the republicans have a convention in which two candidates see conservative and moderate run against each other see prevails and seized as he becomes the republican nominee t enter in through the primaries with himself is on the ballot would be the official republican nominee and the moderate decides he's going to enter the four she is going to enter the primary how would that person be designated on the ballot and w r wild off the wall person who decides also wants to be shown as a preference for the republican party would be in the primary as well so you have three fundamental reason why the statute in this case is reflected in the answer all due to the judge's question church officials questions the statute in this case is constitutionally different from the statutes and read and and senator herb and replied because i can understand the english language it's my mother tongue your honour's the voters of the state of washington can understand the english language it's their mother tongue and the statute in this case abbreviation on the ballot after candidates name is that candidates political party preference and english language dictionaries confirm the preference means like the word prefer to like more than the others to like better that's under the plain language of this statute as written the abbreviation on the ballot means nothing more and nothing less then the candidates disclosure of what political party he or she likes better this is therefore not a case like read where the statute provided that the revision on the ballot identified the flu the party of which that person was the candidate and determine whether that person would take the spot on the november ballot or the republicans spot on the november ballot this case does not like jones with the abbreviation on the ballot identified the party of which that person would be the nominee that's what the statute said the nominee on the november ballot the voters of the state of washington understand english language and the word preference and the first amendment does not prohibit or make like constitutional candidates name in his preference is on the ballot nothing else is either so the political parties are frozen and now in a ability to control what someone else selves and works as a preference rather preference i think that's true whether it's constitutionally wrong or not is a different issue and would you agree that that's correct have the label this is our nominee close prints on a ballot there's no basis in the first amendment for that and all this that it does in your honour's example if the party political let's say republicans want to nominate mr ste they do have the authority to nominate who will be able to be the spokesperson the banner carrier for their party and to have that person placed on the primary ballot that was the rough and general hypothetical question scalia came up with so if what you're telling me is that a candidate see who is the nominee and my hypothetical carries after his or her name the designation do candidates who lost in the republican process and w who was never part of that isn't even a member of the party also carry the designation are you saying there's no quote that you know people understand the language what's the language on the ballot that tells them how to distinguish between the three that i can replace designated are there is no language on the ballot that distinguishes between someone who is political parties here want to do is they want this court to rewrite the word preference which is what's in the statute does that state nominee which was in the california statute or instead state member or something like that and then once the court has rewritten the statute to strike  you basically have frozen an out party from the nomination process now knowing that's constitutional or not but that's what you've done while you're at your honor they cannot say on the ballot who is the republican remember the definition of participants in this case is simply that you put on your declaration of canisters that you prefer one party over the other i realize i'm eating into the state's time now so i probably should be quiet i still have more and w any other candidate who files who wants to stay on their registration papers when they file i prefer the republican party that's the designation that look appear in the voter's pamphlet on the ballot distinction shown in the voter information materials published by the state that indicates that and see who's the official republican nominee put their nominating process is different in republican candidate is laced whatever information about their candidacy that they wish to and a section of the voters can flip so the candidate who is has been selected by the republican party can and presumably would put that information in the voter's pamphlet the others would not since they couldn't truthfully do that so that would be one way for people to find out again the other thing to point out though is that there is nothing in the constitution that talks about political parties per se they have an important historical role but their constitutional rights here are essentially the right of any private organization to organize for any purpose to participate in the political process to the extent they choose to do gauging speech there people belong to parties they organize parties they're porton this is one bit of information that the voters can be given about a candidate for the candidate can state i prefer a particular political party so no it's not example whether the political party embrace is the self identity cation i think that's probably relevant to the current law doesn't require that but i don't think there's any constitution says you have to provide the his name on the primary ballot and the state prohibits refuses to publish anything on behalf of the candidates other than their historical you know maybe the wire like graphical but it doesn't permit them to say anything about their political a bonafide with be constitutional i think the state has considerable leeway here to decide what is relevant and what will appear on the bal not exactly sure with what i'm driving at is the state have any obligation under the system you're describing to provide a vehicle by which the owners of the name greens republican democrat can disassociate them cells from people who self proclaimed themselves to be affiliated with them even if they are not well i guess i would start by saying i don't think faith on the name particularly generic terms like republican and democrat let me ask a question voting i think just by thinking any other information about candidates to decide who to vote for there's nothing that indicates that they have to know that particular piece of information and in fact of course washington just has seventy years of experience don't think party strength is the issue here and it seems to me all we have here is a system in which the state can allow the voters to have a little bit of information about parties people's party preferences or i think the if the only problem is that appears on the ballot i think the voters would happily give up that much talking how can we say that the voters would hear not something as important as  saying they think like well i think that's important and the statute said so too but if you look at the initiative and you and if you think about whether the voters would prefer not to have that information on the ballot or to have to go resolution of some question that we thought was appropriate is that something that you would be in favor of or not i think i don't want to slight or questions but i don't see that you need to do it i think washington under a number of different terms but all leading to the basic point that the candidates who carry the political party name are representatives of the party and its positions the state in yes because partisan office is by definition a an office for which candidates have and express a political party affiliation i  not be a requirement to print a party identification of party nomination up next with candidates name on the ballot but washington has not and initiative eight seventy two expressly rejected the notion that it was creating a nonpartisan system judge nelson you asked whether nonpartisan candidates would show on the ballot under initiative a seventy two i think the answer you