Court Opinion

ID: 9462250
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:36:20.0093+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:29.786639
License: Public Domain

TAMM, Circuit Judge, with whom Circuit Judge ROBB
joins (concurring in the result):
I agree with the disposition the court reaches, but believe that we must directly confront preliminary issues which the majority passes over to reach the merits. Specifically, we should reassess the vitality of our previous holding of governmental action in this area and recognize the full impact of the justiciability problems.
I
Eight individual registered Republicans and the Ripon Society, Inc. (collectively referred to as Ripon) challenge the delegate apportionment plan, Rule 30, adopted by the 1972 Republican National Convention for the 1976 Convention, as violative of the equal protection guarantee of the fifth and fourteenth amendments. In order to apply these constitutional restraints against the Republican National Party and Committee (Republicans), Ripon must establish the presence of state or governmental action. To do so, Ripon principally relies upon two cases in this circuit which found the activities of the major political parties to constitute governmental action, Georgia v. National Democratic Party, 145 U.S.App.D.C. 102, 447 F.2d 1271, cert. denied, 404 U.S. 858, 92 S.Ct. 109, 30 L.Ed.2d 101 (1971), and Bode v. National Democratic Party, 146 U.S.App.D.C. 373, 452 F.2d 1302 (1971), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 1019, 92 S.Ct. 684, 30 L.Ed.2d 668 (1972). I was a member of the unanimous division in Georgia, where we stated that “in the absence of further explication by the Supreme Court on this point, we incline to the conclusion that the National Conventions are not so divorced from the activities of the states in conducting presidential elections as to negate the existence of state action.” 447 F.2d at 1276. I believe that further Supreme Court pronouncements in the area strongly indicate that this position is no longer tenable.
In Georgia, we reached our “inclination” on two grounds. The first, involving a three-step analysis, began with the postulate, drawn from the Texas White Primary Cases,1 that the activities of state political parties constitute state action “insofar as those activities touch upon the machinery whereby candidates are nominated by the parties to seek election to local or national office.” 447 F.2d at 1275. Our second premise was that “a state party’s action in selecting delegates to its national convention is also invested with state action since the delegates’ primary function is the nomination of candidates for the nation’s highest offices.” Id. This premise was grounded on the assumption that delegate-selection processes were imbued with the same quality of state action as candidate-nomination processes; while recognizing that courts had divided on the question, we found the analogy “a close and compelling one.” Finally, we reasoned that if “the action of the individual state parties in selecting delegates to participate in the presidential-nominating process constitutes state action, the collective activity of all the states’ delegates at the national convention can be no less readily classified as state action.” Id.
Our second ground was derived from the states’ responsibility to conduct elections, pursuant to article I, section 1, and the twelfth amendment. Since the “electorate’s choice in the general election is effectively restricted to the nominees of the two [major] parties,” the states, by placing the major parties’ nominees’ names on the ballot, have *597adopted this narrowing process as integrally related to their election procedures. Therefore, we opined, “every step in the nominating process — especially the crucial determination of how many delegate votes each state party is to be allotted — is as much a product of state action as if the states themselves were collectively to conduct such preliminary conventions.”2
In Bode, the division followed the Georgia state action holding. 452 F.2d at 1304-05. Notably, in neither case did we accord plaintiffs relief. However, the following year, this court intervened in an internal Democratic Party dispute over challenges to the California and Illinois delegations to the 1972 convention. Brown v. O’Brien, 152 U.S.App.D.C. 157, 469 F.2d 563 (1972). The division had “no difficulty concluding that defendants’ action against these delegates was state action,” id. at 567, and found that the national parties’ decisions to exclude certain delegates violated due process. Thereafter, the Supreme Court stayed our judgment. O’Brien v. Brown, 409 U.S. 1, 92 S.Ct. 2718, 34 L.Ed.2d 1 (1972). In strong language, the Court noted its “grave doubts” as to the correctness of our action:
We must also consider the absence of authority supporting the action of the Court of Appeals in intervening in the internal determinations of a national political party, on the eve of its convention, regarding the seating of delegates. No case is cited to us in which any federal court has undertaken to interject itself into the deliberative processes of a national political convention; no holding of this Court up to now gives support for judicial intervention in the circumstances presented here, involving as they do relationships of great delicacy that are essentially political in nature. Judicial intervention in this area traditionally has been approached with great caution and restraint. It has been understood since our national political parties first came into being as voluntary associations of individuals that the convention itself is the proper forum for determining intra-party disputes as to which delegates shall be seated. Thus, these cases involve claims of the power of the federal judiciary to review actions heretofore thought to lie in the control of political parties. Highly important questions are presented concerning justiciability, whether the action of the Credentials Committee is state action, and, if so, the reach of the Due Process Clause in this unique context. Vital rights of association guaranteed by the Constitution are also involved. While the Court is unwilling to undertake final resolution of the important constitutional questions presented without full briefing and argument and adequate opportunity for deliberation, we entertain grave doubts as to the action taken by the Court of Appeals.
