KEITH LANCE et al APPELLANTS v. GIGI DENNIS, COLORADO SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 06-641
UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT
Feburary 21, 2006 decided
This is the latest of several rounds of litigation involving the State of Colorado's congressional redistricting after the 2000 census, under which the State gained a seat in the House of Representatives. Lance v. Davidson , 379 F. Supp. 2d 1117, 1121 (2005). The first round began in May 2001. When the Colorado General Assembly failed to pass a redistricting plan for the 2002 congressional elections by the close of its regular session, a group of Colorado voters asked the state courts to create a plan. The courts agreed, drawing a new map reflecting the additional district. See Beauprez v. Avalos , 42 P. 3d 642 (Colo. 2002) (en banc). The 2002 elections were held using this court-ordered plan.
The General Assembly passed its own redistricting plan in the spring of 2003, prompting further litigation--this time about which electoral map was to govern, the legislature's or the court's. Two suits were filed seeking to enjoin the legislature's plan: an original action in the Colorado Supreme Court by the state attorney general seeking to require the secretary of state to use the court-ordered plan, and a similar action brought in a lower state court by several proponents of the court-ordered plan. 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1121. After the Colorado General Assembly intervened to defend its plan in the first case, the Colorado Supreme Court held that the plan violated Article V, §44, of the State Constitution, which the court construed to limit congressional redistricting to "once per decade." People ex rel. Salazar v. Davidson, 79 P. 3d 1221, 1231 (2003) (en banc). It therefore ordered the secretary of state to use the court-created plan. We denied certiorari. 541 U. S. 1093 (2004).
The second suit was removed to federal court by the defendants on the basis of plaintiffs' federal-law claims. See Keller v. Davidson, 299 F. Supp. 2d 1171, 1175 (Colo. 2004). Once Salazar was decided by the Colorado Supreme Court, the viability of the defendants' counterclaims was the only remaining issue. A three-judge District Court held that the defendants were barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine from amending their counterclaims to assert additional challenges to the decision in Salazar . It also held that the defendants' original counterclaims, while not barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, were precluded under Colorado law by the judgment in Salazar . Accordingly, the court dismissed the case.
Finally, this suit: Before the dismissal in Keller , several Colorado citizens unhappy with Salazar filed an action in the District Court seeking to require the secretary of state to use the legislature's plan. 1 The plaintiffs argued that Article V, §44, of the Colorado Constitution, as interpreted by the Colorado Supreme Court, violated the Elections Clause of Article I, §4, of the U. S. Constitution ("The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof"), and the First Amendment's Petition Clause ("Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people ... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"). The defendants filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine and Colorado preclusion law barred any attack on the Colorado Supreme Court's judgment in Salazar and that the plaintiffs had failed to state a valid Petition Clause claim.
The three-judge District Court ruled that under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, it had no jurisdiction to hear the Elections Clause claim. 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1127. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine, the court explained, includes three requirements: (1) "the party against whom the doctrine is invoked must have actually been a party to the prior state-court judgment or have been in privity with such a party"; (2) "the claim raised in the federal suit must have been actually raised or inextricably intertwined with the state-court judgment"; and (3) "the federal claim must not be parallel to the state-court claim." 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1124. The District Court found the first requirement satisfied on the ground that the citizen plaintiffs were in privity with the Colorado General Assembly--a losing party in Salazar. Relying on our decisions in Washington v. Washington State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U. S. 658 (1979), and Tacoma v. Taxpayers of Tacoma, 357 U. S. 320 (1958), the court stated that "when a state government litigates a matter of public concern, that state's citizens will be deemed to be in privity with the government for preclusion purposes." 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1125. This principle, the court reasoned, applies "with equal force in the Rooker-Feldman context." Ibid . The court went on to conclude that the Elections Clause claim was actually raised in Salazar, or inextricably intertwined with that decision, and was not parallel to the claims presented in Salazar . As to the Petition Clause claim, the court ruled that neither Rooker-Feldman nor Colorado preclusion law prevented the court from proceeding to the merits, but that plaintiffs failed to state a claim. 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1132; see Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 12(b)(6).
The plaintiffs appealed. See 28 U. S. C. §1253. We now note jurisdiction, and address whether the Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars the plaintiffs from proceeding because they were in privity with a party in Salazar . We conclude it does not, and vacate the judgment of the District Court.