Opinion ID: 457052
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the right of association

Text: 48 In the main, the Republican Party asserts that Section 9-431 substantially interferes with its right of political association by determining who is eligible to participate in its candidate selection process. Before examining in detail the substance of the Republican Party's claim, we believe it is helpful to trace the origins of the right of association and delineate its historical contours. As shall be seen, the right of association has venerable roots, but only recently has it received the imprimatur of the judiciary and been afforded constitutional protection.
49 From time immemorial, societies have been compelled to grapple with an individual's sense of anomie. Although each political order has adopted individuated solutions, every such effort--whether the Greek polis or the Roman civitas--has embraced the concept of association as a buffer between the individual and the state. 50 The history of American political thought reveals that the significance of voluntary association antedates the drafting of our Constitution. Before our ties with England were severed in 1776, Committees of Correspondence were established to provide speedy and direct channels for communication and enable the people to understand their interests and act in concert, and become effective arbiters of their own political destiny. H.R.Doc. No. 702, 57th Cong., 1st Sess. 245 (1902). There existed a variety of other nongovernmental organizations and associations that were close to the people and satisfied the myriad needs of our infant Republic. See R. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 186-96, 319-28 (1969); The Federalist No. 56 (J. Madison). 51 The importance of political association was fortified by and memorialized in the Constitution, which included provisions explicitly designed to protect political opposition, and accorded independent vitality by the First Congress, which expressly included the rights of free speech, assembly and petition in the text of the first amendment. Moreover, in the Federalist Papers, James Madison extolled voluntary private association as maximizing the opportunities for self-realization, and minimizing the dangers attendant to centralized power. See The Federalist No. 10, 57 (J. Cooke ed. 1961). The Madisonian link between freedom of association and true democracy became embedded in Western political thought, and was expressed eloquently by de Tocqueville: 52 In their political associations the Americans, of all conditions, minds, and ages, daily acquire a general taste for association and grow accustomed to the use of it. There they meet together in large numbers, they converse, they listen to one another, and they are mutually stimulated to all sorts of undertakings. They afterwards transfer to civil life the notions they have thus acquired and make them subservient to a thousand purposes. Thus it is by the enjoyment of a dangerous freedom that the Americans learn the act of rendering the dangers of freedom less formidable. 53 Democracy in America, supra, at 129. 54 The democracy envisioned by Madison and marvelled at by de Tocqueville, however, bears little resemblance to the realities that today prevail. The structure of American society has undergone a vast metamorphosis in the past two centuries. No longer is the individual the basic political or economic unit and, largely for that reason, the concept of eighteenth century democracy fails to explain the dynamics of our current socio-political system. In recent years, organizations--political, social and economic--have become the primary repositories of power. Like all liberties, the right of association must be defined, to a large extent, by reference to the contours of the existing socio-political landscape. 55 A corollary of our society's penchant for organization is that the association has achieved a prominence that could hardly have been imagined two centuries ago. 18 Indeed by the middle of this century, the voluntary association had become one of the linchpins of our democratic process. Yet, it had not been afforded constitutional protection in its own right. 19