Id. at 4-5, 92 S.Ct. at 2720 (footnote and citations omitted). One month later, Justice Rehnquist stayed an earlier district court holding granting relief in the case sub judiee, based in part on “the probability of error in the result below,” citing the above quoted passage from O’Brien. Republican State Central Committee v. Ripon Society, Inc., 409 U.S. 1222, 1225-27, 93 S.Ct. 1475, 1477 (1972) (Rehnquist, Circuit Justice).
Thus, the Supreme Court has strongly suggested that if confronted with the issue, it would reverse our holding on state action. Ripon disputes this characterization and contends that the Court’s criticism in O’Brien was aimed at the timing of our intervention and its focus on an internal party dispute, not the holding of state action. See Appellants’ Memorandum pursuant to Order of March 19, 1975 at 14-15; Note, Presidential Nominating Conventions: Party *598Rules, State Law and the Constitution, 62 Geo.L.J. 1621, 1636-37 (1974). Compare Cousins v. Wigoda, 419 U.S. 477, 491, 95 S.Ct. 541, 42 L.Ed.2d 595 (1975) with id. at 494, 95 S.Ct. 541 (Rehnquist, J., concurring). However, we need not dispositively settle on one of these differing interpretations, for even assuming that O’Brien does not preclude reaffirmance of our Georgia holding, other Supreme Court precedent and analysis have so eroded the analytical underpinnings of both alternative holdings that I believe we are no longer justified in adhering to them.
A
The first basis for our Georgia holding was that state political parties’ activities concerning nomination of candidates constituted state action; we invoked the White Primary Cases to support this proposition. However, in O’Brien, the Court characterized those cases as involving claims of “invidious discrimination based on race in a primary contest within a single State.” 409 U.S. at 4 n. 1, 92 S.Ct. at 2720 (citations omitted). That is a dramatically different proposition than we drew from those cases. Moreover, we have been criticized, perhaps justifiably, for citing the White Primary Cases indiscriminately, without distinguishing between those which turned on fifteenth amendment rights and those which were based on equal protection. See Kester, Constitutional Restrictions on Political Parties, 60 Va.L.Rev. 735, 766 (1974). Upon further reflection, I think that the generalizations we culled from those cases rest on less than firm ground.
First, those cases all involved racial discrimination, a prime target of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, with the practical consequence that a lesser degree of involvement may trigger constitutional scrutiny. See, e. g., Greenya v. George Washington University, 167 U.S.App.D.C. 379, 512 F.2d 556, 560 (1975); Jackson v. The Statler Foundation, 496 F.2d 623, 628-29 (2d Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 420 U.S. 927, 95 S.Ct. 1124, 43 L.Ed.2d 397 (1975). No allegation of racial discrimination is at issue here. Second, the White Primary Cases all took place during a one-party era in Texas when nomination in reality was tantamount to election — the primary was the election. This is certainly not the situation at the national level.
Finally, the two Nixon cases involved state statutes which directly controlled the activity in question,3 and Allwright and Terry were fifteenth amendment cases, involving the right to vote; because of the integral relation between the primary and election in the one-party state, the Court found a constitutional violation.4. The appropriateness of invoking these cases in the case at bar becomes questionable as the importance *599of state authorizing statutes in the presidential nominating process appears tangential,5 and as Rule 30 involves apportionment of delegates, not actual voting processes. Thus, the White Primary Cases are not strong authority for the general proposition we advanced in Georgia.
I also cannot extract a general rule from the other, arguably relevant, Supreme Court cases not directly relied upon in Georgia — United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 61 S.Ct. 1031, 85 L.Ed. 1368 (1941), and Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 83 S.Ct. 801, 9 L.Ed.2d 821 (1963). Classic reversed the dismissal of an indictment against a state election official for falsely counting primary ballots on the basis that primaries were such an “integral part” of the election process that the constitutional right to vote extended to them. However, the Classic holding was firmly grounded in the article I protection of the right to vote in congressional elections, which also extends to private interferences, and thus cannot stand for the proposition that all nominating procedures closely related to general elections constitute state action. 313 U.S. at 314-15, 61 S.Ct. 1031, see Developments in the Law — Elections, 88 Harv.L.Rev. 1111, 1158-59 (1975). In Gray, the device attacked on equal protection grounds, the unit-voting system, was directly imposed on the Democratic Party by statute if it chose to hold a primary. The finding that this proximate regulation of the challenged device constituted state action is unsurprising, but is also doctrinally different than the question presented by Rule 30. 372 U.S. at 374-75, 83 S.Ct. 801; see Kester, supra, 60 Va.L.Rev. at 763; Developments, supra, 88 Harv.L.Rev. at 1158 n.41.
