Opinion ID: 2595566
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Prohibition on Combined Ballots Unconstitutionally Burdens the Green and Republican Moderate Parties' Associational Rights.

Text: The political parties argue that Alaska's new primary system violates rights protected by both the United States and the Alaska constitutions. Our analysis of whether election laws violate the United States Constitution is controlled by United States Supreme Court precedent. In O'Callaghan II and Sonneman v. State , we reviewed the Supreme Court's recent approach to assessing the constitutionality of election laws. [19] We noted that although the Court has repeatedly stressed the importance of protecting the right to participate in the political process, it has also recognized that in order to ensure that elections are orderly and fair, government must play an active role in structuring elections. [20] Since [e]lection laws will invariably impose some burden upon individual voters, [21] states must be granted some leeway. [22] To subject all laws governing elections to strict scrutiny would tie the hands of States seeking to assure that elections are operated equitably and efficiently. [23] To protect states' ability to regulate elections, the Supreme Court has therefore applied a flexible standard to election laws that impinge on rights protected by the United States Constitution. Under this standard, a court must weigh the character and magnitude of the asserted injury to the rights protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments that the plaintiff seeks to vindicate against the precise interests put forward by the State as justifications for the burden imposed by its rule, taking into consideration the extent to which those interests make it necessary to burden the plaintiff's rights.[ [24] ] This test allows a court to determine whether an election law violates the United States Constitution. Although we need not adopt the same test when determining whether a law violates the Alaska Constitution, [25] we think that this test, to the extent that it involves a careful balancing of the importance and necessity of the election law against the infringement of constitutionally protected rights, fits well with our own constitutional jurisprudence. We have often indicated that determining whether a state law violates the Alaska Constitution requires a nuanced balancing of the asserted rights against the interests claimed by the state. We have generally eschewed applying rigid formulas when analyzing the constitutionality of Alaska laws. For example, in our equal protection jurisprudence we have adopted a sliding-scale approach; under this approach, we place[ ] a progressively greater or lesser burden on the state, depending on the importance of the individual right affected by the disputed classification. [26] Similarly, when determining whether a challenged statute violates the right to privacy protected by the Alaska Constitution, we have held that the rights to privacy and liberty are neither absolute nor comprehensive . . . their limits depend on a balance of interests. [27] And we have indicated that when determining whether a statute violates the Alaska Constitution's right to free speech, there must be . . . a balancing of conflicting rights and interests. [28] Because the Supreme Court's test requires a similar balancing, we employ it here for evaluating whether the challenged election law violates the Alaska Constitution. [29] By using the Supreme Court's approach to determining the constitutionality of election laws, however, we do not mean to suggest that an election law that falls within the bounds of the United States Constitution is necessarily constitutional under the Alaska Constitution. To be sure, the United States Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court sets national minimal constitutional standards [30] with which Alaska election laws must comply. But we have often held that Alaska's constitution is more protective of rights and liberties than is the United States Constitution. [31] In Vogler v. Miller, for instance, we found that the free speech guarantee of article I, section 5 of the Alaska Constitution [32]  under which we decide challenges to election laws  is more protective of the right to participate in the political process than its federal counterpart, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. [33] We therefore stress that the results we derive under the Alaska Constitution need not correspond with those the Supreme Court might reach under the federal constitution. Our approach involves four steps. When an election law is challenged the court must first determine whether the claimant has in fact asserted a constitutionally protected right. If so we must then assess the character and magnitude of the asserted injury to the rights. [34] Next we weigh the precise interests put forward by the State as justifications for the burden imposed by its rule. [35] Finally, we judge the fit between the challenged legislation and the state's interests in order to determine the extent to which those interests make it necessary to burden the plaintiff's rights. [36] This is a flexible test: as the burden on constitutionally protected rights becomes more severe, the government interest must be more compelling and the fit between the challenged legislation and the state's interest must be closer.
