TASHJIAN, SECRETARY OF STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. REPUBLICAN PARTY OF CONNECTICUT ET AL.
No. 85-766
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 8, 1986—Decided December 10, 1986
479 U.S. 208
David S. Golub argued the cause and filed a brief for appellees.*
JUSTICE MARSHALL delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellee Republican Party of the State of Connecticut (Party) in 1984 adopted a Party rule which permits independent voters—registered voters not affiliated with any political party—to vote in Republican primaries for federal and statewide offices. Appellant Julia Tashjian, the Secretary of the State of Connecticut, is charged with the administration of the State’s election statutes, which include a provision requiring voters in any party primary to be registered mem-
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of New York et al. by Robert Abrams, Attorney General of New York, Robert Hermann, Solicitor General, Patrick Barnett-Mulligan, Lisa Margaret Smith, and Betsy Broder, Assistant Attorneys General, Charles A. Graddick, Attorney General of Alabama, Robert K. Corbin, Attorney General of Arizona, and Anthony B. Ching, Solicitor General, Charles M. Oberly III, Attorney General of Delaware, Jim Smith, Attorney General of Florida, Neil F. Hartigan, Attorney General of Illinois, and Roma J. Stewart, Solicitor General, William J. Guste, Jr., Attorney General of Louisiana, James E. Tierney, Attorney General of Maine, and Cabanne Howard, Deputy Attorney General, Brian McKay, Attorney General of Nevada, Lacy H. Thornburg, Attorney General of North Carolina, Nicholas J. Spaeth, Attorney General of North Dakota, Anthony J. Celebrezze, Jr., Attorney General of Ohio, Michael Turpen, Attorney General of Oklahoma, LeRoy S. Zimmerman, Attorney General of Pennsylvania, W. J. Michael Cody, Attorney General of Tennessee, and A. G. McClintock, Attorney General of Wyoming; and for William J. Cibes, Jr., et al. by Timothy D. Bates.
Stephen E. Gottlieb filed a brief for James MacGregor Burns et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance.
Bruce A. Morrison, pro se, filed a brief for Senator Christopher J. Dodd et al. as amici curiae.
I
In 1955, Connecticut adopted its present primary election system. For major parties,2 the process of candidate selection for federal and statewide offices requires a statewide convention of party delegates; district conventions are held to select candidates for seats in the state legislature. The party convention may certify as the party-endorsed candidate any person receiving more than 20% of the votes cast in a roll-call vote at the convention. Any candidate not endorsed by the party who received 20% of the vote may challenge the party-endorsed candidate in a primary election, in which the candidate receiving the plurality of votes becomes the party’s nominee.
The statute challenged in these proceedings,
Subsequent to the decision in Nader, however, the Party changed its views with respect to participation by independent voters in Party primaries. Motivated in part by the demographic importance of independent voters in Connecticut politics,3 in September 1983 the Party’s Central Committee recommended calling a state convention to consider altering the Party’s rules to allow independents to vote in Party primaries. In January 1984 the state convention adopted the Party rule now at issue, which provides:
“Any elector enrolled as a member of the Republican Party and any elector not enrolled as a member of a party shall be eligible to vote in primaries for nomination of candidates for the offices of United States Senator, United States Representative, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of the State, Attorney General, Comptroller and Treasurer.” App. 20.
During the 1984 session, the Republican leadership in the state legislature, in response to the conflict between the newly enacted Party rule and
The Party and the individual appellees then commenced this action in the District Court, seeking a declaration that
The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that
II
We begin from the recognition that “[c]onstitutional challenges to specific provisions of a State’s election laws . . . cannot be resolved by any ‘litmus-paper test’ that will separate valid from invalid restrictions.” Anderson v. Cele-brezze, 460 U. S. 780, 789 (1983) (quoting Storer v. Brown, 415 U. S. 724, 730 (1974)). “Instead, a court . . . must first consider the character and magnitude of the asserted injury to the rights protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments that the plaintiff seeks to vindicate. It then must identify and evaluate the precise interests put forward by the State as justifications for the burden imposed by its rule. In passing judgment, the Court must not only determine the legitimacy and strength of each of those interests, it also must consider the extent to which those interests make it necessary to burden the plaintiff’s rights.” 460 U. S., at 789.
