Sarah Mann

Dr. Berry

AP Gov, Supreme Court Cases

March, 2, 2010

 

 

 

Cook v. Gralike, et al.

Decided February 28, 2001

 

 

Historical Context of Case:

 

 

The issue of term limits in Congress was rarely addressed from the time of ratification of the Constitution until the early 1990s (Term Limits).  U.S. Senate and House members freely served as long as they could be re-elected (Collins).  This tradition began to be challenged, or at least questioned, in the early 1990s, when Republicans sought to regain control of a Congress that had been in Democratic hands since the mid-fifties.  Advocates of Congressional term limits felt as if there were several problems with permitting representatives to serve for an indefinite period of time.  These representatives tended to lose touch with the issues facing their constituents, and were seen as frequently catering to special interest groups, in hopes of being re-elected (State Regulation).  In response to these concerns, there was a call for governmental reform.  During the 1994 elections, Republican candidates for the House of Representatives signed a document entitled “Contract with America,” in which they pledged to make certain political changes if their party prevailed (Heritage).  One such promise was to introduce a bill within the first 100 days of the 104^th Congress which would provide for “a first-ever vote on term limits to replace career politicians with citizen legislators” (Republican Contract with America).  More specifically, the proposal was to introduce a Constitutional amendment limiting members of the Senate to two terms and members of the House to anywhere between three and six terms (Republican Contract).  The Republicans did gain control of the House and Senate in the 1994 elections, and an amendment was introduced that would have limited senators to serving two terms, and House members to serving six terms (Schlafly).  The bills were, however, rejected (Seelye).  States thereafter began enacting term limits.  In addition, congressional candidates in both the 1992 and 1994 elections pledged to limit their own terms if elected to Congress.  Some who were elected broke these pledges, while others remained true to their word (Perspectives). 

 

 

Relevant Precedent:

 

 

            In US Term Limits v. Thornton (1995), the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of an Arkansas law that imposed a limitation of three terms in the U.S. House and two terms in the U.S. Senate.  The law in question prohibited candidates in Arkansas from placing their names on the general election ballot if they had already served for the maximum number of terms (Thornton).  What the law in effect did, therefore, was permit such candidates only to appear on the ballot as write-ins.  The Arkansas law was challenged by Bobbie Hill and the League of Women Voters, who contended that the amendment violated the Constitution (Hacker).  U.S. Representative Ray Thornton of Arkansas became part of the suit (Hacker).  Both the Arkansas Circuit Court and the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that the amendment did indeed violate the Constitution in that it created qualifications for office not listed in Article I (Hacker).  The case proceeded to the United States Supreme Court, where the Arkansas Supreme Court was affirmed in a 5-4 decision.  Justice John Paul Stevens concluded that the Qualifications Clauses of Article I, Sections 2 and 3 delineated qualifications for federal elected office that were not to be altered, and that the Arkansas ballot access law was clearly a “qualification” (Thornton).  According to the Court, only an amendment to the U.S. Constitution would be an adequate measure to allow the states to impose such restrictions (Hacker).  The Court therefore determined that the Arkansas law was unconstitutional.  This was a major setback to the movement towards Congressional term limits. 

 

 

Story Behind Cook v. Gralike, et. al:

  

            Following the US Term Limits v. Thornton case, Missouri voters adopted an amendment to Article VIII of their State Constitution which was a backdoor effort to assure the passage of a “Congressional Term Limits Amendment” to the Federal Constitution (Cook).  The Missouri amendment in effect required members of Missouri’s congressional delegation “to use all of his or her delegated powers to pass the Congressional Term Limits Amendment” set forth in section 16, Article VIII (Cook).  In addition to imposing such instructions, the Article likewise required that the Secretary of State determine whether a particular candidate should have placed next to his or her name on the ballot a statement indicating his or her position regarding term limits and term limit pledges (Cook).  

  

            Suit was brought by Don Gralike, a non-incumbent House of Representative candidate from the State of Missouri, in which he sought to enjoin the Secretary of State from implementing the Article (Cook).  Missouri’s District Court granted summary judgment to Gralike, declaring that the Article not only violated the Qualifications Clauses of Article I of the U.S. Constitution, but likewise ruling that it burdened free speech rights of candidates to voice their opinions on the issue of term limits (Cook).  The Court of Appeals affirmed this decision, and the case proceeded to the Supreme Court (Cook).

 

 

Composition of Court in 2001:

  

          In 2001, Chief Justice William Rehnquist led a fairly conservative Supreme Court (Oyez Project).  However, the majority opinion in Cook v. Gralike, et. al. was written by Justice Stevens, who had likewise penned the decision in U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton.  Stevens’ reputation on the Court is that of the “voice of moderation” (Oyez Project).  

 

Constitutional Question as defined by the Supreme Court: 

 

In Cook v. Gralike, et. al. the Supreme Court addressed the question of whether Article VIII of the Missouri Constitution, as amended in 1996 to seek to assure the passage of a “Congressional Term Limits Amendment” to the Federal Constitution, was consistent with both the Elections Clause and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

   

Decision and Ramifications:

  

Justice John Paul Stevens delivered the opinion in Cook v. Gralik et al.  The Court examined three provisions in the adopted amendment to Article VIII of the Missouri Constitution (Cook).  Section 17 of the amendment dealt with a statement that read “DISREGARDED VOTERS’ INSTRUCTION ON TERM LIMITS,” and required that such statement appear next to the name of any candidate for Senate of House of Representative who refused to support the proposed amendment through one or more of eight defined legislative acts (Cook).  Further language appeared in Section 18 of the amendment, namely the statement “DECLINED TO PLEDGE TO SUPPORT TERM LIMITS.”  This statement was to be printed on the ballot next to the names of candidate who would not pledge to term limits (Cook).  Section 19 of the amendment instructed the Missouri Secretary of State to make the determination as to whether these declarations would in fact appear alongside particular candidates’ names (Cook).

