This US Supreme Court decision (2000) is very much on point for the Idaho lawsuit requiring party registration for Republican Primary Elections.
(Notice it was the California Democrats who promoted the lawsuit … very interesting!)
By Tony Mauro
Special to the First Amendment Center Online
06.27.00 The Supreme Court yesterday embraced the freedom of association for political parties as it struck down California’s “blanket” primary system.By a 7-2 majority in California Democratic Party v. Jones, the court said that parties have the right to select their own candidates without participation from voters who are members of other parties.
California’s blanket-primary system, adopted by state voters in 1996, offers primary voters a single ballot that lists all candidates from all parties — allowing a Republican, for example, to vote for a Democrat for one office and a Libertarian for another.
“Such forced association has the likely outcome… of changing the parties’ message,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. “We can think of no heavier burden on a political party’s associational freedom.”
July 24, 2007 at 2:39 pm
The California lawsuit was brought by that state’s Republicans and two minor parties as well as the Democrats. One of my favorite quotes from that ruling is that political parties have “the freedom to identify the people who constitute the association, and to limit the association to those people only.”
The Mississippi Democrats’ pending suit against our state’s open primary law was filed by the state party’s executive committee. The similar Virginia suit was brought by a local unit of the Republican Party, and the state party has filed an amicus brief in the case.
In 1991, the US Supreme Court ruled in Renne v. Geary that a bunch of political party activists and party officers didn’t have standing to challenge a California law that forbade parties from endorsing candidates in non-partisan elections. The Idaho lawsuit will be in jeopardy because of Renne v. Geary.
A U. S. district judge recently struck down Mississippi’s open primary law. Good commentary on that case is at Yall Politics.
July 25, 2007 at 10:43 am
Steve,
I think you may have misread the Renne V. Geary case as it relates to standing and the relevance to standing in our case.
The operative word is, “non-partisan elections.” The Plaintiffs in the Renne case were a bunch of Republican party activists and party officers much like the Plaintiffs in Beck V. Ysursa, however, the Renne case was attempting to change the process in a non-partisan election. I doubt if the Republican Party itself would have standing in that case because it was about non-partisan ballot questions. In Beck v. Ysursa we are not trying to influence the non-partisan portion of the ballot in any way. We are only seeking to change who has access to the Republican Primary ballot. Namely, we think it only proper for just those individuals who claim publicly to be Republican to cast a vote in a Republican Primary.
We even cite the Renne case as it mentions another case on standing in our Memorandum in Support for Preliminary Injunction. No case has ever held that individual members of a political party do NOT have protectable first amendment rights. Additionally, a huge majority of the Idaho Republican Party in Convention (221-66) voted to change the Idaho Republican Rules regarding allowing non-Republicans voting in a Republican Primary. Furthermore, at that convention a resolution was adopted by voice vote with no opposition calling on the party to, “use all means available” to implement closed primaries. Moreover, a large majority of the Idaho Republican State Central Committee voted (88-58) in formally adopt that rule.
July 25, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Senator Beck,
I would argue that when it comes to political parties’ free-speech rights, it doesn’t matter what the parties want to speak about.
Actually, the California Republican Party fought to keep the law that was challenged in Renne v. Geary. That law was finally struck down in California Democratic Party v. Lungren, a federal case.
I hope you’re right about Renne v. Geary, as the dismissal of your current lawsuit would delay the elimination of Idaho’s state-mandated open primary.