Opinion ID: 576719
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Application of the Strict Scrutiny Standard

Text: 35 In applying strict scrutiny to the instant case, the threshold question is whether the appellees' exclusion of Duke from the Georgia Republican presidential primary ballot burdens rights of the appellants protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The majority identifies two particular rights that appellants allege were burdened by the state's action: the right of Duke to associate with the Republican Party, and the right of the voters to vote for Duke in the Republican primary. I agree with the majority that Duke does not have a right to associate with those who do not wish to associate with him. I disagree, however, with the majority's analysis of the other rights asserted by the appellants. 36 The majority errs on two levels. First, it mischaracterizes the rights appellants allege were infringed by the state's action, understating the scope of the right to vote and ignoring other related First Amendment rights directly implicated in the case. Second, it overlooks the significant burdens placed by the state on the exercise of these rights. 37
38 The majority maintains that the specific right alleged to be infringed in this case is not the right to vote but the right to vote for a particular candidate as a Republican in the presidential primary, and that such a right is at best attenuated. Although the absolute right to vote is not implicated in this case, the state's action implicates a series of equally fundamental First Amendment rights, raising questions of both free speech and equal protection. 39 The right to vote embraces not only a voter's access to the ballot, but also his access to alternative viewpoints and positions presented on that ballot. 4 As the Supreme Court noted in Lubin v. Panish, 415 U.S. 709, 94 S.Ct. 1315, 39 L.Ed.2d 702 (1974), the right to vote is 'heavily burdened' if that vote may be cast only for one of two candidates in a primary election at a time when other candidates are clamoring for a place on the ballot. It is to be expected that a voter hopes to find on the ballot a candidate who comes near to reflecting his policy preferences on contemporary issues. 415 U.S. at 716, 94 S.Ct. at 1320. See also Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23, 31, 89 S.Ct. 5, 11, 21 L.Ed.2d 24 (1968); Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. at 793-94, 103 S.Ct. at 1572-73. 40 The First Amendment rights of a candidate and his or her supporters to associate for the advancement of their shared beliefs are also affected by the state's restriction of access to a primary ballot: 41 [T]he voters can assert their preferences only through candidates or parties or both and it is this broad interest that must be weighed in the balance. The right of a party or an individual to a place on the ballot is entitled to protection and is intertwined with the right of voters. 42 Lubin v. Panish, 415 U.S. at 716, 94 S.Ct. at 1320. See also Bullock v. Carter, 405 U.S. at 143, 92 S.Ct. at 855-56; Bellotti v. Connolly, 460 U.S. at 1062, 103 S.Ct. at 1513 (Stevens, J., dissenting). 43 Further, a candidate's individual right to seek party nomination or political office is implicated by the action of the state in this case. Although the Supreme Court has declined to recognize the right to candidacy as fundamental, see Clements v. Fashing, 457 U.S. 957, 102 S.Ct. 2836, 73 L.Ed.2d 508 (1982), the Court emphasized that state action affecting candidate ballot access rights deserves heightened scrutiny where the restriction unfairly or unnecessarily burdens 'the availability of political opportunity.'  Clements, 457 U.S. at 964, 102 S.Ct. at 2844 (quoting Lubin v. Panish, 415 U.S. at 716, 94 S.Ct. at 1320). 44 Where, as here, the state determines availability of political opportunity on the basis of ideology, such heightened scrutiny is appropriate. The state action in this case not only affects First Amendment freedoms but also the right to equal protection of those freedoms. See Police Department of the City of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 96-98, 92 S.Ct. 2286, 2290-2291, 33 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972). [Q]ualification requirements that implicitly exclude controverted political positions are ... the most suspect. L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law, § 13-19 at 1100 n. 13. Similarly, the exclusion of Duke from access to the primary ballot on the explicit basis of his political philosophy and that of his adherents implicates the most cherished constitutional freedoms. See Bullock v. Carter, 405 U.S. at 143-144, 92 S.Ct. at 856 (holding that primary ballot access restrictions possessing a patently exclusionary character must be closely scrutinized). 45
46 Given the fundamental First Amendment rights affected by the state's action in this case, the next question is whether these rights are significantly burdened by the challenged state action. The majority holds that no such burden exists. I disagree. 47 The majority's analysis rests on the belief that because the appellant voters may support Duke as a third-party or write-in candidate in the primary election, or as a third-party, independent or write-in candidate in the November general election, they have alternate channels through which to exercise their First Amendment rights, and consequently are only incidentally burdened by the state's exclusion of Duke from the Republican primary ballot. This belief is erroneous in view of the restrictions placed on access to the primary system by Georgia law and controlling Supreme Court precedent. Georgia law provides as follows: 48 [A]s provided in this article, a presidential preference primary shall be held ... for each political party or body which has cast for its candidates for President and Vice President in the last presidential election more than 20 percent of the total vote cast for President and Vice President in the state.... 49 O.G.C.A. § 21-2-191. In view of the realities of our two-party system, the state restricts participation in the primary system to those individuals who qualify for the Republican and Democratic primaries. 50 Admittedly, Duke could run as a write-in candidate for the Republican nomination. The Supreme Court, however, has recognized that the opportunity to run as a write-in candidate is not an adequate substitute for having one's name printed on the ballot. Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. at 799 n.26, 103 S.Ct. at 1575 n.26; accord, Lubin v. Panish, 415 U.S. at 719 n.5, 94 S.Ct. at 1321 n.5 ([A candidate] relegated to the write-in position would be forced to rest his chances solely upon those voters who would remember his name and take the affirmative step of writing it on the ballot.). 51 Thus, in light of the foregoing state law restrictions on primary participation, Duke's access to the primary process is effectively foreclosed by the state's exclusion of his name from the Republican ballot. 5 It is therefore indisputable that the appellants' rights to free political association and equal political opportunity have been burdened significantly by the state's action.
52 Appellants have shown that the exclusion of Duke from the Republican presidential primary ballot substantially burdens rights protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The next question is whether the appellants have shown that the appellees failed to sustain their burden of demonstrating a compelling state interest that justifies the exclusion. 53 The majority maintains that the state has a compelling interest in protecting the institutional autonomy and First Amendment associational rights of members of the Republican Party, citing in support of this proposition a line of Supreme Court cases emphasizing the associational rights of political parties. 54 The majority's opinion begs the question of whether the preservation of the First Amendment rights of the Republican Party in particular is a compelling state interest. I am not convinced that it is. See Eu, 489 U.S. at 228, 109 S.Ct. at 1023 (preserving party unity is not a compelling state interest). Nevertheless, I will assume arguendo that the state does indeed advance a compelling state interest in support of its challenged action. 6 55
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.