The political parties argue that the prohibition on combined ballots severely restricts the right to access the ballot, voting rights, and the political parties' rights to associate with voters and with each other. The state argues that this is not a ballot access case, that voters have no fundamental right to vote in a primary election for all candidates, regardless of party affiliation, that states may restrict voters to participating in only one political party's primary, and that political parties do not have any right to associate with each other by way of the ballot. We conclude that political parties have a constitutionally protected associational interest in opening their ballots to voters who would otherwise vote in the primaries of their own political parties. [37] Before we explain the reasoning underlying our conclusion, we wish to emphasize that this case does not address whether the legislature can prohibit so-called fusion candidates. In Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party, [38] the Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of a Minnesota statute that preclude[d] one party's candidate from appearing on the [general election] ballot, as that party's candidate, if already nominated by another party. [39] The statute prohibited a candidate from being listed twice  once for each political party  on the general election ballot. The New Party challenged the statute, arguing that the political party had a right to associate with the candidate of its choice, even if that candidate was already the nominee of another political party. [40] The Court characterized Minnesota's ban on fusion candidacies as an eligibility requirement: under Minnesota law, a candidate was only eligible to appear as one political party's candidate if not already the candidate of another political party. [41] The Court held that the ban on so-called fusion candidacies did not severely burden that party's associational rights [42] and upheld the statute. The state contends that Timmons is similar to the present case because in both cases a political party sought to associate with another political party through the election ballot. The state argues that because the Court upheld Minnesota's restriction on party-party association, we should uphold Alaska's prohibition of joint ballots. But Timmons does not speak to the present electoral scheme. Broadly put, the statute in Timmons limited a political party's right to associate by means of the general election ballot with another political party's candidate. More specifically, the statute in Timmons imposed an eligibility requirement upon candidates: a candidate was only eligible to be placed on the general election ballot as one political party's candidate if not already on the ballot as the candidate of another political party. By contrast, the statutes challenged here do not impose eligibility requirements upon candidates. Indeed, the goal of the Green and Republican Moderate parties is not to associate with the other political party's candidates, but rather to associate with a broader spectrum of voters. Further, unlike the statute in Timmons, which governed the general election and only affected a political party's actions after it had chosen its candidate, the statutes challenged here directly limit who may participate in choosing a political party's candidates. In other words, Timmons does not help us resolve the present case because the central question in this case  whether and to what extent a state may restrict who may vote in a political party's primary  was simply not at issue in Timmons. We now turn our attention to the Green and Republican Moderate parties' argument that under the United States and the Alaska constitutions the political parties have a right to associate with as broad a spectrum of voters as possible. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that partisan political organizations enjoy freedom of association protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. [43] The Court has held that national political parties have the right to require that only registered political party members participate in choosing delegates to the national conventions. [44] National political parties also may require that only political party members participate in deciding how delegates to the national convention may vote. [45] The Court has held that state laws prohibiting political parties from endorsing candidates in primary elections unconstitutionally burden political parties' associational rights. [46] And it has held that states may not regulate a political party's decisions about the identity of, and the process for electing, the political party's official governing body, unless it can show that such regulation is necessary to ensure an election that is orderly and fair. [47] Finally, and most importantly for the present case, the Court has affirmed political parties' right to determine who will participate in the `basic function' of selecting the Party's candidates. [48] In Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut , the Court considered the constitutionality of a Connecticut election law that restricted participation in primary elections to political party members. [49] The Republican Party challenged this restriction, arguing that it had a right to allow independent voters to participate in its primary. [50] The Court held that the Connecticut law was unconstitutional. [51] The Court distinguished the situation in Tashjian from earlier cases where it had rejected claims by non-members of a party seeking to vote in that party's primary despite the party's opposition. [52] In those cases, the Court upheld state laws that sought to prevent the disruption of political parties from without [53] because the nonmember's desire to participate in the party's affairs is overborne by the countervailing and legitimate right of the party to determine its own membership qualifications. [54] In Tashjian, in contrast, there was no conflict between the associational interests of members and nonmembers. [55] Rather, the political party itself wished to invite independent voters to participate in its primary election. The Court held that though this desire might seem unwise or irrational, a state, or a court, may not constitutionally substitute its own judgment for that of the Party. The Party's determination of the boundaries of its own association . . . is protected by the Constitution.