Constitutional – Felony-Disclosure Requirement – Address-Disclosure Challenge

A requirement for the public disclosure of candidates’ felony histories, which will not appear on the ballot, does not constitute an impermissible qualification for office.

We affirmed the district court’s holding that North Carolina’s felony-disclosure requirement is constitutional. We vacated the judgment on the address-disclosure challenge and remanded that claim to the district court with instructions to dismiss it as moot.

Plaintiff lodged a challenge to the felony-disclosure requirement for a candidate running for federal office in North Carolina. This state law requires that candidates check a box indicating if they have any felony convictions and then submit a short supplemental form with basic information regarding such convictions and the restoration of citizenship rights. The district court upheld the statute.

Siddhanth Sharma is a convicted felon who resides in Wake County, North Carolina. In 2023, Sharma announced his candidacy for North Carolina’s Thirteenth Congressional District seat in the State’s 2024 Republican primary election. Sharma’s full citizenship rights had been restored on September 3, 2023, and he registered to vote on September 5. On September 14, 2023, without having submitted his notice of candidacy, Sharma filed suit against members of the North Carolina State Board of Elections. He challenged the felony-disclosure requirement as violative of the Qualifications Clause of the U.S. Constitution and challenged both the felony-disclosure requirement and an additional address-disclosure requirement as violative of the First Amendment. He also sought an injunction requiring the State to adopt a notice-of-candidacy form without a felony-disclosure requirement, and another injunction requiring the State to remove all voters’ addresses from the voter-search database.

The State moved to dismiss his claims for lack of standing and failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. The district court granted the motion to dismiss. While acknowledging that Sharma had not yet filed his notice-of-candidacy form, the court nonetheless found standing to challenge the felony-disclosure requirement because Sharma alleged a sufficient pre-enforcement injury connected to a constitutional interest. However, the court concluded that felony disclosure did not constitute an additional qualification because it did not render any candidate “ineligible for ballot position.” Likewise, the court held that the felony-disclosure requirement did not violate the First Amendment. As to the address-disclosure requirement, the district court found Sharma lacked standing because his injury was insufficiently particularized. Rather, the chilling effect he claimed to experience was “common to all members of the public.” Sharma appealed the court’s dismissal of his challenges on November 2, 2023. He subsequently submitted his notice of candidacy, correctly noting his felony history, on December 7, 2023, shortly before the December 15 filing deadline. He appeared on the ballot on March 5, 2024, and ultimately lost the primary election.

On appeal, we had to determine whether a requirement for the public disclosure of candidates’ felony histories, which will not appear on the ballot, constitute an impermissible qualification for office. We answered that question in the negative.

Sharma’s compliance with the felony-disclosure requirement enabled him to appear on the ballot. Likewise, the felony-disclosure requirement did not derogatorily brand Sharma for his political viewpoints. The felony disclosure does not reveal anything about Sharma’s personal philosophy or opinions on public policy. And significantly, the felony disclosure does not appear on the ballot. Being no form of unconstitutional qualification, the felony-disclosure requirement is a proper exercise of North Carolina’s “time, place, and manner” regulatory power.

Sharma also claimed North Carolina’s felony-disclosure requirement is a form of compelled speech violative of the First Amendment. The felony-disclosure requirement imposes only the lightest burden on Sharma’s rights because the speech this disclosure compels is relatively innocuous.

Thus, we asked only whether the felony disclosure requirement is sufficiently justified by “the State’s important regulatory interests.” Our precedent is clear that “[t]here can be no question about the legitimacy of the State’s interest in fostering informed and educated expressions of the popular will.” The state is making already available public information more accessible to voters upon inquiry—an element beneficial to maintaining an educated electorate. North Carolina is not passing judgment on whether the electorate should ultimately vote for Sharma or indeed for any candidate with a comparable history. The felony-disclosure requirement simply allows voters to reach their own conclusions on a distinction that is, at its core, the very essence of the rule of law.

We did not need to reach the merits of Sharma’s challenge to the address-disclosure requirement as we lacked jurisdiction over this claim.

Affirmed in part; vacated and remanded in part.

Sharma v. Hirsch (Lawyers’ Weekly No. 011-095-24, 19 pp.) (J. Harvie Wilkinson III, J.) Appealed from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina at Raleigh (Richard E. Myers, II, J.) Argued: Madelyn Strohm, Peyton Mitchell, Wake Forest University School of Law, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for appellant; Nicholas Scott Brod, North Carolina Department of Justice, Raleigh, North Carolina, for appellees; On Brief: John J. Korzen, Maxwell J. Anthony, C. Isaac Hopkin, Luul Y. Lampkins, Appellate Advocacy Clinic, Wake Forest University School of Law, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for appellant; Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General, Terence Steed, Special Deputy Attorney General, Mary Carla Babb, Special Deputy Attorney General, North Carolina Department of Justice, Raleigh, North Carolina, for appellees. U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit