Opinion ID: 3053781
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Alaska’s Mandatory Direct Partisan Primary

Text: [2] Although Appellants’ argument is a bit muddled, they first contend that Alaska’s state-run primary violates their associational rights either by compelling them to nominate their candidates by primary election instead of convention, or by failing to allow them to “exclude candidates that do not support the principles and philosophies of the parties from their primary elections, and not have these candidates forced on them by state law.” However framed, Appellants’ argument at its core is an attack on the mandatory direct primary itself. Like most states, Alaska implemented its direct primary during the Progressive Era, seeking to remove party nominating decisions from the infamous “smoke-filled rooms” and place them instead in the hands of a party’s rank-and-file, thereby destroying “ ‘the corrupt alliance’ between wealthy special interests and the political machine.” See Lightfoot v. Eu, 964 F.2d 865, 872 (9th Cir. 1992) (quoting Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform 257 (1955)). Alaska agrees that the purpose of Alaska’s mandatory direct primary is to provide a neutral mechanism for resolving party nominating decisions that reduces the role of party leadership and gives ultimate authority to party voters. This advances the state’s interest in limiting opportunities for fraud and corruption by preventing party leadership from controlling nominating decisions, while promoting democratic decisionmaking. The state’s goals would clearly be impeded if party leaders could either opt out of the primary altogether or interfere with the democratic process by exercising veto power over the candidates that might seek the nomination. [3] These benefits of mandatory direct primaries are the reason why “[n]early every State in the Nation now mandates 14186 ALASKA INDEPENDENCE PARTY v. ALASKA that political parties select their candidates for national or statewide office by means of primary elections.” See Clingman, 544 U.S. at 599 (O’Connor, J., concurring). Although the Supreme Court has never entertained a direct challenge to a state’s use of a closed mandatory direct primary or an open primary that is selected by the party itself, it has numerous times stated that it is “too plain for argument” that “a State may require parties to use the primary format for selecting their nominees, in order to assure that intraparty competition is resolved in a democratic fashion.” Cal. Democratic Party v. Jones, 530 U.S. 567, 572 (2000) (quoting Am. Party of Tex. v. White, 415 U.S. 767, 781 (1974); see Lopez Torres, 128 S. Ct. at 798. As the Court has noted, “[a] primary is not hostile to intraparty feuds; rather it is an ideal forum in which to resolve them.” Eu v. S.F. County Democratic Cent. Comm., 489 U.S. 214, 227 (1989). We have also agreed that “the State’s interest in enhancing the democratic character of the election process overrides whatever interest the Party has in designing its own rules for nominating candidates,” such as its desire to nominate through party-run convention. Lightfoot, 964 F.2d at 873; see Tashjian v. Republican Party of Conn., 479 U.S. 208, 237 (1986) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (noting that “[a state] may lawfully require that significant elements of the democratic election process be democratic — whether the Party wants that or not”). Appellants nonetheless argue that even if they may constitutionally be compelled to participate in the primary, Alaska’s primary impermissibly burdens their associational rights because Alaska does not allow the party to exclude from the ballot those candidates the party finds objectionable. For this argument, Appellants rely on our decision in Washington State Republican Party v. Washington, 460 F.3d 1108 (9th Cir. 2006), rev’d by Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party, 128 S. Ct. 1184 (2008). Appellants, however, misunderstand the burden on associational rights at issue in Washington State, which involved a constitutional challenge to a mandatory blanket primary. See 460 F.3d at ALASKA INDEPENDENCE PARTY v. ALASKA 14187 1113. The Supreme Court has held that blanket primaries, in which all candidates are combined on a single ballot and may be voted upon by voters affiliated with any party, violate a party’s associational right to have its nominee chosen by members of its own party. See Jones, 530 U.S. at 577 (holding that a blanket primary “forces political parties to associate with — to have their nominees, and hence their positions, determined by — those who, at best, have refused to affiliate with the party, and, at worst, have expressly affiliated with a rival”). Because blanket primaries violate political parties’ First Amendment rights, they may not constitutionally be used to “choos[e] a party’s nominee.” Id. at 586. The Supreme Court has suggested, however, that blanket primaries may be a permissible way for the voters to choose, on a nonpartisan basis, the candidates who will appear on a general election ballot. Id. at 585-86. The blanket primary challenged in Washington State sought to comply with Jones by presenting candidates without party affiliations, thereby creating an ostensibly nonpartisan primary, yet allowed candidates to indicate a “political party preference” without expressly having or running for the party’s nomination. See 460 F.3d at 1114. The question the Supreme Court faced in Washington State was whether a nonpartisan blanket primary “that indicates each candidate’s preference on the ballot, in effect, chooses the parties’ nominees,” which would seemingly be impermissible under Jones. 