Court Opinion

ID: 9685939
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:10:08.423082+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:11.688742
License: Public Domain

COFFEY, J.
(concurring) I concur with the court’s opinion that the spring primary law is constitutional and binding on the state and national parties and that Wisconsin’s spring primary election is one of the most important progressive traditions of this state. The court rightly refuses to be a party to manipulation of the people’s right to vote in an open and binding primary election. What is in conflict is the National Democratic Party’s desire to limit the people’s freedom of choice as opposed to the interests of the state in maintaining and increasing voter participation in the process by which our national leaders are chosen. The instrument used by the National Democratic Party, the public declaration of party affiliation, is poorly designed to further its announced goal of freedom of association. The associational interest thus advanced is greatly outweighed by the state’s interest in protecting the privacy of the voting booth, encouraging full participation in the electoral process and maintaining the integrity of the Wisconsin nonpartisan spring election of local town boards, *550municipal, county and school boards and members of the state judiciary. Party politics has no place in the selection of those responsible for the education of our children.
Further, nothing could be more destructive of the concept of an independent, elected judiciary than party politics. This court has made it very clear that judges are not to become involved in party politics. Rule 12 of the Code of Judicial Ethics provides as follows:
“A judge shall not be a member of any political party or participate in its affairs, caucuses, promotions, platforms, endorsements, conventions, or activities. He shall not make or solicit financial or other contributions in support of its causes, or publicly endorse or speak on behalf of its candidates or platforms.”
Is it the intent of the National Democratic Party to disenfranchise 190 trial judges, 12 appellate judges and 7 justices of the supreme court of their constitutional right to vote on April 1, 1980 ?
A closed primary, where the only participants are those who publicly announce their affiliation with a political party, would seriously undermine the nonpartisan judicial elections to be held at the same time. The pressures on a candidate to violate the foregoing rule would be enormous. It is intolerable for the National Democratic Party to seek to impose on the state of Wisconsin a primary election system which would infringe on our independent, elected judiciary and our nonpartisan elected town, county, municipal and school board officials.
Robert M. La Follette, Sr. promoted the open primary as a means of restoring lost confidence in government. In these days when suspicion is so strong as to almost approach a belief in the dishonesty and lack of integrity of our government officials, it is most imperative that the electorate have and exercise its right to participate in the selection of candidates, as well as the right to *551choose between the candidates selected. The Wisconsin voter is equally competent to cast his or her ballot at the primary or the general election. Invading the voter’s privacy by requiring party affiliation be a matter of public record places undue pressure on the voter not to participate. Many will not take the chance that their names will appear on mailing lists and their privacy be further invaded. They will leave the field to the party professionals, the political bosses.
The Wisconsin open primary is more than an anti-bossism tradition as old as this century. It is also conducted at the same time as the nonpartisan spring election. These elections are another important Wisconsin tradition.
It is no answer to say that the primary election can be open so long as it is not binding on the delegates. The legislature has declared an open and binding primary election to be the public policy of the state of Wisconsin.
In recognizing this, our court has prevented the application of the unfortunate policy of the National Democratic Party so as to impose a closed or non-binding primary on the citizens of Wisconsin. I agree.