GUTIERREZ et al. v. ADA et al.

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Syllabus
GUTIERREZ et al. v. ADA et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the ninth circuit
No. 99–51. Argued December 6, 1999—Decided January 19, 2000
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 elec-
tion 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 order-
ing 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 major-
ity 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 gubernato-
rial election would occur. Congress would hardly have used “any elec-
tion” to mean “general election,” only to mention “general election” a
few lines further on. It would be equally odd to think that after repeat-
edly 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 bal-
lot and by a majority of the votes cast for . . . Delegate.” To accept
respondents’ reading would also impute to Congress a strange prefer-
ence for making it hard to select a Governor, because a runoff would be

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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 Lieu-
tenant 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 con-
trary reading—that 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 suffi-
cient votes to elect gubernatorial slates; and that this Court’s reading
of “any election” would render that phrase a nullity and thus offend
the rule against attributing redundancy to Congress—are rejected.
Pp. 254–258.
179 F. 3d 672, reversed and remanded.
Souter, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Seth M. Hufstedler argued the cause for petitioners.
With him on the briefs were Shirley M. Hufstedler, Diane
E. Pritchard, and F. Philip Carbullido.
Dennis P. Riordan argued the cause for respondents.
With him on the brief were Donald M. Horgan, Dylan L.
Schaffer, Robert H. Bork, and Curtis Charles Van De Veld.*
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question here is whether the statute governing elec-
tions for Governor and Lieutenant Governor of the Territory
of Guam compels a runoff election when a candidate slate
has received a majority of the votes cast for Governor and
Lieutenant Governor, but not a majority of the number of
ballots cast in the simultaneous general election. We hold
that the statute requires no runoff.
I
In the November 3, 1998, Guam general election, petition-
ers Carl T. C. Gutierrez and Madeleine Z. Bordallo were can-
*William J. Carter and M. Miller Baker filed a brief for the Voting
Integrity Project as amicus curiae urging reversal.

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didates running on one slate for Governor and Lieutenant
Governor, opposed by the slate of respondents Joseph F. Ada
and Felix P. Camacho. Gutierrez received 24,250 votes, as
against 21,200 for Ada. Ada v. Guam, 179 F. 3d 672, 675
(CA9 1999); App. 16. One thousand two hundred and
ninety-four voted for write-in candidates; 1,313 persons who
cast ballots did not vote for either slate or any write-in candi-
date; and 609 voted for both slates. 179 F. 3d, at 675; App.
16. The total number of ballots cast in the general election
was thus 48,666, and the Gutierrez slate’s votes represented
49.83 percent of that total. The Guam Election Commission
certified the Gutierrez slate as the winner, finding it had re-
ceived 51.21 percent of the vote, as calculated by deducting
the 1,313 ballots left blank as to the gubernatorial election
from the total number of ballots cast. 179 F. 3d, at 675.
Respondents Ada and Camacho sued in the United States
District Court for a writ of mandamus ordering a runoff
election, contending that Gutierrez and Bordallo had not
received a majority of the votes cast, as required by the
Organic Act of Guam, 64 Stat. 384, as amended, 48 U. S. C.
§ 1421 et seq. (1994 ed. and Supp. III).
So far as relevant, the Organic Act provides that:
“[t]he executive power of Guam shall be vested in an
executive officer whose official title shall be the ‘Gover-
nor of Guam’. The Governor of Guam, together with
the Lieutenant Governor, shall be elected by a majority
of the votes cast by the people who are qualified to vote
for the members of the Legislature of Guam. The Gov-
ernor and Lieutenant Governor shall be chosen jointly,
by the casting by each voter of a single vote applicable
to both offices. If no candidates receive a majority of
the votes cast in any election, on the fourteenth day
thereafter a runoff election shall be held between the
candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor re-
ceiving the highest and second highest number of votes
cast. The first election for Governor and Lieutenant

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Governor shall be held on November 3, 1970. There-
after, beginning with the year 1974, the Governor and
Lieutenant Governor shall be elected every four years
at the general election. The Governor and Lieutenant
Governor shall hold office for a term of four years and
until their successors are elected and qualified.” 48
U. S. C. § 1422.
Respondents’ position boils down to the claim that the phrase
“majority of the votes cast in any election” requires that a
slate of candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor
receive a majority of the total number of ballots cast in the
general election, regardless of the number of votes for all
gubernatorial slates by those casting ballots. If this is the
correct reading of the phrase, the parties agree that a runoff
was required. If, however, the phrase refers only to votes
cast for gubernatorial slates, no runoff was in order, and
petitioners were elected Governor and Lieutenant Governor.
The United States District Court for the District of Guam
read the statute to require a majority of the total number of
voters casting ballots in the general election and so ruled
that the Gutierrez slate had not received “a majority of the
votes cast in any election.” The court accordingly issued a
writ of mandamus for a runoff election to be held on Decem-
ber 19, 1998, Ada v. Guam, No. Civ. 98–00066 (Dec. 9, 1998),
App. to Pet. for Cert. A–25, A–55.
Although the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued
an emergency stay of the District Court’s order pending ap-
peal, 179 F. 3d, at 676, it ultimately affirmed. The Court of
Appeals understood the reference to “majority of the votes
cast” as meaning “all votes cast at the general election, for
Congress presumably would not have included the phrase ‘in
any election,’ if it meant to refer only to the votes cast in the
single election for governor and lieutenant governor.” Id.,
at 677. The court thought that any other reading would
render the phrase “in any election” a “nullity.” Ibid. The
Court of Appeals also relied on a comparison of § 1422 with