128 S. Ct. at 1192. The Court held that although “it is possible that voters will misinterpret the candidates’ party-preference designations as reflecting endorsement by the parties,” it could not resolve this question without an “evidentiary record against which to assess their assertions that voters will be confused.” Id. at 1193-94. The Court therefore held that First Amendment challenges to primary ballots that turn on “the possibility that voters will be confused as to the meaning of the party-preference designation” must be brought only through an as-applied, not a facial, challenge. See id. at 1193. 14188 ALASKA INDEPENDENCE PARTY v. ALASKA Alaska’s self-selected closed, open or partially closed primary system does not resemble the one at issue in Washington State, because it is not a blanket primary and therefore does not present the risk that — if used to choose a party’s nominee — the nominee will be chosen by voters with whom the party prefers not to associate. The Alaska primary is even more respectful of a party’s associational rights than is constitutionally required, because it allows parties to decide whether they want to allow nonparty members to participate, as both the AIP and ALP have elected to do. Cf. Clingman, 544 U.S. at 592-93 (holding that a state law forbidding parties from inviting members of other parties to participate in their primary places “no heavy burden” on parties’ associational rights). Contrary to Appellants’ argument here, there seems little risk that voters will mistake the candidates running in a partisan primary — where the very purpose, unlike in a nonpartisan blanket primary, is to allow party voters to choose the party’s nominee — to be the party’s nominee. Further, even to the extent such voter confusion might be possible, the Supreme Court has made clear that First Amendment challenges that rest on the risk of voter confusion must be brought only on an as-applied basis. See Wash. State, 128 S. Ct. at 1195.3 [4] The potential burden that Alaska’s type of primary places on parties’ associational rights is therefore quite different from the one posed by the nonpartisan blanket primary at issue in Washington State. Appellants’ argument, when distilled to its essence, is that a partisan ballot open only to those voters chosen by the party itself, nonetheless burdens parties’ associational rights because a candidate may seek the party’s nomination against the wishes of the party’s leadership. Such 3 Although Appellants make a late-hour attempt to argue that their lawsuit was, in fact, an as-applied challenge to Alaska’s primary ballots from 2004 and 2006, neither the relief they sought in their complaint nor the arguments they made to the district court were consonant with an asapplied challenge. We therefore reject Appellants’ attempt during oral argument to refashion their suit in light of the Supreme Court’s holding in Washington State. ALASKA INDEPENDENCE PARTY v. ALASKA 14189 a primary undoubtedly intrudes on the party’s associational rights, because it limits the party’s ability to “choose a candidate-selection process that will in its view produce the nominee who best represents its political platform.” Lopez Torres, 128 S. Ct. at 797. The AIP and ALP would prefer to present primary voters with a limited set of pre-approved candidates, whereas Alaska law permits any registered affiliate of the party to run in the primary. The burden on the parties’ rights, therefore, is the conflict between the party’s wish to enforce greater top-down control and the state’s mandate that rank-and-file party voters have the opportunity to consider and vote for any affiliated party member who seeks the nomination. [5] We are skeptical that such a conflict imposes a severe burden on parties’ associational rights. Instead of having its nominee selected or screened by party leadership, the party’s nominee is selected democratically by registered party voters (and any others whom the party chooses to let participate), from a slate of all qualified, affiliated candidates who seek the nomination. The burden on parties’ associational rights is further lessened because the Supreme Court has long protected the party’s First Amendment right to “state[ ] whether a candidate adheres to the tenets of the party or whether party officials believe that the candidate is qualified for the position sought,” which protects the party’s right to distance itself from undesired candidates and urge party voters to choose the nominee who the party feels best represents the party platform. See Eu, 489 U.S. at 223. Appellants do not contend that they are prohibited by state law from endorsing their preferred candidate and disavowing undesired candidates. [6] Although we therefore believe it unlikely that Alaska’s primary law imposes a severe burden on Appellants’ associational rights, we ultimately need not decide what level of scrutiny to apply, because Alaska’s primary election law withstands even strict scrutiny. See Nader, 531 F.3d at 1035 (holding that “an election regulation that imposes a severe 14190 ALASKA INDEPENDENCE PARTY v. ALASKA burden is subject to strict scrutiny and will be upheld only if it is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest”). We have long recognized that a state’s interest in eliminating the fraud and corruption that frequently accompanied partyrun nominating conventions is compelling, and that a democratic primary is narrowly tailored to advance these state interests. See Lightfoot, 964 F.2d at 873 (upholding a state’s mandatory direct primary under strict scrutiny, because “the State’s interest in enhancing the democratic character of the election process overrides whatever interest the Party has in designing its own rules for nominating candidates,” and “no measure short of the direct primary would be adequate” to these goals). Appellants’ challenge to Alaska’s democratic mandatory direct primary therefore fails.