The nature of appellees’ First Amendment interest is evident. “It is beyond debate that freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the ‘liberty’ assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech.” NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S. 449, 460 (1958); see NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 430 (1963); Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U. S. 516, 522-523 (1960). The freedom of association protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments includes partisan political organization. Elrod v. Burns, 427 U. S. 347, 357 (1976) (plurality opinion); Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 15 (1976). “The right to associate with the political party of one’s choice is an integral part of this basic constitutional freedom.” Kusper v. Pontikes, 414 U. S. 51, 57 (1973).
The Party here contends that
A major state political party necessarily includes individuals playing a broad spectrum of roles in the organization’s activities. Some of the Party’s members devote substantial portions of their lives to furthering its political and organizational goals, others provide substantial financial support, while still others limit their participation to casting their votes for some or all of the Party’s candidates. Considered from the standpoint of the Party itself, the act of formal enrollment or public affiliation with the Party is merely one element in the continuum of participation in Party affairs, and need not be in any sense the most important.5
Were the State to restrict by statute financial support of the Party’s candidates to Party members, or to provide that only Party members might be selected as the Party’s chosen nominees for public office, such a prohibition of potential association with nonmembers would clearly infringe upon the rights of the Party’s members under the First Amendment to organize with like-minded citizens in support of common political goals. As we have said, “‘[a]ny interference with the freedom of a party is simultaneously an interference with the freedom of its adherents.’” Democratic Party, supra, at 122 (quoting Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U. S. 234, 250 (1957)).6 The statute here places limits upon the group of
III
Appellant contends that
A
Although it was not presented to the Court of Appeals as a basis for the defense of the statute, appellant argues here that the administrative burden imposed by the Party rule is a sufficient ground on which to uphold the constitutionality of
Even assuming the factual accuracy of these contentions, which have not been subjected to any scrutiny by the District Court, the possibility of future increases in the cost of administering the election system is not a sufficient basis here for infringing appellees’ First Amendment rights. Costs of administration would likewise increase if a third major party should come into existence in Connecticut, thus requiring the State to fund a third major-party primary. Additional voting machines, poll workers, and ballot materials would all be necessary under these circumstances as well. But the State could not forever protect the two existing major parties from competition solely on the ground that two major parties are all the public can afford. Cf. Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U. S. 780 (1983); Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23 (1968). While the State is of course entitled to take administrative and financial considerations into account in choosing whether or not to have a primary system at all, it can no more restrain the Republican Party’s freedom of association for reasons of its own administrative convenience than it could on the same ground limit the ballot access of a new major party.
Appellant argues that
Appellant’s next argument in support of
As we have said, “[t]here can be no question about the legitimacy of the State’s interest in fostering informed and educated expressions of the popular will in a general election.” Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U. S., at 796. To the extent that party labels provide a shorthand designation of the views of party candidates on matters of public concern, the identification of candidates with particular parties plays a role in the process by which voters inform themselves for the exercise of the franchise. Appellant’s argument depends upon the belief that voters can be “misled” by party labels. But “[o]ur cases reflect a greater faith in the ability of individual voters to inform themselves about campaign issues.” Id., at 797. Moreover, appellant’s concern that candidates selected under the Party rule will be the nominees of an “amorphous” group using the Party’s name is inconsistent with the facts. The Party is not proposing that independents be allowed to choose the Party’s nominee without Party participation; on the contrary, to be listed on the Party’s primary ballot continues to require, under a statute not challenged here, that the primary candidate have obtained at least 20% of the vote at a Party convention, which only Party
In arguing that the Party rule interferes with educated decisions by voters, appellant also disregards the substantial benefit which the Party rule provides to the Party and its members in seeking to choose successful candidates. Given the numerical strength of independent voters in the State, one of the questions most likely to occur to Connecticut Republicans in selecting candidates for public office is how can the Party most effectively appeal to the independent voter? By inviting independents to assist in the choice at the polls between primary candidates selected at the Party convention, the Party rule is intended to produce the candidate and platform most likely to achieve that goal. The state statute is said to decrease voter confusion, yet it deprives the Party and its members of the opportunity to inform themselves as to the level of support for the Party’s candidates among a critical group of electors. “A State’s claim that it is enhancing the ability of its citizenry to make wise decisions by restricting the flow of information to them must be viewed with some skepticism.” Anderson v. Celebrezze, supra, at 798. The State’s legitimate interests in preventing voter confusion
D
Finally, appellant contends that
The relative merits of closed and open primaries have been the subject of substantial debate since the beginning of this century, and no consensus has as yet emerged.11 Appellant
We have previously recognized the danger that “splintered parties and unrestrained factionalism may do significant damage to the fabric of government.” Storer v. Brown, 415 U. S., at 736. We upheld a California statute which denied access to the ballot to any independent candidate who had voted in a party primary or been registered as a member of a political party within one year prior to the immediately preceding primary election. We said:
“[T]he one-year disaffiliation provision furthers the State’s interest in the stability of its political system. We also consider that interest as not only permissible, but compelling and as outweighing the interest the candidate and his supporters may have in making a late
rather than an early decision to seek independent ballot status.” Ibid.
