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

Heading: Maintaining the Two-Party System

Text: 90 The State further claims that its closed primary law maintains party identity, encourages politics of coalition and accommodation, A. Bickel, Reform and Continuity, 21-22 (1971), and is therefore required to preserve a stable two-party system. In framing its argument, the State points to the parade of horribles that would befall democracy if the Party Rule were implemented. Beneath this veneer of hyperbole, we find little substantive support for the State's position. Moreover, the issue is not, as urged by the State, which type of party primary--open or closed--is preferable. Rather, the proper inquiry is whether the State's insistence that the Republican Party adhere to a particular candidate selection process is justified by a compelling interest. 91 We are unable to discern how deviating from the state-mandated closed primary system will breed the splintered parties and unrestrained factionalism feared by the State. Indeed, it would appear that an open primary would achieve precisely the opposite effect, discouraging factionalism by forging a broader coalition of interests within a single political party. See Dawson, Social Development, Party Competition, and Policy, in The American Party Systems 208-09 (W. Chambers & W. Burnham eds. 1967). 28 See also Anderson v. Celebreeze, 460 U.S. 780 (1983). 92 By portraying change in the political order as anathema, the State ignores the flux that has traditionally characterized our two-party system. 29 As circumstances change, parties must be free to explore the political requisites of a given period. Whether the course selected by a party leads to success and power or to failure and decline, the first amendment guarantees that the decision be the choice of the party, not the state. 93