[ [56] ] The Court held that the political party's effort to broaden the base of public participation in and support for its activities, was conduct undeniably central to the exercise of the right of association. [57] In the Court's view, the challenged statute limit[ed] the Party's associational opportunities at the crucial juncture at which the appeal to common principles may be translated into concerted action, and hence to political power in the community. [58] Moreover the statute was not narrowly tailored to achieve the state's claimed goals of ensuring the administrability of the primary system, preventing raiding, avoiding voter confusion, and protecting the responsibility of party government. [59] Accordingly, the Court struck the statute as unconstitutional. [60] In California Democratic Party v. Jones [61] the Court confronted the opposite situation. Before Jones, the California primary system provided that [a]ll persons entitled to vote, including those not affiliated with any political party shall have the right to vote . . . for any candidate regardless of the candidate's political affiliation. [62] The California system thus forced political parties to open their primaries to non-members. [63] Several political parties challenged the blanket primary, arguing that they had a right to exclude non-members from participating in their primaries. [64] The Court reaffirmed the reasoning behind Tashjian, stressing the special place the First Amendment reserves for, and the special protection it accords, the process by which a political party `select[s] a standard bearer who best represents the party's ideologies and preferences.' [65] The Court held that the First Amendment not only protects a political party's right to reach out to independent voters; it also protects a political party's right to limit participation in the political party's primary to registered members of that political party. In no area is the political association's right to exclude more important than in the process of selecting its nominee. That process often determines the party's positions on the most significant public policy issues of the day, and even when those positions are predetermined it is the nominee who becomes the party's ambassador to the general electorate in winning it over to the party's views.[ [66] ] The Court therefore held that California's blanket primary was unconstitutional. [67] The Green and Republican Moderate parties argue that Tashjian and Jones compel the conclusion that they have a right to open their ballots to registered members of the other political party who intend to vote in their own political party's primary. The state responds that Tashjian supports no such right; it relies on the Court's marginal notation in Tashjian that [a] party seeking, for example, to open its primary to all voters, including members of other parties, would raise a different combination of considerations. Under such circumstances, the effect of one party's broadening of participation would threaten other parties with . . . disorganization effects.[ [68] ] It is true that the Court in Tashjian limited its holding to independent voters. But the cited passage does not go to the existence of a political party's right to determine who will participate in selecting its candidates; rather, the Court there speculates that a state's interest in restricting the exercise of a political party's right might be of sufficient weight to justify burdening that right. The overarching principle uniting Tashjian and Jones is that the First Amendment protects the rights of voters to band together as parties to pursue political ends. [69] This freedom, the Court has affirmed, necessarily presupposes the freedom to identify the people who constitute the association. [70] This right is perhaps nowhere more important than during a primary election: it is at the primary election that political parties select the candidates who will speak for them to the broader public and, if successful, will lead their political party in advancing its interests. In addition, as the Court recognized in Tashjian, a political party may desire to open its primary ballot to a wider spectrum of voters in order to allow the political party and its members to inform themselves as to the level of support for the Party's candidates among a critical group of electors. [71] The right to determine who may participate in selecting its candidates  and, if the political party so desires, to seek the input and participation of a broad spectrum of voters  is of central importance to the right of political association. We think that the Green and Republican Moderate parties' First Amendment rights under the United States Constitution include a right to share a ballot and thereby to seek the participation of members of the other political party who, if forced to choose, would vote in their own political party's primary. But even if this conclusion might overestimate the reach of the Federal Constitution, [72] we hold that the Alaska Constitution protects a political party's right to determine for itself who will participate in crystallizing the political party's political positions into acceptable candidates. As Justice Rabinowitz commented in his dissent in O'Callaghan II, [i]t is within the province of a party to decide who will nominate its candidates. [73]
Having concluded that the political parties' associational rights are at stake, we must determine the extent to which the Alaska primary system burdens those rights. By limiting voters to a single primary ballot on which the candidates of only one political party may appear, the prohibition on combined ballots creates a de facto election-day registration requirement. Voters must choose to fully affiliate themselves with a single political party or to forgo completely the opportunity to participate in that political party's primary. This places a substantial restriction on the political party's associational rights. The choice that the state forces a voter to make means that a political party cannot appeal to voters who are unwilling to limit their primary choices to the relatively narrow ideological agenda advanced by any single political party. Neither the Green Party nor the Republican Moderate Party here wished to have its candidates selected only by voters who are willing to choose that particular political party to the exclusion of others. Rather, the political parties sought to have their candidates elected by a broader spectrum of voters  one which includes voters who might otherwise be unwilling to sign on to the entirety of the political party's agenda or slate of candidates but who would have wanted to support some of the political party's candidates. The state's restriction on the spectrum of voters allowed to select a political party's candidates will have a significant effect, not just upon which candidates the political party ultimately nominates, but also on the ideological cast of the nominated candidates. Alaska's election code prevents the political parties themselves from determining who will be allowed to participate in select[ing] a standard bearer who best represents [their] ideologies and preferences. [74] The code therefore substantially restricts the parties' associational rights.