power to appoint

The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended in 1974, limits individual contributions to any single candidate to $1,000 per election with an overall annual limit of $25,000 per contributor, caps independent expenditures relative to a clearly identified candidate at $1,000 per year, imposes overall spending ceilings on candidates and political parties for federal campaigns, requires political committees and candidates to register and file detailed quarterly reports disclosing contributions above $10 and $100 thresholds along with expenditures, establishes the Federal Election Commission to administer and enforce the statute, and creates a system of public funding for presidential nominating conventions, primary campaigns, and general elections through taxpayer checkoffs under Subtitle H of the Internal Revenue Code. Plaintiffs who filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia included a candidate for the Presidency, a United States Senator seeking re-election, a potential contributor, the Committee for a Constitutional Presidency—McCarthy '76, the Conservative Party of the State of New York, the Mississippi Republican Party, the Libertarian Party, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Inc., the American Conservative Union, the Conservative Victory Fund, and Human Events, Inc. The defendants were the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of Representatives in their official capacities as ex officio members of the Commission, the Commission itself, the Attorney General, and the Comptroller General. Jurisdiction was invoked under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 2201, and 2202 and section 315(a) of the Act, 2 U.S.C. § 437h(a) (1970 ed., Supp. IV). The complaint sought declaratory and injunctive relief against enforcement of the major provisions. The district judge denied a three-judge court and transmitted the case to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which entered an order deeming the case preliminarily certified under the special review provision. The Court of Appeals remanded the case en banc to the district court to identify constitutional issues, take additional evidence, make findings of fact, and certify questions back to the court of appeals. On remand the district judge adopted extensive findings of fact and returned the augmented record. The court of appeals then sustained the legislation in large part, finding a clear and compelling interest in preserving the integrity of the electoral process. The Supreme Court granted review on the certified constitutional questions arising from the Court of Appeals decision.

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In 1935 Dora Browning Donner, then a domiciliary of Pennsylvania, executed a trust instrument in Delaware naming the Wilmington Trust Company as trustee. The corpus consisted of securities. Mrs. Donner reserved the income for life and retained a power of appointment over the remainder exercisable by inter vivos deed or will. She also retained the rights to amend, alter, or revoke the agreement, to change the trustee, and to require the consent of a trust advisor she appointed for sales of assets, investments, and participation in reorganizations. In 1944 Mrs. Donner became domiciled in Florida and remained there until her death in 1952. On December 3, 1949, while in Florida, she executed both her will and an inter vivos power of appointment. The appointment directed $200,000 to each of two trusts benefiting her grandchildren Donner Hanson and Joseph Donner Winsor, with the balance appointed to her executrix. Mrs. Donner died on November 20, 1952. Her will was admitted to probate in Florida, naming Elizabeth Donner Hanson as executrix. Fourteen months after the death, residuary legatees Katherine N. R. Denckla and Dorothy B. R. Stewart petitioned a Florida chancery court for a declaratory judgment concerning property passing under the residuary clause. Personal service was made on the executrix and beneficiaries. Nonresident defendants including the Wilmington Trust Company and the Delaware Trust Company were served by ordinary mail and local publication under Florida statutes. The Delaware trustee did not appear. After the Florida suit began, the executrix filed a declaratory judgment action in Delaware to determine rights to the trust assets held there. All trust companies and most beneficiaries appeared in the Delaware proceeding. The Florida chancellor initially ruled he lacked jurisdiction over the nonresident trustees because no personal service had been made and the trust corpus was outside Florida. He proceeded as to appearing parties and held the power of appointment testamentary and void under Florida law, so that the $400,000 passed under the residuary clause. The Delaware Chancellor ruled the trust and appointment valid under Delaware law and that the corpus had been properly paid to the appointees. The Florida Supreme Court reversed the jurisdictional ruling, held Florida law applied, and affirmed that the trust was invalid and the appointment ineffective. The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed its own judgment and refused to accord full faith and credit to the Florida decree. The United States Supreme Court postponed the question of jurisdiction in the Florida appeal and granted certiorari to the Delaware Supreme Court. Both state supreme court judgments are before the Court.

On November 8, 2000, the day following the Presidential election, the Florida Division of Elections reported that petitioner Bush had received 2,909,135 votes and respondent Gore had received 2,907,351 votes, a margin of 1,784 for Governor Bush. Because Governor Bush's margin of victory was less than one-half of one percent of the votes cast, an automatic machine recount was conducted under section 102.141(4) of the Florida Election Code. This recount resulted in a substantially smaller margin of victory for Bush. Respondent Gore then sought manual recounts in four counties: Volusia, Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade. The Florida Supreme Court enjoined certification until November 17, later directed inclusion of completed manual-recount results from Volusia and Palm Beach, and ordered Miami-Dade to finish its recount by November 22. On November 21 the court set a November 26 deadline for all manual recounts and for certification by the Secretary of State. On November 26 the Secretary certified Bush the winner by 537 votes. Gore filed a contest action in Leon County Circuit Court under section 102.168 alleging rejection of a sufficient number of legal votes to place the outcome in doubt. The circuit court denied relief. The Florida Supreme Court reversed in part on December 8, 2000, ordering a manual recount of all undervotes statewide under a clear-indication-of-voter-intent standard and directing inclusion of 215 net votes from Palm Beach County and 168 net votes from Miami-Dade County. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari on December 9 after staying the Florida Supreme Court's order and heard argument on December 11. The dispute involved roughly 45,000 undervote ballots that machines had not tabulated plus partial manual counts already performed in three counties.