Dunn v. Blumstein - Further Readings

Appellant
Winfield C. Dunn, Governor of Tennessee
Appellee
James F. Blumstein
Appellant's Claim
That the state of Tennessee's durational residency requirement for suffrage was constitutional.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
Robert H. Roberts
Chief Lawyer for Appellee
James F. Blumstein
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, Warren E. Burger, William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall (writing for the Court), Potter Stewart, Byron R. White
Justices Dissenting
William J. Brennan, Jr. (Lewis F. Powell, Jr., and William H. Rehnquist did not participate)
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
21 March 1972
Decision
The Supreme Court ruled that Tennessee's durational residency requirement wasunconstitutional.
Significance
The case added another group of people--new residents in states--to the listof groups who could not be discriminated against by states setting standardsfor suffrage.
The Durational Residency Requirement
Dunn v. Blumstein involved voting rights. Specifically, the case addressed the question of whether a state could impose a durational residency requirement before granting bona fide citizens the right to vote. The Supreme Court determined that such requirements denied some citizens the fundamental right to vote, and that in order to justify such a denial, the state musthave a compelling interest that could only be achieved in that way. The state involved, Tennessee, failed to demonstrate a compelling interest that wouldjustify its exclusions, and the Supreme Court joined a federal district court in declaring durational residency requirements unconstitutional.
The case was brought as a class action suit by James Blumstein, a newly appointed assistant professor of law at Vanderbilt University. Moving to Tennesseein June of 1970, Blumstein attempted to register to vote on 1 July 1970. Thecounty registrar refused to register him because of the state's durational residency requirement: only bona fide citizens who had lived in the state for one year, and in their county of registration for three months, priorto the upcoming election were allowed to vote. Blumstein brought suit on thegrounds that the durational requirement violated his rights under the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. A three-judge federal district court concluded that he was right. The state of Tennessee appealed to the Supreme Court.
Close Constitutional Scrutiny
In order to address the issues involved, the Supreme Court first had to decide which standard of review to use in determining whether or not Tennessee's restriction was allowable. Since the restriction deprived some citizens of theright to vote, which was considered to be a fundamental political right, theCourt determined that any restriction imposed by the state must withstand what it called "close constitutional scrutiny." Close scrutiny meant that the state must prove that it had a "compelling interest" for which the exclusionswere not only helpful, but necessary. Furthermore, wrote Justice Marshall inthe Court opinion, the durational residency requirement interfered with a second fundamental right guaranteed by the United States Constitution, the rightto travel. Any infringement on this right must also pass the compelling-state-interest test. The opinion took care to note that Tennessee's interest in having only bona fide residents of the state vote in its elections wasundisputed.
The Court then turned to the question of whether Tennessee had demonstrated acompelling state interest in restricting voters to those who had resided inthe state for at least a year. Tennessee argued that the requirement was necessary for two reasons. First, it allowed the state to maintain the "purity ofthe ballot box" by preventing dual voting--voting in more than one place--and "colonization"--the invasion of any district by a group of people whose only intention was to falsely declare residency and then vote, ensuring the election of a particular candidate. Second, the state of Tennessee argued, the durational residency requirement helped ensure a more knowledgeable voter, whohad taken the time to become informed about the local candidates and electionissues.
The Supreme Court found neither of these interests "compelling." Noting thatTennessee established duration of residency through a citizen's swearing of an oath, the Court declared that citizens intent upon fraud were as likely toswear falsely that they were longtime residents as they were to swear falselythat they were residents. As for dual voting, the Court stated that it was more easily prevented through cross-checking the resident's current registrations with registrations in a resident's former jurisdiction. Voter fraud, theCourt concluded, was better dealt with through the state's criminal code, which provided a means of discovering and dealing with such fraud.
The claim that the durational residency requirement provided the state with more knowledgeable voters was also rejected by the Supreme Court. Since the state made no attempt to determine whether or not longtime residents were knowledgeable, the exclusion of new residents on that ground was simply discriminatory. Such devices, wrote Marshall, "represent a requirement of knowledge unfairly imposed on only some citizens." Thus, the Supreme Court found that Tennessee had failed to demonstrate a compelling state interest in its durationalresidency requirement.
Justice Blackmun filed an opinion concurring in the result. However, he stated his conviction that the Court's decision had struck down Tennessee's particular requirement as unreasonable, but had not absolutely established that durational residency requirements were unconstitutional. Justice Brennan filed adissenting opinion holding that the "compelling state interest" standard wastoo strict a test for state voting regulations to undergo.
Related Cases

• Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23 (1968).
  
• Bullock v. Carter, 405 U.S. 134 (1972).
  
• Kusper v. Pontikes, 414 U.S. 51 (1973).
  
• Lubin v. Panish, 415 U.S. 709 (1974).
  
• Munro v. Socialist Workers Party, 479 U.S. 189 (1986).
  
• Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut, 479 U.S. 208 (1986).