United States Second Circuit

In an action challenging amendments to New York term limits legislation, district court's grant of summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where: 1) plaintiffs do not have a viable First Amendment claim as any chilling of plaintiffs' First Amendment activity is self-imposed and thus incidental and constitutionally insignificant; 2) the challenged law does not violate plaintiffs' substantive due process rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment; 3) New York Municipal Home Rule Law sec. 23(2)(b) does not require a referendum to enact the challenged law; and 4) court properly dismissed plaintiff's claim that defendants violated the conflicts of interest provisions of the City Charter as any any conflict of interest was not in the terms and conditions of public office.

Appellate Information

• Decided 04/28/2009
• Published 04/28/2009

Judges

• STRAUB, Circuit Judge:, Before:  STRAUB, POOLER, RAGGI, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Randy M. Mastro, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, New York, NY (Norman Siegel, New York, NY, on the brief), for Plaintiffs-Appellants William C. Thompson Jr., Betsy Gotbaum, Bill de Blasio, Letitia James, Charles Barron, Rosalie Caliendo, Phillip DePaolo, Philip Foglia, Kent Lebsock, Andrea Rich, Mike Long, Tom Long, Sarah Lyons, Ida Sanoff, Gloria Smith, Eric Snyder, Kenneth J. Baer, Kenneth A. Diamondstone, Peter Gleason, Mark Winston Griffith, Ari Hoffnung, Alfonso Quiroz, Ydanis Rodriguez, Jo Anne Simon, U.S. Term Limits, Luvenia Suber, Stanley Kalathara, and Responsible New York., (Pieter Van Tol, Andrew Behrman, Lovells LLP, New York, NY, for Plaintiff-Appellant New York Public Interest Research Group, Inc.)., Harry Kresky, New York, NY, for Lenora B. Fulani and the New York City Organizations of the New York Independence Party as amici curiae in support of Plaintiffs-Appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Alan G. Krams, Assistant Corporation Counsel (Michael A. Cardozo, Corporation Counsel of the City of New York, on the brief), New York, NY, for Defendants-Appellees., Robert D. Joffe, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, New York, NY, for the Partnership for New York City, Inc. as amicus curiae in support of Defendants-Appellees.