The statute in Storer was designed to protect the parties and the party system against the disorganizing effect of independent candidacies launched by unsuccessful putative party nominees. This protection, like that accorded to parties threatened by raiding in Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U. S. 752 (1973), is undertaken to prevent the disruption of the political parties from without, and not, as in this case, to prevent the parties from taking internal steps affecting their own process for the selection of candidates. The forms of regulation upheld in Storer and Rosario imposed certain burdens upon the protected First and Fourteenth Amendment interests of some individuals, both voters and potential candidates, in order to protect the interests of others. In the present case, the state statute is defended on the ground that it protects the integrity of the Party against the Party itself.
Under these circumstances, the views of the State, which to some extent represent the views of the one political party transiently enjoying majority power, as to the optimum methods for preserving party integrity lose much of their force. The State argues that its statute is well designed to save the Republican Party from undertaking a course of conduct destructive of its own interests. But on this point “even if the State were correct, a State, or a court, may not constitutionally substitute its own judgment for that of the Party.” Democratic Party of United States v. Wisconsin ex rel. La Follette, 450 U. S., at 123-124 (footnote omitted). The Party’s determination of the boundaries of its own association, and of the structure which best allows it to pursue its political goals, is protected by the Constitution. “And as is true of all expressions of First Amendment freedoms, the courts may not interfere on the ground that they view a particular expression as unwise or irrational.” Id., at 124.13
IV
Appellant argues here, as in the courts below, that implementation of the Party rule would violate the Qualifications Clause of the Constitution,
The Court of Appeals rejected appellant’s argument, holding that the Qualifications Clause and the parallel provision of the Seventeenth Amendment do not apply to primary elections. 770 F. 2d, at 274. The concurring opinion took a different view, reaching the conclusion that these provisions require only that “anyone who is permitted to vote for the most numerous branch of the state legislature has to be permitted to vote” in federal legislative elections. Id., at 286 (Oakes, J., concurring). We agree.
We recognize that the Federal Convention, in adopting the Qualifications Clause of
“We may assume that the framers of the Constitution in adopting that section, did not have specifically in mind the selection and elimination of candidates for Congress by the direct primary any more than they contemplated the application of the commerce clause to interstate telephone, telegraph and wireless communication, which are concededly within it. But in determining whether a provision of the Constitution applies to a new subject matter, it is of little significance that it is one with which the framers were not familiar. For in setting up an enduring framework of government they undertook to carry out for the indefinite future and in all the vicissitudes of the changing affairs of men, those fundamental purposes which the instrument itself discloses.” United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, 315-316 (1941).