56 Although the constitutional text does not mention freedom of association, the Supreme Court, in NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449, 460, 78 S.Ct. 1163, 1171, 2 L.Ed.2d 1488 (1958), recognized an independent right of association. Such a right, according to the Court, derives from the first amendment guarantees of speech, press, assembly and petition. The issue before the Court was whether an Alabama statute requiring compulsory disclosure of membership in the NAACP imposed the likelihood of a substantial restraint upon the exercise by [the NAACP's] members of their right to freedom of association. Id. at 462, 78 S.Ct. at 1172. 57 Of even greater importance than the unanimous holding that the NAACP could not be compelled to deliver to the Alabama Attorney General the names and addresses of its members and agents in the State of Alabama was the reasoning relied on by the Court in reaching that result. The Court implicitly bifurcated associational rights into their individual and collective components. In examining the individualistic aspect, the Court recognized the vital relationship between freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations, and declared that the constitutional prohibition against mandatory identification of supporters is especially robust where the group espouses dissident beliefs. Id. 58 The principles announced in NAACP v. Alabama have been reaffirmed consistently as courts continue to protect the individualistic component of freedom of association not only against direct attack, but also against inroads by the insidious interference that often follows public identification with a controversial organization. In sustaining a constitutional challenge to another coerced disclosure of NAACP membership lists, for instance, the Supreme Court reasoned that the government's action represented a substantial encroachment upon an individual's right of privacy of association. See Bates v. City of Little Rock, 361 U.S. 516, 80 S.Ct. 412, 4 L.Ed.2d 480 (1960). 59 More recently, in Roberts v. United States Jaycees, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 3244, 82 L.Ed.2d 462 (1984), the Court expounded upon the meaning of the individual component of freedom of association. Writing for the majority, Justice Brennan noted that choices to enter into and maintain certain intimate human relationships must be secured against undue intrusion by the State because of the role of such relationships in safeguarding the individual freedom that is central to our constitutional scheme. Id. 104 S.Ct. at 3249. Freedom of association, therefore, is to be protected as a fundamental component of our personal liberty. 20 Consistent with this interpretation, the Court has accorded constitutional protection to that select group of intimate relationships and bonds that cultivate shared ideals and beliefs. See Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U.S. 374, 383-86, 98 S.Ct. 673, 679-81, 54 L.Ed.2d 618 (1978) (marriage); Smith v. Organization of Foster Families, 431 U.S. 816, 844, 97 S.Ct. 2094, 2109, 53 L.Ed.2d 14 (1977) (raising and educating children); Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 503-04, 97 S.Ct. 1932, 1937-38, 52 L.Ed.2d 531 (1977) (cohabitation with relatives). 21 It has also been held that an individual enjoys the right to associate with the candidate of his choice. See Buckley v. Valeo, supra. This individual association may be manifested by contributing money to, or working for, the candidate's campaign, or supporting the candidate in the election. 60 By contrast to the fertile development of the individualistic aspect of associational rights, the collective component, also conceived in NAACP v. Alabama, remains largely nascent. In that case, the Court referred to the ability of NAACP members to pursue their collective effort to foster beliefs, 357 U.S. at 463, 78 S.Ct. at 1172. In addition, the Court evinced a concern with an association's ability to advocate the beliefs of its members and recognized that an association may be able to realize objectives that differ qualitatively from those attainable by individuals. 61 The right to speak, petition or assemble would be hollow indeed if the corresponding freedom to engage in group effort toward those ends was not accorded independent constitutional protection. Because of this nation's abiding commitment to pluralism, and our candid recognition that the sum of an association may often be far greater than its individual parts, courts have been particularly hesitant to countenance any governmental intrusion--either direct or indirect--into the core of expressive group effort. Whether the government seeks to withhold benefits from individuals because of their membership in a group or association, see Healy v. James, 408 U.S. 169, 180-84, 92 S.Ct. 2338, 2345-48, 33 L.Ed.2d 266 (1972); compel disclosure of an individual's membership in a group seeking anonymity, Brown v. Socialist Workers '74 Campaign Committee, 459 U.S. 87, 91-92, 103 S.Ct. 416, 419-420, 74 L.Ed.2d 250 (1982); or interfere with the internal organization or affairs of the association, see Cousins v. Wigoda, 419 U.S. 477, 487-88, 95 S.Ct. 541, 547-48, 42 L.Ed.2d 595 (1975); such interference with the right of collective association may be justified only by narrowly drawn regulations that serve compelling state interests. For, as Justice O'Connor stated in her concurring opinion in Roberts v. United States Jaycees, supra, such state regulation will necessarily affect, change, dilute, or silence one collective voice that would otherwise be heard. 104 S.Ct. at 3259.
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.