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48 U. S. C. § 1712, which provides that a candidate for Guam’s
Delegate to Congress must receive “a majority of the votes
cast for the office of Delegate” in order to be elected. The
Ninth Circuit reasoned that Congress could have used simi-
lar language of limitation if it had intended the election of a
Governor and Lieutenant Governor to require only a major-
ity of votes cast for gubernatorial slates. 179 F. 3d, at 678.
The Ninth Circuit stayed its mandate pending disposition of
petitioners’ petition for a writ of certiorari.
We granted certiorari, 527 U. S. 1063 (1999), to resolve a
split between the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation of the Or-
ganic Act of Guam and the Third Circuit’s reading of identical
language in the Revised Organic Act of the Virgin Islands.
See 68 Stat. 503, as amended, 48 U. S. C. § 1591 (providing
for a runoff election for Governor and Lieutenant Governor
of the Virgin Islands “[i]f no candidates receive a majority of
the votes cast in any election”); Todman v. Boschulte, 694
F. 2d 939 (CA3 1982). We reverse.
II
The key to understanding what the phrase “in any elec-
tion” means is also the most salient feature of the provision
in which it occurs. The section contains six express refer-
ences to an election for Governor and Lieutenant Governor:
“The Governor of Guam, together with the Lieutenant Gov-
ernor, shall be elected . . .”; “[t]he Governor and Lieutenant
Governor shall be chosen jointly, by the casting by each voter
of a single vote . . .”; “a runoff election shall be held between
the candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor . . .”;
“[t]he first election for Governor and Lieutenant Governor
shall be held . . .”; “the Governor and Lieutenant Governor
shall be elected every four years . . .”; “[t]he Governor and
Lieutenant Governor shall hold office . . . until their succes-
sors are elected . . . .” 48 U. S. C. § 1422. The reference to
“any election” is preceded by two references to gubernato-
rial election and followed by four. With “any election” so

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surrounded, what could it refer to except an election for Gov-
ernor and Lieutenant Governor, the subject of such relent-
less repetition? To ask the question is merely to apply an
interpretive rule as familiar outside the law as it is within,
for words and people are known by their companions. See
Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., 513 U. S. 561, 575 (1995) (“[A] word
is known by the company it keeps”); Jarecki v. G. D. Searle
& Co., 367 U. S. 303, 307 (1961) (“The maxim noscitur a
sociis, . . . while not an inescapable rule, is often wisely ap-
plied where a word is capable of many meanings in order to
avoid the giving of unintended breadth to the Acts of Con-
gress”). Cf. Foster v. Love, 522 U. S. 67, 71 (1997) (“When
the federal statutes speak of ‘the election’ of a Senator or
Representative, they plainly refer to the combined actions
of voters and officials meant to make a final selection of
an officeholder (subject only to the possibility of a later
run-off . . . )”).
Other clues confirm that Congress did not shift its atten-
tion when it used “any election” unadorned by a gubernato-
rial reference or other definite modifier. Later on in the
same provision, Congress did vary the specific modifier when
it spoke of the “general election” at which the gubernatorial
election would occur; it is thus significant that Congress did
not peg the majority-vote requirement to “votes cast in any
[general] election.” Congress would hardly have used “any
election” to mean “general election,” only to mention “gen-
eral 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.” And yet that is just
what would be required if we were to treat the phrase
respondents’ way, for they read “votes cast in any election”
as referring to “ballots containing a vote for any office.”
Surely a Congress that meant to refer to ballots, midway
through a statute repeatedly referring to “votes” for guber-