Accordingly, we hold that the Qualifications Clauses of
Our inquiry begins with an examination of the Framers’ purpose in enacting the first Qualifications Clause. It is clear that the Clause was intended to avoid the consequences of declaring a single standard for exercise of the franchise in federal elections. The state governments represented at the Convention had established varying voter qualifications, and substantial concern was expressed by delegates as to the likely effects of a federal voting qualification which disenfranchised voters eligible to vote in the States. James
“To have reduced the different qualifications in the different States, to one uniform rule, would probably have been as dissatisfactory to some of the States, as it would have been difficult to the Convention. The provision made by the Convention appears therefore, to be the best that lay within their option. It must be satisfactory to every State; because it is conformable to the standard already established, or which may be established by the State itself.” The Federalist No. 52, p. 354 (J. Cooke ed. 1961).
In adopting the language of
Our conclusion that these provisions do not require a perfect symmetry of voter qualifications in state and federal legislative elections takes additional support from the fact that we have not previously required such absolute symmetry when the federal franchise has been expanded. In Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U. S. 112 (1970), five Justices agreed that the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970 could constitutionally establish a minimum age of 18 for voters in federal elections, while a majority of the Court also concluded that Congress was without power to set such a minimum age in state and local elections. See id., at 117-118 (Black, J., announcing the judgments of the Court). Appellant’s reading of the Qualifications Clause, which would require identical voter qualifications in state and federal legislative elections, is plainly inconsistent with these holdings. We hold that the implementation of the Party rule does not violate the Qualifications Clause or the Seventeenth Amendment because it does not disenfranchise any voter in a federal election who is qualified to vote in a primary or general election for the more numerous house of the state legislature.
V
We conclude that
Affirmed.
The threshold issue presented by this case is whether, consistently with the Constitution, a State may permit a voter to participate in elections to the Congress while preventing that same person from voting for candidates to the most numerous branch of the state legislature. If we respect the plain language of
Every person who votes in a federal election for a Member of the House of Representatives or for a United States Senator must be qualified to vote for candidates to the most numerous branch of the state legislature. The Constitution has imposed this condition of voter eligibility on congressional elections, since 17891 and on senatorial elections since the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified in 1913.2
As the Court recognizes, ante, at 227, a primary election is part of the process by which Members of the House and Senate are “chosen . . . by the People.”
The Court does not dispute the fact that the plain language of the Constitution requires that voters in congressional and senatorial elections “shall have” the qualifications of voters in elections to the state legislature. The Court nevertheless separates the federal voter qualifications from their state counterparts, inexplicably treating the mandatory “shall have” language of the Clauses as though it means only that the federal voters “may but need not have” the qualifications of state voters. In support of this freewheeling interpretation of the Constitution, the Court relies on what it describes as the Framers’ purpose in enacting the first Qualification Clause and on the judgment in Oregon v. Mitchell, supra. Neither of these arguments withstands scrutiny.
The excerpts from the debate among the Framers quoted by the Court, ante, at 227-229, related to a motion made by Gouverneur Morris to amend a draft of proposed Art. I, § 1, that had been prepared by the Committee on Detail. To understand the full significance of that debate it is necessary first to consider the provision that Gouverneur Morris wanted to change and then to consider the nature of his proposed amendment.
Justice Stewart accurately summarized that background in his opinion in Oregon v. Mitchell, supra:
“An early draft of the Constitution provided that the States should fix the qualifications of voters in congressional elections subject to the proviso that these qualifications might ‘at any Time be altered and superseded by the Legislature of the United States.’ The records of
the Committee on Detail show that it was decided to strike the provision granting to Congress the authority to set voting qualifications and to add in its stead a clause making the qualifications ‘the same from Time to Time as those of the Electors, in the several States, of the most numerous Branch of their own Legislatures.’ The proposed draft reported by the Committee on Detail to the Convention included the following:
“‘The qualifications of the electors shall be the same, from time to time, as those of the electors in the several States, of the most numerous branch of their own legislatures.’ Art. IV, § 1.” 400 U. S., at 289 (concurring in part and dissenting in part) (footnotes omitted; emphasis added).
