On June 22, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in City of Los Angeles v Patel, 13-1175. This is not an election law case, but it has useful implications for election law challenges. The case concerned a Los Angeles ordinance that requires all hotels to keep a complete record of check-in information for all guests, and to turn it over to the police at any time the police want it, with no need for a warrant. The hotel-keeper who brought the case won, and the Los Angeles ordinance is unconstitutional on its face.

Ever since the 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the Washington state top-two state, which made it more difficult to have laws declared unconstitutional on their face, it has been more difficult for plaintiffs in election law cases to win. States typically now try to defend ballot access restrictions by saying they are not unconstitutional on their face. This forces the plaintiffs to submit a great deal of evidence to show that the restriction is unconstitutional as to those particular plaintiffs. This is how Arkansas, for example, is able to claim that its early petition deadlines are not unconstitutional on their face, even though those same deadlines had already been held unconstitutional repeatedly in the past.

Justice Sonya Sotomayor, writing the decision in the Los Angeles case, wrote, “The proper focus of the constitutional inquiry is the group for whom the law is a restriction, not the group for whom the law is irrelevant.” Applying this to the ongoing Arkansas case over early deadlines, this means the lower court should not be influenced by the fact that certain independent candidates might have had no trouble with the early deadline, and should only look at the candidates who did have trouble with it.

The U.S. Supreme Court did not issue any election law decisions on June 22, but will release some opinions on Thursday, June 25, as well as Monday, June 29.