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natorial slates, would have said “ballots.” To argue other-
wise is to tag Congress with an extravagant preference for
the opaque when the use of a clear adjective or noun would
have worked nicely. But even aside from that, Congress has
shown that it recognizes the difference between ballots and
votes in the very context of Guamanian elections. From
1972 until 1998, 48 U. S. C. § 1712 expressly required that the
Guam Delegate be elected “by separate ballot and by a ma-
jority of the votes cast for the office of Delegate.” There is
simply no reason to think that Congress meant “ballots”
when it said “votes” in § 1422.
To accept respondents’ reading would also impute to the
Congress a strange preference for making it hard to select a
Governor. On respondents’ reading the statute could re-
quire a runoff (as it would in this case) even though one slate
already had a majority of all those who cared to make any
choice among gubernatorial candidates. Respondents try to
counter the unreality of their position by emphasizing state
cases holding that passing a referendum requires a majority
of voters going to the polls, not a mere majority of persons
voting on a particular referendum issue. Cf. Allen v. Burk-
hart, 377 P. 2d 821 (Okla. 1963); Thurston County Farm Bu-
reau v. Thurston County, 136 Neb. 575, 287 N. W. 180 (1939);
Missouri v. Winkelmeier, 35 Mo. 103 (1864). But there is
no uniform rule, see, e. g., Wooley v. Sterrett, 387 S. W. 2d
734, 739–740 (Tex. Civ. App. 1965); Munce v. O’Hara, 340 Pa.
209, 16 A. 2d 532 (1940); State ex rel. Short v. Clausen, 72
Wash. 409, 130 P. 479 (1913), and even if there were, treat-
ment of referendums would not be a plausible model for elec-
tions of officials. Referendums are exceptions to the normal
legislative process, and passage of a referendum is not itself
essential to the functioning of government. If a ballot-
majority requirement makes it impossible to pass a referen-
dum measure, nothing need be done except record the fail-
ure. The same requirement to elect an official, on the other
hand, would necessitate further action, the trouble and ex-

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pense of which would not make any apparent sense when
those who expressed any preference among candidates had
already given a majority to one of them.
As a final confirmation of the obvious reading, we note that
requiring a majority of the total number of voters on election
day would be in some tension with § 1422a, which provides
for recall elections for Governor and Lieutenant Governor.
Section 1422a(b) provides that “[a]ny Governor, Lieutenant
Governor, or member of the legislature of Guam may be re-
moved from office by a referendum election in which at least
two-thirds of the number of persons voting for such official
in the last preceding general election at which such official
was elected vote in favor of recall and in which those so
voting constitute a majority of all those participating in such
referendum election.” The recall provision thus looks to the
total number of persons who actually voted for Governor,
not the total number who went to the polls. In a rational
world, we would not expect the vote required to oust a Gov-
ernor to be pegged to a lower number than it would take to
elect one.
If all these considerations confirm the reading according to
the rule of meaning by association, respondents nevertheless
emphasize two considerations said to point the other way.
First, as we noted before, § 1712 includes a specific statement
that “a majority of the votes cast for the office of Delegate”
is necessary and presumably sufficient to elect a Delegate.
Without a comparably clear modifier in § 1422 referring to
votes sufficient to elect gubernatorial slates, respondents
argue, “a majority of the votes cast in any election” must
refer to a majority of all those voting for any office. But
the drafting difference supports no such inference. Con-
gress adopted the language in § 1712 four years after enact-
ing the phrase at issue in this case, and there is no affirma-
tive indication in § 1712 that Congress gave any thought to
differentiating the terms of Delegate and gubernatorial elec-
tions. Hence, as we have said before, later laws that “do not

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seek to clarify an earlier enacted general term” and “do not
depend for their effectiveness upon clarification, or a change
in the meaning of an earlier statute,” are “beside the point”
in reading the first enactment. Almendarez-Tor res v.
United States, 523 U. S. 224, 237 (1998). Congress may have
spoken with explicit clarity when it passed § 1712, but we
can say no more than that.
The second argument supposedly undermining the mean-
ing naturally suggested by association was stressed by the
Court of Appeals, which thought that reading “any election”
to mean gubernatorial election would render the phrase a
nullity and thus offend the rule against attributing redun-
dancy to Congress, see Kungys v. United States, 485 U. S.
759, 778 (1988). The fact is that this argument has some
force, but not enough. There is no question that the statute
would be read as we read it even if the phrase were missing.
But as one rule of construction among many, albeit an impor-
tant one, the rule against redundancy does not necessarily
have the strength to turn a tide of good cause to come out
the other way. Besides, there is even a reason for thinking
the phrase in question has some clarifying value. Section
1422 provides specifically for an initial gubernatorial election
in 1970, and generally for successive elections every four
years thereafter. “[A]ny election,” therefore, may be read
to make it clear that the runoff requirement applies equally
to the initial election and to those periodically scheduled in
the future. That may not be very heavy work for the phrase
to perform, but a job is a job, and enough to bar the rule
against redundancy from disqualifying an otherwise sensi-
ble reading.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and
the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
It is so ordered.