501 U.S. 452 (1991)
Missouri state judges Ellis Gregory, Jr., and Anthony P. Nugent, Jr., were appointed to their positions by the Governor under the state's Non-Partisan Court Plan.1 Gregory served as an associate circuit judge for the Twenty-first Judicial Circuit, while Nugent sat on the Missouri Court of Appeals for the Western District.2 Both judges, along with two others, became subject to a mandatory retirement requirement upon reaching age seventy under Article V, Section 26 of the Missouri Constitution.3 They had each been retained in office through retention elections in which they ran unopposed.4
In 1990, the judges filed a lawsuit against Governor John D. Ashcroft in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.5 The complaint alleged that the mandatory retirement provision violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.6 The Governor responded with a motion to dismiss the action.7
The district court granted the motion and dismissed the complaint.8 On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision in a 1990 ruling reported at 898 F. 2d 598.9 The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari in the case later that year.10
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act had been amended in 1974 to include states and their political subdivisions as employers.11 The Act's definition of employee contained exclusions for elected officials, their personal staff, appointees on the policymaking level, and immediate advisers.12
Whether the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 applies to appointed state judges subject to a mandatory retirement provision?13
Congress must make its intention clear and manifest if it intends to preempt the historic powers of the States.14 The ADEA extends to the States as employers but excludes from the definition of employee any person elected to public office, personal staff, appointees on the policymaking level, or immediate advisers, and without a plain statement covering state judges the Act does not reach them.15
No. The plain statement rule requires unmistakable clarity before federal law displaces core state sovereign functions such as setting qualifications for constitutional officers.16 The 1974 amendments brought States within the ADEA yet simultaneously carved out high-level officials tied to elected office. Missouri judges Ellis Gregory, Jr., and Anthony P. Nugent, Jr., were appointed by the Governor under the Non-Partisan Court Plan and retained through unopposed retention elections; they therefore sit in the ambiguous zone between the elected-official and policymaking exceptions.17
Because the statute does not plainly include appointed judges, the federalism presumption against coverage controls.18
The ADEA does not apply to the Missouri mandatory retirement provision for judges.19
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Justice White concurred in the judgment but rejected the majority's plain statement rule.20 He viewed the rule as unsupported by precedent and contrary to the decisions in Garcia and Baker.21 White would have resolved the case through straightforward statutory construction of the ADEA definition of employee.22
He concluded that appointed judges qualify as appointees on the policymaking level because they choose among alternatives when filling gaps in the common law and elaborate those choices to guide future decisions.23 Legislative history from the Title VII debates confirmed congressional intent to exclude high-level judicial officers from coverage.24 White therefore concurred in the result that the ADEA does not apply.25
Joined by Justice Marshall
Justice Blackmun concluded that appointed Missouri state judges are covered by the ADEA.26 He argued that the policymaking exclusion must be read narrowly in light of its placement between the personal-staff and immediate-adviser exceptions.27 Appointed judges are not closely accountable to or working directly with elected officials and therefore remain covered employees under the Act.28
Blackmun would have deferred to the EEOC's reasonable interpretation that judges are protected by the ADEA.29 He concluded that the Missouri provision violates the federal statute.30
Whether a state constitutional provision requiring judges to retire at age seventy violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?31
No. The people of Missouri possess a legitimate interest in maintaining a judiciary capable of performing demanding tasks.34 Physical and mental capacity can diminish with age, and retention elections provide an inadequate check because most voters never observe judges in action and judges serve long terms.35 The mandatory retirement line at seventy is therefore a rational response that also creates opportunities for younger attorneys; the classification need not be perfect to satisfy equal protection.36
The Missouri mandatory retirement provision does not violate the Equal Protection Clause.37
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Joined by Justice Marshall
Justice Stevens dissented on the equal protection claim.38 He contended that the age limit rests on an outdated stereotype unsupported by evidence.39 There is no evidence that judges suddenly become incompetent at age seventy.40 The classification therefore cannot survive even rational-basis scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause.41
Joined by Justice Marshall