Jones v. Markiewicz-Qualkinbush

Dist. Ct. did not err in entering judgment in favor of defendants-city officials in plaintiff-city alderman’s action seeking injunction against application of state law that limited number of proposed referenda to three that could appear on any one ballot, as well as order either removing from ballot or stopping implementation of term-limit referenda that effectively precluded plaintiff from seeking fourth term as alderman because he had already reached number of permissible terms. While plaintiff argued that state law creating instant “Rule of Three” limitation on number of referenda violated his First Amendment rights because it precluded him from asking voters to support his proposed fourth referenda seeking to preclude City’s mayor from seeking fourth term, Ct. of Appeals found no First Amendment violation since there is no constitutional right to place referenda on ballot, and ballot is not otherwise public forum for advocating policy. Also, Rule of Three is rationally related to legitimate state objective in simplifying ballot. Ct. also rejected plaintiff’s related class-of-one equal protection claim with respect to defendant’s ordinance limiting terms of alderman, since: (1) ordinance covered all individuals who served beyond stated term limit; (2) plaintiff did not deny that term-limit rules in general are supported by rational basis; and (3) judicial intervention to essentially overturn political practices that are valid in general but bear especially hard consequence for one politician would be inappropriate.