, pp. 35-6.)

The Complaint does not allege that the plaintiffs are unable to obtain Tennessee issued non-driver photo identification cards, which are acceptable for voting under the Tennessee Voter ID Law. Rather, the Complaint alleges that obtaining such an identification card — which is free of charge — would require a student to gather the necessary documentation (which may include paying a fee to retrieve a copy of his or her birth certificate) arid then to [752]*752travel to one of the Tennessee Driver’s Service Centers. (Docket No. 36 ¶ 58.) The Complaint further alleges that the Driver’s Service Centers are only open between 8:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. on weekdays and may be inaccessible or not easily accessible by public transportation, making it difficult for students without access to vehicles to reach them. Id.

The Complaint goes on to allege that the content of the legislative debate surrounding the Tennessee Voter ID Law shows that Tennessee legislators intentionally excluded student identification cards from the list of acceptable voter identifications in order to inhibit younger people from voting and sway election outcomes. (Docket No. 36 ¶ 4.) Specifically, the Complaint alleges that Tennessee legislators are aware of the rigorous verification of one’s identity that accompanies becoming a student at a public or private college or university and obtaining a student identification card from any of these institutions, and also that there is no substantial difference between the identification cards issued to students by public institutions of higher education and those issued to faculty members and staff of those same schools. {Id. ¶¶ 4, 34-35, 80.) It further alleges that other provisions of Tennessee law make it easier for older residents to vote — including a provision allowing any adult over age 60 to utilize absentee voting without submitting a photo identification, while only allowing individuals under age 60 to utilize absentee voting if they can provide an excuse1 — and that the legislature has repeatedly entertained measures to render voting even easier for the elderly, while rejecting measures that would make voting easier for students and other young voters. {Id. ¶¶ 43-45.) Finally, the Complaint alleges that the Tennessee Voter ID Law’s exclusion of identification cards issued by other states and by local entities, such as public libraries, further restricts students, who can more easily obtain these identification cards than the ones accepted under the Tennessee Voter ID Law. {Id. ¶ 78.)

In addition, the Complaint acknowledges that the legislative history of the Tennessee Voter ID Law involves concerns about preventing voter identification fraud. {Id. ¶ 20.) The Complaint also notes that certain legislators have expressed concerns that false student identification cards are prolific due to underage students’ use of these cards to enter nightclubs and, ostensibly, consume alcohol. {Id.

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Nashville Student Organizing Committee v. Hargett, 155 F. Supp. 3d 749, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 170137, 2015 WL 9307284 (M.D. Tenn. 2015).

155 F. Supp. 3d 749 (Nashville Student Organizing Committee v. Hargett) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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