  

            The Petitioner in this matter, the Secretary of the State of Missouri, argued that Article VIII was “an exercise of the ‘right of the people to instruct’ their representatives reserved by the Tenth Amendment, and that it is a permissible regulation of the ‘manner’ of electing federal legislators within the delegated to the States by the Elections Clause, Art. 1, Section 4, cl. 1.” (Cook)  In other words, the argument was that the States were permitted to regulate elections, and doing so in this manner was appropriate because it simply was abiding by the right of the people to voice their opinion and instruct their representatives to act accordingly.  In considering the argument of the Petitioner, Justice Stevens looked at three “hurdles” which he contended would have to be met.  First, the precedents upon which the Petitioner relied for the proposition that the States in fact had such a reserved power were precedents that the Court felt were quite distinguishable.  Therefore, Petitioner had this considerable burden to overcome.  Secondly, the Court felt as if history itself countered Petitioner’s argument.  And lastly, Justice Stevens pointed out that permitting instructions to be issued in this manner would pass muster only if the Court found the means of doing so a “permissible exercise of the State’s power to regulate the manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives” (Cook). 

 

            Justice Stevens was not persuaded by Petitioner’s argument on either the first or second hurdle, determining that “this evidence falls short of demonstrating that either the people or the States had a right to give legally binding, i.e. nonadvisory, instructions to their representatives that the Tenth Amendment reserved, much less that such a right would apply to federal representatives” (Cook).  The Court noted that even if such a reserved right existed, the States were bound by the Elections Clause for the regulation of elections, and Article VIII went far beyond regulated the manner in which elections were held in Missouri.  In fact, Justice Stevens felt as if Article VIII did not even “regulate” elections, but was “plainly designed to favor candidates who are willing to support the particular form of a term limits amendment set for in its text and to disfavor those who either oppose term limits entirely or would prefer a different proposal” (Cook). The Court agreed with descriptions such as “pejorative,” and “intentionally intimidating,” which the lower Missouri courts had used to describe the ballot labels in question (Cook).   

  

            Chief Justice Rehnquist, perhaps the Court’s most staunch Conservative, issued a concurring opinion in which he declared that Article VIII violated the First Amendment of the Federal Constitution, because the ballot labels in effect imposed language upon candidates (Cook). 

  

            This decision no doubt put a further damper on efforts to impose term limits on Congress, or at least made more difficult the task of passing a constitutional amendment to that effect.  The opinion certainly would have discouraged states from seeking to enact term limits.  In the end, the reasons given for the term-limit movement, namely government corruption and over-spending, would not necessarily have been solved by term limits, as they are symptoms of deeper problems. 

 

 

Position on Opinion:

  

I agree with the Supreme Court’s decision in Cook v. Gralike, et al. for the reasons delineated by both Justice Stevens and Justice Rehnquist.  Requiring candidates for federal office to behave in a certain manner under the guise of suggesting that this is merely a permissible exercise of the right to “instruct” representatives is unacceptable and inappropriate. Further, stigmatizing candidates by labeling the ballot with comments upon their behavior or their viewpoints is even more distasteful.  

 

 

WORKS CITED

 

“Cook v. Gralike, et al.” http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/gralike.html>

            (26 February 2010).

 

 

Gayner, Jeffrey B. “The Contract with America: Implementing New Ideas in the U.S.” The Heritage Foundation: Leadership for America,                  http://www.heritage.org/research/politicalphilosophy/hl549.cfm.html> (27 February 2010).

 

 

Hacker, Hans J. “U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton” 15 December 2009, The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture,                  http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail/aspx.html>  (28 February 2010).

 

 

“John Paul Stevens” The Oyez Project. http://www.oyez.org/justices/john_paul_stevens.html>

            (1 March 2010).

 

 

“Proposal on Term Limits” Collins Center for Public Policy, Inc., http://www.collinscenter.org/general/print.asp.html>  (28 February 2010)

 

 

“Republican Contract with America” http://www.house.gov/house/Contract.html>

            (28 February 2010).

 

 

“Republican Terms Unlimited” 14 April 2006, Perrspectives, http://www.perrspectives.lcom/blog/archives/000365.html> (28 February 2010).

 

 

Schlafly, Phyllis. “Time to Put Limits on Term Limits for Congress” 20 February 2002, Eagle Forum, http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2002/feb02/02-02-     20.shtml.> (27 February 2010).

 

 

Seelye, Katharine Q. “House Turns Back Measures to Limit Terms in Congress” 30 March, 1995, http://nytimes.com/1995/03/30/us/house-turns-back-measures-     to-limit-terms-in-congress.html> (28 February 2010).

 

 

“State Regulation of Federal Elections” http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials.conlaw/qualifsclause.htm.>

            (28 February 2010).

 

 

“Term Limits” Source Watch. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Term_limits.html>

            (27 February 2010).

 

 

“U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton” http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/ustermlimits.html> (26 February 2010).

 

 

“William H. Rehnquist” The Oyez Project. http://www.oyez.org/justices/william_h_rhenquist.html> (1 March 2010).