Moreover, as the Supreme Court has recently made clear, the mere fact that the state regulates some aspects of an organization does not make its activities state action. See Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 95 S.Ct. 449, 42 L.Ed.2d 447 (1974); Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U.S. 163, 92 S.Ct. 1965, 32 L.Ed.2d 627 (1972). There must be a sufficient nexus between the challenged action and the state regulation. Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., supra, 419 U.S. at 351, 95 S.Ct. 449. Clearly no such nexus exists between any state statute and the allocation of delegates to the Republican Convention. This conclusion is underscored by Cousins v. Wigoda, supra, where the Court found that the “states themselves have no constitutionally mandated role in the great task of the selection of Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates. If the qualifications and eligibility of delegates to National Political Party Conventions were left to state law ‘. each of the fifty states could establish the qualifications of its delegates to the various party conventions without regard to party policy, an obviously intolerable result.’ ”6
In sum, I must conclude that the first step that led to our conclusion that the decisions of national conventions were state action was an unjustified simplification inconsistent with present authori*600ty.7 Without this syllogistic prerequisite, our first state action holding must fall.
B
Our alternative state action holding was based on the electoral process itself. The linchpin in that argument is that the states, by adopting as a necessary adjunct of their election procedures the narrowing process performed by the parties through placing the party nominees’ names on the ballot, have made the parties’ activities their own. Since the Georgia decision, the Supreme Court has held that the states have a compelling interest in enforcing this narrowing process. See American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U.S. 767, 780-81, 94 S.Ct. 1296, 39 L.Ed.2d 744 (1974); Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724, 736, 94 S.Ct. 1274, 39 L.Ed.2d 714 (1974). All of those cases, however, dealt with actions taken by the states themselves and were unaccompanied by any state action question.8 In fact, the only relevant recent Supreme Court decisions point in a direction opposite to our Georgia conclusion.
In Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., supra, petitioner challenged a utility’s termination of a customer’s service on due process grounds, alleging, inter alia, that state action was present because the termination had been performed pursuant to a tariff accepted by the state. The Court, rejecting this suggestion, found that “[a]pproval by [the state] . where [it had] not put its own weight on the side of the proposed practice by ordering it, does not transmute a practice initiated by the utility and approved by the [state] into ‘state action.’ ” 419 U.S. at 357, 95 S.Ct. at 457. The Court held that where the initiative comes from the private party no state action is present.
Similarly, every action taken by any individual which aids the state in its narrowing function cannot be deemed state action; the connection between the public and private entities must be more specific and direct. That connection is not present here. The nominating function is not one traditionally performed by the states, nor are they particularly interested in the mechanics of the nar*601rowing process, so long as by the general election, the size and complexity of the ballot is within reason. Thus, it is impossible to conclude that the national conventions are performing a delegated governmental function. In fact, by adopting a platform and promulgating rules to govern their party and by choosing a standard bearer who best represents the party’s ideologies and preferences, delegates are engaged in activities with which the first amendment bars most governmental interference. When this analysis is coupled with the Cousins holding that the state cannot enforce its supposed interests against the national party, I must conclude that the necessary integral relationship between Rule 30 and the states is lacking.9
The fact that neither of the Georgia holdings are now tenable does not end the state action analysis, since there is another possible source of governmental involvement in this area — the federal government. Recent years have seen the increasing regulatory and financial involvement by the federal government in the electoral process, culminating in the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974, P.L. 93-443, 88 Stat. 1263.
Under the present version of federal regulations,10 the major parties’ conventions, starting in 1976, will probably be totally funded by federal funds. See id. at 1294, as codified, Int.Rev.Code of 1954 § 9008. While the argument could be made that this grant of federal money makes the actions of the convention subject to constitutional scrutiny, the circuit courts have held time and again that, absent a finding of racial discrimination, the mere receipt of government funds is not enough to dictate that finding. See, e. g., Greenya v. George Washington University, supra; Junior Chamber of Commerce v. Missouri State Junior Chamber of Commerce, 508 F.2d 1031, 1033-34 (8th Cir. 1975); Wahba v. New York University, 492 F.2d 96 (2d Cir. 1974). There must be a sufficient nexus before the government can be considered a joint participant in the challenged activity. See Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, supra; Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U.S. 715, 81 S.Ct. 856, 6 L.Ed.2d 45 (1961). The funding of the conventions does not supply that joint participation in the case sub judice, since the funding is authorized regardless of the procedures the convention adopts.
