Syllabus | Opinion [ Souter ] |
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The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U.S. 321, 337.
GUTIERREZ et al. v. ADA et al.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
The Organic Act of Guam, 48 U.S.C. § 1422 provides, inter alia, that [i]f no [slate of] candidates [for Governor and Lieutenant Governor of Guam] receive[s] a majority of the votes cast in any election, . . . a runoff election shall be held. Petitioners, candidates running on one slate for Governor and Lieutenant Governor, received a majority of the votes cast for gubernatorial slates in the 1998 Guam general election, but did not receive a majority of the total number of ballots that voters cast. Respondents, petitioners opponents, sought a writ of mandamus ordering a runoff election. The District Court issued the writ, and the Ninth Circuit ultimately affirmed, interpreting the statutory phrase majority of the votes cast in any election to require that a slate receive a majority of the total number of ballots cast in the general election.
Held: The Guam Organic Act does not require a runoff election when a candidate slate has received a majority of the votes cast for Governor and Lieutenant Governor of the Territory, but not a majority of the number of ballots cast in the simultaneous general election. Section 1422 contains six express references to an election for those offices, two of them preceding the phrase in any election, and four following. So surrounded, any election can only refer to an election for Governor and Lieutenant Governor, for words are known by their companions. See, e.g., Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., 513 U.S. 561, 575. This reading is confirmed by the fact that, later in §1422, Congress varied the specific modifier when it spoke of the general election at which the gubernatorial election would occur. Congress would hardly have used any election to mean general election, only to mention general election a few lines further on. It would be equally odd to think that after repeatedly using votes or vote to mean an expression of choice for the gubernatorial slate, Congress suddenly used votes cast in any election to mean ballots cast, as respondents suggest. Congress, indeed, has shown that it recognizes the difference between ballots and votes in the very context of Guamanian elections: From 1972 until 1998, §1712 expressly required that the Guam Delegate be elected by separate ballot and by a majority of the votes cast for Delegate. To accept respondents reading would also impute to Congress a strange preference for making it hard to select a Governor, because a runoff would be required even though one slate already had a majority of all those who cared to choose among gubernatorial candidates. Requiring a majority of the total number of voters on election day would also be in some tension with §1422a, which provides for removal of a Governor or Lieutenant Governor upon the vote of at least two-thirds of the total number of persons who actually voted for such office, not the total number who went to the polls. Respondents two considerations pointing to a contrary readingthat because §1712 specifically states that a majority of the votes cast for . . . Delegate is necessary to elect a Delegate, §1422 would require a comparably clear modifier to refer to sufficient votes to elect gubernatorial slates; and that this Courts reading of any election would render that phrase a nullity and thus offend the rule against attributing redundancy to Congressare rejected. Pp. 48.
179 F.3d 672, reversed and remanded.
Souter, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.