Opinion ID: 576719
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Action Narrowly Tailored To Serve the Governmental Interest

Text: 56 Having found a compelling state interest in support of the state's action, the majority ends its inquiry, concluding that the exclusion of Duke from the Republican presidential preference primary ballot was constitutional. As discussed supra, however, the mere identification of a state interest is insufficient to validate state action that burdens constitutional rights. Rather, the defendant must also show that the state action was narrowly tailored to serve the alleged governmental interest. Eu, supra. 7 Answering this question requires a precise inquiry into whether allowing participation in a party primary infringes the associational interests advanced by the appellees. 57 The majority holds that Duke's inclusion on the Georgia Republican presidential primary ballot infringes on the Republican Party's First Amendment right to determine its membership and the right to choose its standard bearer. I do not believe that Duke's inclusion on the ballot constitutes any such infringement on the Party's rights, given that the Republican Party is free to disavow Duke, to campaign aggressively against him and to urge the Party membership to reject his candidacy at the polls. See Bellotti v. Connolly, 460 U.S. at 1063, 103 S.Ct. at 1513 (Stevens, J., dissenting) ([i]f ... candidates have only minimal support from the enrolled party members who vote in the primary, they will simply be ignored.). 58 Democratic Party of United States v. Wisconsin, 450 U.S. 107, 101 S.Ct. 1010, 67 L.Ed.2d 82 (1981), the facts of which are presented in the majority's opinion at 1532, does not support the majority's position. By tying the votes of its delegation to the Democratic National Convention to the results of its open primary, Wisconsin required convention delegates to cast their votes for candidates who might have drawn their support from nonparty members. Bellotti v. Connolly, 460 U.S. at 1062-63, 103 S.Ct. at 1513 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (emphasis in original). The participation of non-Democratic voters in the Wisconsin primary bound the Democratic Party to honor those voters' ideological preferences: [t]he results of the party's decisionmaking processes might ... have been distorted by this forced association. Id. The inclusion of Duke on the Republican primary ballot, conversely, does not distort the Party's decisionmaking processes because no one is required to vote for him. Because the Party is in no way bound to honor Duke's ideological preferences by virtue of his appearance on the ballot, no association between Duke and the Party occurs in the absence of support for Duke from Party members. Id. 8 59 Implicit in the appellees' argument and the majority's opinion is the notion that the mere addition of Duke's name to the Republican primary ballot amounts to a forced association with Duke or a designation of a Republican Party standard bearer. This analysis, however, is inconsistent with the Supreme Court's decision in Eu. There, the Court addressed the constitutionality of a California law that forbade the official governing bodies of political parties to endorse or campaign for particular candidates in primary elections. The Court held the statute unconstitutional, stating that the state law infringed on a party's right to select 'a standard bearer who best represents the party's ideologies and preferences.'  Eu, 489 U.S. at 224, 109 S.Ct. at 1021 (quoting Ripon Society, Inc. v. National Republican Party, 525 F.2d 567, 601 (D.C.Cir.) (Tamm, J., concurring in result), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 933, 96 S.Ct. 1147, 47 L.Ed.2d 341 (1976)). 60 The Court's decision in Eu is instructive because it identifies party campaigning as the means by which a party asserts its First Amendment associational right to select its standard bearer. The Court identified the primary election as the crucial juncture at which the appeal to common principles may be translated into concerted action, and hence to political power in the community. Eu, 489 U.S. at 224, 109 S.Ct. at 1021 (quoting Tashjian v. Republican Party, 479 U.S. 208, 216, 107 S.Ct. 544, 550, 93 L.Ed.2d 514 (1986)). The Court thus recognized by implication that candidates deemed by the Party leadership to be inappropriate standard bearers should be permitted to participate, even if unsuccessfully, in the primary process itself. The Court's decision in Eu strongly suggests that the associational interests asserted by the Republican Party in this case can be fully preserved by allowing the Party to campaign against Duke in the primary election, and that the Party has a weak associational interest in preventing Duke's inclusion on the Republican ballot. 61 This conclusion finds support not only in principles of constitutional law, but also in the very nature of the primary system. In Eu, the Court emphasized that [a] primary is not hostile to intraparty feuds; rather, it is an ideal forum in which to resolve them. 489 U.S. at 227, 109 S.Ct. at 1022. See also Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. at 735, 94 S.Ct. at 1281. This court's predecessor has recognized that factionalism between contenders for political primacy should be resolved through the electoral process without undue hindrance by the state. Riddell v. National Democratic Party, 508 F.2d 770, 776, 778 (5th Cir.1975). 9 The primary system serves as a procedural vehicle to ensure such resolution. Were we to view a political party's associational rights as permitting the party's exclusion of candidates from a primary ballot, the very purpose of a primary would disappear. See Bellotti v. Connolly, 460 U.S. at 1061, 103 S.Ct. at 1512 (Stevens, J., dissenting), quoting Appellant Bellotti's Juris. Statement, pp. 14-15. 10 62 The appellees contend that this case does not involve an intra-party feud because Duke is not a Republican. Duke, however, has stated that he is a Republican. Accepting the appellees' argument would permit the Party leadership to monopolize power within the Party simply by declaring that any dissident faction does not belong to the Party, regardless of the faction's statements to the contrary. Our system leaves the responsibility of determining the course and nature of the Party to the electorate. Riddell, 508 F.2d at 776, 778. 11 63 Accordingly, I do not believe that the appellees have shown that the state action in this case is narrowly tailored to serve the Republican Party's associational interests because those interests can be fully preserved by allowing the Republican Party to campaign against Duke's candidacy prior to the election. 12 The Republican Party of Georgia and the state seek to exclude Duke from the primary ballot because they believe that the Party will suffer embarrassment and adverse publicity by virtue of his candidacy for the Republican nomination. No political body, however, has a constitutional right to freedom from embarrassment or adverse publicity.