Similarly, the federal regulatory presence is not sufficient to trigger a governmental action finding. The regulation, presently constituted, has no connection with the activities in question11 and does not meet the level the Court in Jackson indicated is necessary for a finding of governmental action. Further, the regulation is not sufficiently detailed, nor are the benefits the federal government derives from the conventions’ activities significant enough, so that we could find the existence of a symbiotic relationship or constitutionally recognizable “entanglement” between the entities. Compare Howard University v. National Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, 166 U.S.App.D.C. 260, 510 F.2d 213 (1975).
In summary, I must conclude that Ripon cannot demonstrate the presence of *602governmental action in the adoption of Rule 30. Therefore, I must concede that our holding in Georgia was in error. The problem of “state action” has always been doctrinally a difficult and unsatisfying one; a commentator has called state action “a conceptual disaster area.”12 Recent Supreme Court decisions have, however, clarified the standards we must apply in this area, and those standards dictate the conclusion that I believe we must reach here.
By this conclusion I do not foreclose all possibility that an action taken by a major political party or its national convention will be judged to be subject to constitutional restraints; I endorse the evolving doctrine that in racial discrimination situations, a lesser quantum of governmental involvement will trigger constitutional scrutiny. In this situation, however, I would vote to reverse the judgment of the district court for lack of jurisdiction. Since the majority of this court avoids confronting this difficult question by assuming jurisdiction, I am compelled to turn now to another issue which requires scrutiny before consideration of the merits, and which the majority also glosses over — justiciability.
II
“Justiciability is itself a concept of uncertain meaning and scope.” Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 95, 88 S.Ct. 1942, 1950, 20 L.Ed.2d 947 (1968). It is “not a legal concept with a fixed content or susceptible of scientific verification. Its utilization is the resultant of many subtle pressures . . . .” Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497, 508, 81 S.Ct. 1752, 1759, 6 L.Ed.2d 989 (1961). While its applicability to the so-called “political question doctrine” has been eroded, see, e. g., Powell v. McCormick, 395 U.S. 486, 89 S.Ct. 1944, 23 L.Ed.2d 491 (1969); Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962), there is no reason to assume its demise. See Gilligan v. Morgan, 413 U.S. 1, 11, 93 S.Ct. 2440, 37 L.Ed.2d 407 (1973).
Confronting the question of justiciability in Georgia of a claim similar to the one sub judice, we found judicial review appropriate because:
courts are competent to scrutinize the allocation schemes promulgated by the national parties in order to determine whether, given the context of political partisanship out of which such formulas necessarily arise, substantial deviations from equality of voting power at the Conventions are supported by legitimate justifications.
447 F.2d at 1278 (footnote omitted). The passage of the Supreme Court’s opinion in O’Brien, set out on page 4 supra, cited with approval by Mr. Justice Rehnquist in his Ripon opinion, casts doubt upon our justiciability holding. Upon reconsideration, I conclude that we have failed to face the import of the justiciability problems in this area.
In Baker v. Carr, supra, 369 U.S. at 217, 82 S.Ct. 691, the Court listed factors which would make a claim a non-justiciable political question; two of those factors expose directly the inherent difficulty in a court’s reviewing a delegate allocation formula for national political conventions' — the lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards and the impossibility of reaching a decision without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly for non-judicial discretion.
A. Lack of Judicially Discoverable and Manageable Standards
In Georgia, we opined that we could determine “substantial deviations from equality of voting poweF’ (emphasis added); since we rejected plaintiff’s claim in that case, we were never forced to define the test precisely. In fact, I am afraid that our Georgia test is more promise than reality and could never be applied accurately to a challenge to any delegate allocation formula.
First, it is impossible to define the constituency whose equality of voting power we are attempting to protect. None of the obvious possibilities is satis*603fying. The most obvious is the class of registered members of the particular party; however, at the national level, both parties to succeed must reach beyond these mostly dependable adherents to gain the temporary allegiance of the so-called independent vote. In fact, to force the Republican Party to define its constituency as its registered members would consign the party to minority status.
Using voting results is equally unsatisfying. As we recognized in Bode : “Elusive too is the utilization of past voting patterns — transitory political phenomena — to ascertain the current population to be represented at a national convention.” 452 F.2d at 1307 (footnote omitted). The final possibility is to define the relevant constituency as all voters, but to impose that criterion on a party would be to deny it any ideological choice, a choice which lies at the heart of the party’s first amendment associational freedoms. Thus, although the Bode division did not recognize the full implication of its analysis, its comments are apt: “the individual to be represented [is not] identifiable except in a loose, conceptual sense. ... To identify and count potential Democrats is impossible, requiring desirable but unavailable clairvoyance.” 452 F.2d at 1306-07.