Thus, the draft that the Federal Convention of 1787 was considering when Gouverneur Morris made his motion was abundantly clear—the qualifications of the federal electors “shall be the same” as the electors of the legislatures of the several States. J. Madison, Journal of the Federal Convention 449-450 (E. Scott ed. 1893). This provision would ensure uniformity of electors’ qualifications within each State, but would not impose a uniform nationwide standard.3
It was this clause that Gouverneur Morris proposed to strike in order to substitute a clause permitting Congress to prescribe the electoral qualifications or to adopt a provision “which would restrain the right of suffrage to freeholders.” Id., at 467. Not surprisingly, his proposal was defeated by a vote of 7 to 1 because it would have disenfranchised a large number of voters in States that did not impose a property qualification on the right to vote. Id., at 467, 468, 471-472. Despite the Court’s reliance on the concerns that led the
The Court’s reliance on the holding in Oregon v. Mitchell is equally misguided. That case tested the constitutionality of certain parts of the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970, 84 Stat. 314, including the section that lowered the minimum age of voters in both state and federal elections from 21 to 18. Four Members of the Court concluded that Congress had no such power;4 four other Members of the Court concluded that the entire statute was valid.5 Thus, the conclusions of all eight of those Justices were consistent with the proposition that the Constitution requires the same qualifications for state and federal elections.6 Only Justice Black concluded that the statute was invalid insofar as it applied to state elections but valid insofar as it applied to federal elections. 400 U. S., at 125-130.
Even Justice Black’s reasoning, however, supports a literal reading of the Qualifications Clause in the absence of a federal statute prescribing a different rule for federal elections. For he relied entirely on the provision in
In this case there is no federal statute that purports to authorize the State of Connecticut to prescribe different qualifications for state and federal elections. Thus, there is no authority whatsoever for the Court’s refusal to honor the plain language of the Qualifications Clauses. An interpretation of that language linking federal voters’ qualifications in each State to the States’ existing qualifications exactly matches James Madison’s understanding:
“The provision made by the Convention appears therefore, to be the best that lay within their option. It must be satisfactory to every State; because it is conformable to the standard already established, or which may be established by the State itself.” The Federalist No. 52, p. 354 (J. Cooke ed. 1961).
I respectfully dissent.
JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE O’CONNOR join, dissenting.
Both the right of free political association and the State’s authority to establish arrangements that assure fair and effective party participation in the election process are essential to democratic government. Our cases make it clear that the accommodation of these two vital interests does not lend itself to bright-line rules but requires careful inquiry into the extent to which the one or the other interest is inordinately impaired under the facts of the particular case. See Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U. S. 780, 788-790 (1983); Storer v. Brown, 415 U. S. 724, 730 (1974). Even so, the conclusion reached on the individuated facts of one case sheds some measure of light upon the conclusion that will be reached on the individuated facts of the next. Since this is an area, moreover, in which the predictability of decisions is impor-
In my view, the Court’s opinion exaggerates the importance of the associational interest at issue, if indeed it does not see one where none exists. There is no question here of restricting the Republican Party’s ability to recruit and enroll Party members by offering them the ability to select Party candidates;
The ability of the members of the Republican Party to select their own candidate, on the other hand, unquestionably
The Court’s opinion characterizes this, disparagingly, as an attempt to “protec[t] the integrity of the Party against the Party itself.” Ante, at 224. There are two problems with this characterization. The first, and less important, is that it is not true. We have no way of knowing that a majority of the Party’s members is in favor of allowing ultimate selection of its candidates for federal and statewide office to be determined by persons outside the Party. That decision was not made by democratic ballot, but by the Party’s state convention—which, for all we know, may have been dominated by officeholders and office seekers whose evaluation of the merits of assuring election of the Party’s candidates, vis-à-vis the merits of proposing candidates faithful to the Party’s political philosophy, diverged significantly from the views of the Party’s rank and file. I had always thought it was a major purpose of state-imposed party primary requirements to protect the general party membership against this sort of minority control. See Nader v. Schaffer, 417 F. Supp. 837, 843 (Conn.), summarily aff’d, 429 U. S. 989 (1976). Second and more important, however, even if it were the fact that the majority of the Party’s members wanted its candidates to be
In the case before us, Connecticut has said no more than this: Just as the Republican Party may, if it wishes, nominate the candidate recommended by the Party’s executive committee, so long as its members select that candidate by name in a democratic vote; so also it may nominate the independents’ choice, so long as its members select him by name in a democratic vote. That seems to me plainly and entirely constitutional.
I respectfully dissent.