68 In crafting an expansive right of political association, the Supreme Court provided the analytical tools needed to reconcile the inevitable tensions among a political party's right to self-determination, an individual's right to participate in primary elections, and the state's interest in regulating such elections. These competing rights and interests present three potential challenges: First, independent voters may challenge a state-mandated closed primary, claiming that they have a right to vote in that primary election. In addition, a political party may challenge a state-mandated open primary on the grounds that it includes voters lacking a right to participate in the primary election. Finally, there exists the situation presented by the instant appeal: A political party may challenge a state-mandated closed primary, claiming the state regulations prohibit individuals with whom the party members wish to associate from participating in the primary. To date, courts have addressed only the first two of these challenges. See generally, Note, Primary Elections and the Collective Right of Freedom of Association, 94 Yale L.J. 117 (1984). 69 The first category of challenge was raised in Nader v. Schaffer, 417 F.Supp. 837 (D.Conn.), aff'd mem., 429 U.S. 989, 97 S.Ct. 516, 50 L.Ed.2d 602 (1976). There, the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut upheld the constitutionality of section 9-431 of the Connecticut General Statutes against a challenge by unaffiliated voters who sought to participate in the Republican Party primaries against party wishes. 23 70 Because denying an individual the opportunity to vote for a candidate in a primary does not infringe his right of association, see Rosario v. Rockefeller, supra, the court subjected section 9-431 to a less than strict level of scrutiny. The court in Nader held that the state had a legitimate interest in protecting party members from any intrusion into their associational rights, Nader, supra, 417 F.Supp. at 846-47, including the right of candidate selection, by those with adverse political principles. In so concluding, the court implicitly recognized that associational rights attach to the political party in its candidate selection process, but not to the independent voter excluded from the primary. See also Rodriguez v. Popular Democratic Party, 457 U.S. 1, 14, 102 S.Ct. 2194, 2202, 72 L.Ed.2d 628 (1982) (political party not required to include nonmembers in procedure to select replacement for deceased commonwealth legislator). 71 This theory of collective associational rights also explains the Supreme Court's decision in Democratic Party of the United States v. Wisconsin ex rel. La Follette, 450 U.S. 107, 101 S.Ct. 1010, 67 L.Ed.2d 82 (1981), which presented the second type of challenge to state regulation of primary elections. There, the issue before the Court was whether Wisconsin could constitutionally compel the national Democratic Party to seat at its national convention a delegation chosen in a manner that expressly violated the party's rules. The rules of the national Democratic Party permit only those individuals who are willing to affiliate publicly with the Democratic Party to participate in the process of selecting delegates to the Party's national convention. The Wisconsin election laws, however, allow voters to participate in its Democratic presidential candidate preference primary without regard to party affiliation and without requiring a public declaration of party preference. 72 Relying on the associational rights possessed by a political party and its adherents, the Court reasoned that freedom of association necessarily presupposes the freedom to identify the people who constitute the association, and to limit the association to those people only. Democratic Party, supra, 450 U.S. at 122, 101 S.Ct. at 1019. Because the members of the Democratic Party formulated rules defining their associational rights, Wisconsin could compel the Democratic Party to seat a delegation in a manner that violated the Party's rules only if such a statute were supported by a compelling interest. After examining Wisconsin's asserted interests in preserving the overall integrity of the electoral process, increasing voter participation in primaries and preventing harassment of voters, the Court concluded that these claims were insufficient to justify the state's substantial intrusion into the associational freedom of members of the National Party. Id. at 126, 101 S.Ct. at 1021 (footnote omitted). 73 In discussing the nature of this intrusion, the Court noted that the inclusion of persons unaffiliated with a political party may seriously distort its collective decisions--thus impairing the party's essential functions. Id. at 122, 101 S.Ct. at 1019. Of even greater significance, the Court reinforced the unstated principle that the stringency, and wisdom, of membership requirements is for the association and its members to decide. Id. at 123 n. 25, 101 S.Ct. at 1020 n. 25. After all, a State ... may not constitutionally substitute its own judgment for that of the Party. Id. at 123-24, 101 S.Ct. at 1019-20; see also Ripon Society, Inc. v. National Republican Party, 525 F.2d 567, 585 (D.C.Cir.1975) (en banc ) ([A] party's choice, as among various ways of governing itself, of the one which seems best calculated to strengthen the party and advance its interests, deserves the protection of the Constitution), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 933, 96 S.Ct. 1147, 47 L.Ed.2d 341 (1976). 74 Manifest in the Court's decisions in the area of political association, then, is the principle that absent a compelling interest, a state may not interfere with the associational rights enjoyed by political parties and their adherents. Among these rights is that of a political party to choose its own structure, select its own standard bearers, and formulate its own platform--all free from the intrusion of state regulation. See Democratic Party, supra. This principle extends to party affairs in general and to primary elections in particular.