The second undefinable standard is the determination of the basis against which a party’s delegate allocation plan is to be tested, even assuming the relative constituency could be ascertained. “One man, one vote” principles, as our brethren concede, do not apply. The Court has held that those stringent standards bear only on bodies which exercise general governmental powers. See, e. g., Salyer v. Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District, 410 U.S. 1719, 93 S.Ct. 1224, 35 L.Ed.2d 659 (1973); Hadley v. Junior College District, 397 U.S. 50, 90 S.Ct. 791, 25 L.Ed.2d 45 (1970).
Without belaboring the point, nominating conventions do not meet this criterion. Neither the writing of platforms nor the nomination of candidates is a governmental function. A convention is not a representative body.13 Delegates need not be elected. Once at the convention, subject to certain state statutes, instead of representing any constituency, they are “free agents,” able to coalesce around any candidate or issue of their choosing. Finally, any representative role they may have can be completely undercut if the convention exercises its right not to seat them. Cousins v. Wigoda, supra; cf. Zimmer v. McKeithen, 485 F.2d 1297, 1304 n.15 (5th Cir. 1973) (en banc). See also Education/Instruction, Inc. v. Moore, 503 F.2d 1187 (2d Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1109, 95 S.Ct. 783, 42 L.Ed.2d 806 (1975); Davis v. American Telephone and Telegraph Co., 478 F.2d 1375 (2d Cir. 1973).
Hence, what this boils down to is: if the proper constituency could be determined, which it cannot satisfactorily, and if the basis for equality could be settled upon, which would not include one-man, one-vote principles, then perhaps the court could scrutinize “deviations” to ensure they are based upon “legitimate justification.” However, even this inquiry is infeasible, since it involves the court in political policy determinations.
B. Policy Determinations Requiring Non-Judicial Discredit
Political parties are formed for two major purposes — (1) to associate with people of like ideological persuasion and (2) to attempt to implement their ideological goals by electing candidates who share that objective. Both functions are protected under the first amendment. Their effectuation depends on a series of political choices made by its members.
In fact, it could fairly be said that a party’s twin objectives of ideological pu*604rity and electoral success are often incompatible and that a party must strike a compromise between both goals or opt for one at the expense of the other. For example, the results of the 1972 Democratic and 1964 Republican Presidential campaigns may be partially explained by the parties’ decision to seek ideological purity at the expense of electoral attractiveness.
Judge McGowan’s opinion advances some of the justification and political choices which underlie the bonus systems attacked by the plaintiffs in this case. The crucial point is that all these potential decisions — whether to reward the ideological faithful, farmer or urban dweller or whether to encourage electoral success by rewarding those local parties which actually carry the ticket — are essentially political accommodations. As such, they are a fundamental exercise of first amendment rights; second-guessing of their accuracy by the judiciary is both impossible and an unwarranted deviation from our constitutional scheme.
Moreover, there already exists a correcting mechanism in the system — the ballot box. So long as political parties exist to elect candidates and effectuate programs, they will never be overly exclusionary too long. The judiciary need not and should not paternalistically interfere with this process.14
This posture of non-interference has been followed by courts hearing claims involving party affairs. The Eighth Circuit, declining to reapportion the Minnesota delegates to the Democratic National Convention, found the case to be a non-justiciable political question. Irish v. Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, 399 F.2d 119, 121 (8th Cir. 1968). Similarly, the district court in Smith v. State Executive Committee, 288 F.Supp. 371, 376 (N.D.Ga.1968) denied relief, inter alia, on the basis that “there is no known case to the effect that any jurisdiction exists over the internal rules or management of a political party.” Finally, the Third Circuit, in recently reversing a district court decree enjoining a state party’s delegate allocation to its party convention, stated:
If a given party chooses to organize by districts, but to allocate delegate strength to a district in which it has fewer numbers but a greater opportunity to achieve the practical advancement of the political ideas for the pursuit of which the association was formed, state action which frustrates that choice is highly suspect.
Redfearn v. Delaware Republican State Comm., 502 F.2d 1123, 1127-28 (3d Cir. 1974). See also Lynch v. Torquato, 343 F.2d 370 (3d Cir. 1965).
I would concur in those assessments and conclude that the question plaintiffs present is non-justiciable.15
Ill
I have no quarrel with the majority opinion on the merits. Were I to reach them, I would find Judge McGowan’s opinion both attractive and persuasive. However, despite the best attempts to deter further litigation, I fear that by “reserving” the questions of state action and justiciability, the majority ‘make *605such litigation inevitable. For my part, since I find the requisite state action necessary for plaintiff’s jurisdiction lacking, I would rest our decision on that, more conclusively final, ground. I, therefore, concur in the result of reversing the district court with directions to dismiss the complaint.