got was incorrect it's no they nonpartisan candidates do not show instead with the initiative status of the party preference or independent status not nonpartizan but independent that is reflected on the ballot this is not a non if under the political party's rules c is the only candidate who is qualified to represent the republican party the answer is yes and us what constitutional authority there is for that there are some general constitutional authority and in some very specific constitutional authority with respect to the general constitutional authority on the question of speaker autonomy in defining the scope of the association you have the early cases and the boy scouts of america case a little more details you have the jones case in this court's prior decision in read where the court said that because washington's form of blanket primary prevented the political parties from selecting their nominees it was unconstitutional and then you have the david do cases  the case from the district of columbia circuit in the eleventh circuit where in both cases those courts of appeals concluded that a candidate has no first amendment right to force himself on an unwilling party and with respect to republican party took a very strong position that david duke was not within the scope of our association and the eleventh circuit noted that the david duke and his associates did not have the right to force themselves on the party they could go form their own party they could run as an independent but they did not have the right to compel an association and what the state is doing through the modified blanket primary under initiative eight seventy two is authorizing candidates to compel an association with the republican party and we can say that but regardless of that when people walk into the voting booth they're going to see republican am republican w republican the two candidates who were not authorized one of whom was specifically rejected and one of whom is not a member of the party at all will have the same designation and the same association on the ballot in the state is therefore and thereby compelling the republican party name to be associated both with the rejected candidate and with someone who is running for the specific purpose of being a problem for the republican party are twenty one and twenty five minor parties would continue to select candidates the same way they do now under the blanket primary their candidates would appear on the primary ballot for each office as they do now period end quote out the the state in the grange have urged that this but the statutes that provided for minor party convention rights in their ability to control their names were imply if we repealed by initiative eight seventy a somewhat late in the process realization that initiative eight seventy two in addition to invading first amendment rights also invaded equal protection because it left in place the ability of minor parties to control who could carry their banner who could represent themselves as associate with those minor parties while denying the same thing to the republican party in the monroe case decided by the united states supreme court involving libertarians challenge to the one percent threshold that existed under prior law  the minor parties before washington adopted that one percent threshold had the right to nominate and have their candidates appear directly on the general election alan so there's nothing inconsistent with having a primary that sets  threshold for getting to the general election ballot with the existing statutory scheme that preserved for minor parties the ability to nominate and have that nomination mean something so again equal protection fails as well as the first amendment challenge like is there nothing in the initiative that indicates that it would be so well that's pressure and the reason you see nothing in the initiative is because the initiative was silent on the question of minor party convention rights and under statutes that were in effect before initiative eight seventy two expressly grants to minor parties convention rights of sole candidate on the primary ballot and an expedited court mechanism to republican party than if the grange were a minor party then when david duke comes along and says i'm a granger washington statute provides an expedited court proceeding for the grange to go to court and say david duke is not within the well and that's the state's argument and that's disfavor it and if you take into account the expressed representations by the grange when it introduced initiative eight seventy two we suggest that there is no support for represent i do represent the washington state democratic party college is trying to if i could start with a minor parties that you wish that we were just discussing just to be sure that we're clear their worst statutes and we believe that the statute should still be in effect protected minor parties and any he could show up under those statutes and claim to be a second candidate of the minor party but the minor party had the right to go to court and enjoin assume anything i don't think anybody has pointed to a narrowing construct the narrowing is that they're just like the republicans and democrats they can go through their nominating process all the parties major and minor designers and go through a political parties at that point face the proposition that although they nominate other they exercise an undisputed right to nominate somebody else comes along and hijacks their name and they have no protection against the dilution of their message appear on the ballot i don't know what it would be exactly the same problem we would have a problem if there was a risk of confusion and if the statute encouraged sort of loser candidates for candidates and did not i believe and i don't have the citation i follow gys but i believe that there is a problem with allowing one class of candidates to have additional information on the ballot after their names and another class of candidates i think that came up the term limits case and i'm not sure it would be constitutional nonpartizan this problem would not occur i agree with you however this court should not do what it's being asked to do namely to convert by a stroke of its opinion the state's a nonpartizan in reference to in the same manner as for nonpartizan while allowing candidates to have their political preferences on the ballot if you were to strike out the party labeling not only would you have to essentially cut up six sections of the this is an i case in which nobody disputes the right to nominate despite the questions when you read the briefs there is no dispute and i don't think there's any lack of clarity by the supreme court that  limit but i want to close with a reference back to mr eight hundred seven in quotation i think sure that voters understand the english language but i think what's more important here is that all of us understand the difference between substance and form when it comes to constitutional rights and the substance of this initiative the substance of it on its face is to try to force parties to alter their message to keep them from having an effective nomination right to force  details into what mr mcdonald was just talking about and that is this question of the state in this initiative redefining the word partisan i think in the grand sense we all know what that means but what has happened here is that this this statute green or socialist or whatever is ever going to make it to the general election ballot it's on this is unconstitutional because as these folks have argued it controls the message of the libertarian party it gives us no way no opportunity whatsoever to get rid of impostures who will dilute our message and who will disperse voter support for the the results to this is that mark are historic three to five percent will never rise to twenty one or forty one percent or whatever it is to come in second it won't happen because there will be more than one libertarian who may or may not bring the message and if which point the public focus dispersed and they don't have the coalescing of ability of the that's why my hypothetical included bill somebody who was a republican presumably sharing the same but moderate view with somebody who's completely outside the org outside the parade so how do you deal with the freedom of association