Gregory v. Ashcroft

In a 7-2 opinion, the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the court of appeals. Justice O'Connor, who delivered the opinion of the Court, first resolved how to apply ambiguous text contained in the ADEA. She maintained the lower court's decision wrongly interpreted that the federal statute (the ADEA) could upset the constitutional balance between states and the federal government. (Congress enacted the ADEA and extended it to the states.)

O'Connor explained that the U.S. Constitution established a system of dual, concurrent sovereignty between the states and the federal government (the only exception was the Supremacy Clause which gave advantage to the federal government). Since Missouri's right to define the qualifications of its highest state officials was protected by the Tenth Amendment--"the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"--O'Connor held it obligatory for the Court to be certain of Congress's intent before finding that a federal law overrode the balance. The Court had already previously ruled that Congress had made its intent "unmistakably clear in the language of the statute" (embodied in the ADEA provisions) not to override Missouri's right to dismiss high state officials (Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police [1989]). Knowing that the Congress did not readily interfere with a state's sovereign powers, the Court gave clear guidance regarding interpretation of the ADEA using the "plain statement rule."

The ADEA stated that the term "employee" (as a person protected by ADEA provisions) should not include "any person elected to public office in any State by the qualified voters thereof, or any person chosen by such officer to be on such officer's personal staff, or an appointee on the policymaking level or an immediate adviser with respect to the exercise of the constitutional or legal powers of the office." Governor Ashcroft, respondent, claimed that the ADEA's exclusion from its protection of certain public officials pertained to the two petitioners, because they were appointed by an elected official (the governor himself), and because they were appointees on the policymaking level. His lawyer argued that state judges did make policy because they fashioned and applied common law adopted in Missouri. Moreover, the two judges' courts made policy by establishing rules of practice on a local and state level.