. Terry v. Adams, 345 U.S. 461, 73 S.Ct. 809, 97 L.Ed. 1152 (1953); Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649, 64 S.Ct. 757, 88 L.Ed. 987 (1944); Nixon v. Condon, 286 U.S. 73, 52 S.Ct. 484, 76 L.Ed. 984 (1932); Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U.S. 536, 47 S.Ct. 446, 71 L.Ed. 759 (1927).

. 447 F.2d at 1276 (footnote omitted). While recognizing that the Supreme Court opinions supporting this theory arose in one-party states where nomination was tantamount to election, we did not believe that factor was enough to distinguish those cases.

. In Nixon v. Herndon, the Court struck down on equal protection grounds a Texas state statute explicitly barring blacks from participation in Democratic Party primary elections. 273 U.S. 536, 540-41, 47 S.Ct. 446, 71 L.Ed. 759 (1927). After that decision, Texas passed a statute granting every political party in the state “the power to prescribe the qualifications of its own members ... to vote or otherwise participate in such political party . .” The Democratic Party adopted a “whites only” primary rule. The Court in Nixon v. Condon found that the power to determine qualifications derived from the statute, and the resolution excluding blacks was therefore state action in violation of the fourteenth amendment, 286 U.S. 75, 85-89, 52 S.Ct. 484, 76 L.Ed. 984 (1932).

