Court Opinion

ID: 9427461
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:20:53.388783+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:07.358331
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
concurring.
Although I join the Court’s opinion and its strict-scrutiny approach for election cases, I add these comments to record purposefully, and perhaps somewhat belatedly, my unrelieved discomfort with what seems to be a continuing tendency in this Court to use as tests such easy phrases as “compelling [state] interest” and “least drastic [or restrictive] means.” See, ante, at 184, 185, and 186. I have never been able fully to appreciate just what a “compelling state interest” is. If it means “convincingly controlling,” or “incapable of being overcome” upon any balancing process, then, of course, the test merely announces an inevitable result, and the test is no test at all. And, for me, “least drastic means” is a slippery slope and also the signal of the result the Court has chosen to reach. A judge would be unimaginative indeed if he could not come up with something a little less “drastic” or a little less “restrictive” in almost any situation, and thereby enable himself to *189vote to strike legislation down. This is reminiscent of the Court's indulgence, a few decades ago, in substantive due process in the economic area as a means of nullification.
I feel, therefore, and have always felt, that these phrases are really not very helpful for constitutional analysis. They are too convenient and result oriented, and I must endeavor to disassociate myself from them. Apart from their use, however, the result the Court reaches here is the correct one. It is with these reservations that I join the Court’s opinion.