Issue
Whether California’s Proposition 198, which forces political parties to allow opposition party members to vote in their primaries, violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of association.
Facts
California voters in 1996 adopted Proposition 198, which transformed the state’s primary system from closed to an open or blanket system. Since the political parties are private groups, they sued California arguing that, forcing them to allow nonmembers to vote violates their right of association protected by the First Amendment.
CCJ filed an amicus curiae brief in support of the California Democratic Party
Summary:
By allowing voters to cross party lines, Proposition 198 compels party members to associate with persons who do not share their political and ideological goals and who do not have the interests of the same party at heart. Because such cross-over voters can influence, and sometimes determine, who shall be the nominees of parties not their own, and because the parties are then compelled to identify such nominees as their own, Proposition 198 compels expressive association and speech in violation of the First Amendment. In plain terms, it allows Democrats to choose the Republican nominee, Republicans to choose the Democratic nominee, and independents to choose the leaders of parties that they refuse to associate with at all. Such a system, when imposed upon unwilling parties, is a severe and unconstitutional burden on the freedom of speech and association.
Both the text and the structure of the Constitution reflect the essential sovereignty of a free People. They also reflect the checks and balances designed to ensure that the People remain free to play their democratic roles yet not fall victim to the passions or desires of temporal majorities, no matter how well-intentioned. Freedom of speech and association not only ensures the free development and transmission of viewpoints essential to the freely given consent of the governed, but also provides one of the few acceptable checks on the various factions that are inevitable in a free society. In the Founders' view, factions were to be controlled not by seeking to eliminate them, but by ensuring a multiplicity of factions such that each would hinder the others from gaining a controlling majority. It was through a broad freedom of speech and association, and the encouragement of multiple competing factions, that our republican democracy was designed to endure. These structural principles call for rigorous protection of First Amendment freedoms, most especially in the context of political speech and association.
Final Outcome
The Supreme Court ultimately took this case and handed down a 7-2 opinion written by Justice Scalia. The Court reversed the decisions of both the district and appellate courts by holding that a blanket primary deprives political parties of their right to association. This is consistent with CCJ’s position.