. In Allwright, primary eligibility had been determined by the party’s convention. However, the Court in finding state action relied heavily on the state’s detailed regulation of those primaries for its conclusion that the party was “an agency of the State in so far as it determines the participants in a primary election.” 321 U.S. 649, 663, 64 S.Ct. 757, 765, 88 L.Ed. 987 (1944). In Terry, the Court, though split on the proper analysis, extended its fifteenth amendment holding to the whites-only Jaybird Democratic Association which conducted a straw-vote election prior to each Democratic primary, the winner of which invariably triumphed in the Democratic primary and general election. 345 U.S. 461, 73 S.Ct. 809, 97 L.Ed. 1152 (1953).

. At last count, nineteen states provided by statute, in one form or another, for presidential primaries. Nineteen other states have statutes providing for state political conventions from which delegates to the National Conventions are chosen, leaving the selection of delegates to state party rules. Twelve states have no statute whatever on the subject. Republican Supp. Br. at 13 n.5. Thus, at best, the degree of state action should vary from state-to-state. Moreover, none of these statutes bear on the issue sub judice, the allocation of delegates and whether that decision constitutes state action.

. Cousins v. Wigoda, 419 U.S. 477, 489-90, 95 S.Ct. 541, 549, 42 L.Ed.2d 595 (1975) (footnote omitted), citing Wigoda v. Cousins, 342 F.Supp. 82, 86 (N.D.Ill.1972). The Court also noted recent proposals that the parties use regional or national primaries to choose these nominees. 419 U.S. at 490 n.9, 95 S.Ct. 541.

