referendum

Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 55, § 8 prohibits banks and business corporations from making contributions or expenditures for the purpose of influencing the vote on any referendum question other than one materially affecting the corporation's property, business, or assets. The statute also specifies that no question solely concerning the taxation of individuals would be deemed to have such an effect. Appellants, the First National Bank of Boston, New England Merchants National Bank, the Gillette Company, Digital Equipment Corporation, and Wyman-Gordon Company, wished to spend corporate funds to publicize their opposition to a proposed constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to impose a graduated personal income tax. That amendment was scheduled for submission to voters on November 2, 1976. Appellants brought suit in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts seeking a declaration that the statute was unconstitutional as applied to their proposed expenditures. The case was submitted on an expedited basis upon agreed facts to a single justice of that court, who referred the matter to the full bench the same day. The statement of agreed facts reflected disagreement among economists on whether a graduated personal income tax would affect corporate business or assets. Appellants' management nevertheless believed the tax would have a significant effect on their businesses. The Supreme Judicial Court upheld the statute in a 1973 decision. After the United States Supreme Court vacated the judgment and remanded for further consideration in light of Buckley v. Valeo, the Massachusetts court again upheld the statute in a February 1977 opinion. It construed the law to bar the proposed corporate expenditures on the individual-tax referendum. Although the November 1976 referendum was held and the amendment defeated, the United States Supreme Court addressed the merits. The controversy fell within the class of cases capable of repetition yet evading review. Similar graduated-income-tax amendments had been submitted to voters four times in recent years. The interval between legislative authorization and election was only about eighteen months. The statute prescribed a maximum fine of $50,000 for a violating corporation. It also prescribed a maximum fine of $10,000 or imprisonment for up to one year, or both, for a violating corporate officer, director, or agent.

In July 1980, respondent Jan Hannah purchased a building at 201 Featherston Street in Cleburne, Texas. Hannah intended to lease the property to Cleburne Living Center, Inc. (CLC) for use as a group home. The home would house thirteen mentally retarded men and women under constant staff supervision. The building contained four bedrooms and two baths, and CLC planned to add a half bath while complying with all applicable state and federal regulations for an Intermediate Care Facility for the Mentally Retarded. The site lay in an R-3 Apartment House District. The city's zoning ordinance permitted apartment houses, boarding houses, hospitals, and nursing homes in that district without special permission. However, the ordinance required a special use permit, renewable annually after a public hearing, for hospitals for the insane or feeble-minded. The city classified the proposed group home as a hospital for the feeble-minded and informed CLC that a permit was required. After a public hearing, the City Council voted three to one to deny the application. CLC and its prospective residents filed suit in federal district court against the city and its officials. They alleged that the ordinance and its application discriminated against the mentally retarded in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The district court upheld the ordinance and the denial. It found that the council's decision was motivated by the residents' mental retardation yet rationally related to legitimate interests such as neighborhood safety and property values. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed, holding that mental retardation is a quasi-suspect class and that the ordinance was invalid both facially and as applied. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the equal protection issues raised by the zoning ordinance and its application to the proposed group home.

In 1901 the Tennessee General Assembly enacted a statute apportioning the Senate with thirty-three members and the House of Representatives with ninety-nine members among the state's ninety-five counties. The Tennessee Constitution required a decennial enumeration of qualified voters and reapportionment of both houses on that basis. The General Assembly performed reapportionments after the enumerations of 1871, 1881, and 1891. After 1901 every proposal for reapportionment failed to pass. Between 1901 and 1960 the state's population grew from 2,020,616 to 3,567,089. The number of persons eligible to vote rose from 487,380 to 2,092,891. Substantial redistribution occurred from rural to urban counties. Appellants were residents and qualified voters of the urban counties of Davidson, Hamilton, Knox, Montgomery, and Shelby. They brought a civil action in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee against the Secretary of State, Attorney General, Coordinator of Elections, and members of the State Board of Elections. The complaint was filed under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988. It alleged that continued application of the 1901 statute debased their votes and denied equal protection of the laws. The complaint sought a declaratory judgment that the statute was unconstitutional. It also sought an injunction against conducting further elections under the statute. Alternative relief included at-large elections or a court-ordered reapportionment. A three-judge district court convened under 28 U.S.C. § 2281 dismissed the complaint. The court held that it lacked jurisdiction of the subject matter and that the complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The court characterized the controversy as a nonjusticiable political question. The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction. The case was argued in April 1961, set for reargument, reargued in October 1961, and decided on March 26, 1962.

Helen B. Feeney, a Massachusetts resident, entered the workforce in 1948 and held a variety of jobs in the private sector for the next fourteen years. She first entered the state civil service system in 1963 after competing successfully for a Senior Clerk Stenographer position in the Massachusetts Civil Defense Agency. She worked there for four years and was promoted in 1967 to Federal Funds and Personnel Coordinator in the same agency. The agency and her job were eliminated in 1975. During her twelve years of public employment, Feeney took and passed multiple open competitive civil service examinations. She received the second-highest score on a 1971 examination for a position with the Board of Dental Examiners and the third-highest score on a 1973 test for an Administrative Assistant position with a mental health center. Despite these strong performances, the veterans' preference placed her behind multiple male veterans on the eligible lists, some with lower scores, and she was never certified for appointment. The Massachusetts veterans' preference statute, Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 31, § 23, applies to all positions in the state's classified civil service, which constitute approximately 60 percent of the public jobs in the state. It requires that disabled veterans, veterans, and surviving spouses and surviving parents of veterans who achieve passing scores be ranked above all other candidates on eligible lists. The preference originated in 1884 as a tie-breaking measure for Civil War veterans and blossomed into an absolute preference in 1895 when the state exempted veterans from all merit selection requirements. In 1919 the formula was modified to provide a priority in eligibility rather than an absolute preference in hiring, and it has since been extended to cover veterans of later wars. At the time this litigation began, over 98 percent of the veterans in Massachusetts were male. During the decade between 1963 and 1973, 47,005 new permanent appointments were made in the classified official service. Of the women appointed, 1.8 percent were veterans, while 54 percent of the men had veteran status. Feeney sued the Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts and other state officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the absolute preference unconstitutionally denied women equal protection of the laws. A three-judge District Court ruled in her favor in 1976. After this Court vacated the judgment and remanded for reconsideration in light of Washington v. Davis, the District Court reaffirmed its conclusion in 1978, and the Attorney General appealed directly to this Court.

The petitioners were fourteen same-sex couples and two men whose same-sex partners were deceased. They lived in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. Those states defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman under their constitutions and statutes. The petitioners filed suits in federal district courts in their home states. They sought marriage licenses or recognition of marriages lawfully performed elsewhere. James Obergefell and John Arthur traveled from Ohio to Maryland to marry aboard a medical transport plane because Arthur suffered from ALS; Obergefell later sought to be listed as surviving spouse on Arthur's death certificate. April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, Michigan nurses, adopted three children but could not both serve as legal parents under state adoption rules. Army Reserve Sergeant Ijpe DeKoe and Thomas Kostura married in New York before DeKoe's deployment to Afghanistan and later settled in Tennessee. Each district court ruled in the petitioners' favor. The respondents appealed. The Sixth Circuit consolidated the cases and reversed the district court judgments. The petitioners sought certiorari, which the Supreme Court granted. Same-sex couples had begun establishing families after substantial cultural and political developments in the late twentieth century. Earlier litigation had addressed the legal status of gays and lesbians, including challenges that reached the Supreme Court in Bowers v. Hardwick and Lawrence v. Texas.