Opinion ID: 457052
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Right of Political Association

Text: 62 Freedom of association confers a right to join with others to pursue activities independently protected by the first amendment. Because political advocacy and participation in partisan politics are lodged at the heart of the first amendment, freedom of association necessarily includes a right of political association. Concomitantly, freedom of association protects the right to form a political party for the advancement of partisan political beliefs. 63 Although the genesis of the constitutional right of political association may be traced to NAACP v. Alabama, its maturation occurred more than one decade later when, in a series of decisions, the Court transformed political association from abstract theory into an effective right. 64 In Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23, 89 S.Ct. 5, 21 L.Ed.2d 24 (1968), the American Independent Party challenged Ohio's ballot regulations, which would have barred George Wallace, the Party's candidate from inclusion on the 1968 presidential ballot. Pursuant to Ohio law, new parties were required to file nominating petitions signed by a number of registered voters equal to at least fifteen percent of the total state vote in the last gubernatorial election. For a candidate to have his name placed on the November general election ballot, these petitions were required to be filed in February. Although the American Independent Party satisfied the numerical requirement by collecting 450,000 signatures, it did not file its petition by the February deadline. The Supreme Court concluded that the statutory electoral scheme, which effectively limited the ballot to two major parties, placed a substantial burden on the right of individuals to associate for the advancement of political ideas. 22 As Justice Black reflected at the outset of his opinion for the majority, [t]he State of Ohio ... has made it virtually impossible for a new political party, even though it has hundreds of thousands of members ... to be placed on the state ballot. Id. at 24, 89 S.Ct. at 7. Indeed, the Williams Court intimated that a statutory regime denying a group the fruits of their association--political impact--runs afoul of the first amendment no less than one precluding association itself. See L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 779 (1978). Subjecting the Ohio regulations to strict scrutiny, the Court found that none of the interests proffered by Ohio to justify its ballot access restrictions was compelling. 65 Five years later, in Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U.S. 752, 93 S.Ct. 1245, 36 L.Ed.2d 1 (1973), the Court rejected a challenge to a New York statute that conditioned eligibility to vote in a primary on a declaration of affiliation made eight to eleven months prior to the primary election. The Court noted that the petitioners--who were eligible to register and to declare their party affiliation before the cutoff date, but who did not do so until the deadline had passed--were indeed excluded from the party with which they identified. Their associational rights were not infringed, according to the Court, because their disenfranchisement was the result of their own failure to take timely steps to effect their enrollment. Id. at 758, 93 S.Ct. at 1250. Accordingly, the Court subjected the New York statute to only minimal scrutiny and readily found a legitimate state interest in preventing party raiding. 66 That same Term, in Kusper v. Pontikes, 414 U.S. 51, 94 S.Ct. 303, 38 L.Ed.2d 260 (1973), the Court again expatiated upon the right of political association, and struck down as unconstitutional an Illinois statute preventing persons from voting in a party primary if they had participated in the primary of another party within the preceding twenty-three months. The Court found that the petitioner, who had voted in a 1971 Republican primary, was wed to that party by the Illinois statute although she no longer wished to be identified with it. Unlike the petitioners in Rosario, whose disenfranchisement was caused by their own failure to take timely measures to enroll, the Court noted there was no action that Mrs. Pontikes could have taken to make herself eligible to vote in the 1972 Democratic primary. Kusper, supra, 414 U.S. at 60, 94 S.Ct. at 309. Focusing on the individual associational component, the Court concluded that by locking her in, the Illinois statute substantially infringed her right to associate effectively with the [political] party of her choice, id. at 58, 94 S.Ct. at 308, and could be upheld only if it were shown to be necessary to further a compelling state interest that could not be achieved by a less restrictive means. Examining the Illinois durational affiliation statute in light of this standard, the Court had little difficulty concluding that it did not represent the least restrictive means of preventing raiding and preserving the integrity of the electoral process. 67 In 1978, the right of political association enjoyed by a party and its adherents was rearticulated and bolstered in Cousins v. Wigoda, 419 U.S. 477, 95 S.Ct. 541, 42 L.Ed.2d 595 (1975). There, as in the instant case, the Court was called upon to harmonize the discord existing between state law and party rules. At issue was a ruling by an Illinois appellate court upholding an order that prevented the 1972 Democratic convention from replacing certain delegates elected in conformity with Illinois law but in violation of a Democratic Party rule. The Court reversed, reasoning that the injunction served no compelling state interest and that the state lacked sufficient justification to intrude so extensively into the associational rights of party members. Although the ratio decidendi of the case was that a state possesses a meager interest in preserving the integrity of a national nominating convention, the Court's language suggests that it is the party that has an associational interest in deciding who may participate in its activities. Indeed, the opinion suggests that a party's right to associate may even protect a more generalized right of group self-governance. Id. at 490-91, 95 S.Ct. at 549-50.