. Cousins also apparently undercuts the second step in our Georgia analysis — the analogy between delegate-selection processes and candidate-nomination processes. In disposing of the argument that Illinois was protecting its compelling interest in the electoral process, the Court stated:
Consideration of the special function of delegates to such a Convention militates persuasively against the conclusion that the asserted interest constitutes a compelling state interest. Delegates perform a task of supreme importance to every citizen of the Nation regardless of their State of residence. The vital business of the Convention is the nomination of the Party’s candidates for the offices of President and Vice President of the United States. To that end, the state political parties are “affiliated with a national party through acceptance of the national call to send state delegates to the national convention.” Ray v. Blair, 343 U.S. 214, 225, 72 S.Ct. 654, 659, 96 L.Ed. 894 (1952).
419 U.S. at 489, 95 S.Ct. at 548. This singling out of convention delegates’ “unique task” dissipates the strength of the analogy we relied upon in Georgia. See also Smith v. State Exec. Comm., 288 F.Supp. 371, 374-76 (N.D. Ga.1968); Note, One Man, One Vote and Selection of Delegates to National Nominating Conventions, 37 U.Chi.L.Rev. 536, 538—45 (1970); Note, Constitutional Safeguards in the Selection of Delegates to Presidential Nominating Conventions, 78 Yale L.J. 1228, 1232-35 (1969). Cf. Lynch v. Torquato, 343 F.2d 370 (3d Cir. 1965); Irish v. Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, 287 F.Supp. 794, 802-03 (D.Minn.), aff’d, 399 F.2d 119 (8th Cir. 1968). But see Maxey v. Washington State Democratic Comm., 319 F.Supp. 673 (W.D.Wash. 1970).
Cousins also clouds the correctness of the third step in the Georgia analysis. If the states cannot enforce the results of their primaries, there is some question whether the acts of national conventions should be considered those of the states acting in concert.

. The Court has also recognized that the states cannot constitutionally effectuate their interest in a manner which too rigidly restricts access to the ballot and electoral process. See, e. g., Bullock v. Carter, 405 U.S. 134, 92 S.Ct. 849, 31 L.Ed.2d 92 (1972); Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U.S. 814, 89 S.Ct. 1493, 23 L.Ed.2d 1 (1969); Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23, 89 S.Ct. 5, 21 L.Ed.2d 24 (1968).

. It should also be noted that in many states, the national party nominee is placed on the ballot only after certification by the state party. If there is a constitutional violation in these procedures, it is not the certification, but the state’s grant of automatic ballot access to the major parties’ candidates. The remedy should not be to interfere with the associational activities of the national parties, but to deny their candidate the advantage in securing a place on the state’s ballot. See Kester, Constitutional Restrictions on Political Parties, 60 Va.L.Rev. 735, 767 (1974).

. The constitutionality of these provisions was upheld for the most part in Buckley v. Valeo, 171 U.S.App.D.C. 172, 519 F.2d 821 (1975) (en banc), review granted,-U.S.-, 96 S.Ct. 32, 46 L.Ed.2d 36, 44 U.S.L.W. 3178 (U.S. Oct. 6, 1975).

. Of course, the associational interests identified in Cousins may preclude such regulation, a question explicitly left open by that opinion. 419 U.S. at 483 n.4, 95 S.Ct. 541.

. Black, The Supreme Court — Foreward, 81 Harv.L.Rev. 69, 95 (1967).

. One important difference is that, unlike an official elected to a governmental body, a delegate selected to attend a national convention apparently cannot force that body to seat him. Compare Powell v. McCormick, 395 U.S. 486, 89 S.Ct. 1944, 23 L.Ed.2d 491 (1969), with Cousins v. Wigoda, supra note 6.

. A caveat — this case does not concern invidious exclusion, such as race, alienage or national origin. Such a case might change both the previously discussed state action analysis and the appropriateness of judicial interference. However, we intimate no views concerning the ultimate disposition of such a case without the benefit of a concrete factual context before us.

. In Georgia, we also took note of a lesser justiciability test from Baker v. Carr:
Judicial standards under the Equal Protection Clause are well developed and familiar, and it has been open to the courts since the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment to determine, if on the particular facts they must, that a discrimination refíects no policy, but simply arbitrary and capricious action.
447 F.2d at 1277, citing 369 U.S. at 226, 82 S.Ct. 691. If state action were shown, I agree that we could scrutinize even delegate allocation schemes for totally arbitrary action. However, plaintiffs do not, as they clearly cannot, make that claim, but argue that the deviations are not legitimately justifiable. That claim is non-justiciable under Baker.