Court Opinion

ID: 9462251
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:36:20.022263+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:29.837795
License: Public Domain

WILKEY, Circuit Judge, with whom joined Senior Circuit Judge DANAHER
(concurring in the result only.)
Although we are in agreement that the judgment of the District Court must be reversed insofar as it grants appellants relief, we would reach that result on the threshold issues of “state action” and “justiciability” and not on the merits of appellants’ claims. We recognize that this court in 1971 held in Georgia v. National Democratic Party1 that the allocation of delegates by a national political convention was “state action” within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment and represented a justiciable controversy, and that those holdings were reaffirmed shortly thereafter in Bode v. National Democratic Party.2
In the interim since, however, the Supreme Court in O’Brien v. Brown3 expressed “grave doubts” about our disposition of an analogous case dealing with seating of delegates at the 1972 Democratic National Convention. A stay, issued by Mr. Justice Rehnquist in his capacity as Circuit Justice, dealing with the allocation plan presently before us, also called into question our opinions in Georgia and Bode.4 As a result, a reassessment of our prior opinions is definitely in order.
Aside from concern as to the substantive correctness of our previous views, we find the majority’s refusal to consider and resolve in this en banc proceeding the state action and justiciability issues posed by this case to be unwise judicial policy. By failing to resolve these issues in a ease brought sufficiently in advance of the 1976 national conventions to permit adequate deliberation, we doubtless will face the unenviable task of resolving these questions on the eve of a national convention under time constraints and other pressures that would make reasoned deliberation difficult, if not impossible.
I. State Action
The initial threshold question posed by this challenge is whether there was sufficient governmental involvement in the allocation of delegates to the 1976 Republican National Convention to trigger application of the equal protection guarantees of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
In our opinion in Georgia v. National Democratic Party we relied on two rationales for our conclusion that the allocation of delegates by a national political party constituted “state action.” The first rationale involved a three-part syl*606logism.5 First, we noted that “state action” inheres in the participation of state parties in candidate nomination by statewide primary election. In support of this proposition reliance was placed upon the Texas White Primary line of cases6 and the more recent Supreme Court opinion in Gray v. Sanders7 Given the premise, we said secondly that the state party’s action in selecting delegates to its national convention is also invested with “state action,” since the delegates’ primary function is to nominate candidates for the two national offices. Finally, if the activity of individual state parties in selecting delegates to participate in the nomination process is “state action,” the collective decisions made by all these delegates once assembled must constitute “state action.”
Our second basis in Georgia for finding “state action” was derived from the fact that most, if not all, states utilize the national political conventions in order to limit the electorate’s choice in the general election,8 i. e., the narrowing process. The party nominating process was thus thought to be state action either (1) because the parties by engaging in the narrowing process are undertaking a governmental task akin to conducting a primary election, or (2) because the states ratify the result of the convention through the automatic placement of its nominees on the general election ballot.
The opinion in Bode merely reasserted the conclusions reached in Georgia that any “decision made by the Democratic Party at the national level ... is tantamount to a decision of the States acting in concert . . . .”9
In view of the Supreme Court’s recent pronouncements, we are now of the view that the rationales articulated in Georgia and followed in Bode were incorrect, and that the actions of the national political conventions per se are not sufficiently infused with state involvement to trigger constitutional protections except in the context of racial or other invidious discrimination.10
Our primary difficulty with the first ground of the Georgia opinion focuses upon the jump between premise two and the conclusion. Even if it be conceded arguendo that “the state’s delegate-selection processes are imbued with the same quality of state action found in candidate-nomination processes . . .,” 11 it does not follow that the actions of delegates selected at such elections are “state action” merely because they were chosen at a primary which is subject to constitutional constraints.
Party participation in the electoral process is subject to constitutional safeguards because that process is permeated by state regulation. In Gray v. Sanders, for example, the Court held the Georgia Democratic primary election to be subject to an equal protection attack because Georgia “collaborates in the con*607duct of the primary, and puts its power behind the rules of the party.” 12
The actions of a national political convention or committee are distinguishable because they are not similarly permeated by governmental involvement or regulation. There is no law, state or federal, requiring a national party political convention. Neither the Federal Government nor any of the States seek to dictate the manner in which a national political convention adopts its platform or its nominees.13 Similarly, there is no governmental involvement at all with the delegate allocation process. The formula here under review was purely the product of party deliberations and actions and was neither compelled, restricted, modified, devised, or encouraged by any state statute or ordinance. The national party decision being challenged in this case is thus not “in reality, the decisions of the states acting in concert.”14 It is rather private action by party delegates and officials. They may have been selected by a process that was sufficiently regulated by a state government to call into play constitutional restrictions at the selection stage. However, this connection alone is simply too tenuous to trigger the Equal Protection Clause.
Turning to the second ground advanced in the Georgia opinion, we question both the premise and conclusion. There can be no doubt that as a historical matter the nominees of the Republican and Democratic parties have had a monopoly on national office since 1852. Whether their monopoly will continue into the future has been questioned by some15 and is not particularly material for present purposes, because if that monopoly continues it will not be the result of governmental action. The recent Ballot Access Cases of the Supreme Court have recognized compelling state interests in limiting party and candidate access to the ballot.16 However, they have also recognized that the states are not permitted to freeze in the two major parties nor set down requirements that so burden access by independent candidates and new parties that they would not be permitted ballot access despite significant public support.17 We are thus led to conclude that if the Republicans and Democrats continue to dominate Presidential politics it will be because the vast majority of the voters will continue to feel that the nominees of those parties deserve their support and their votes, and not because state election laws maintain them in power.
Each major (or minor) party is free to adopt whatever scheme it desires — convention, national primary, or lottery — in the selection of its candidates for national office. That the states utilize the national party convention choices as the party nominees to go on the ballot, instead of requiring a petition or other device, does not retroactively transmute *608the national convention nominating process into state action. In Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co.,18 where the state had accepted a tariff filing by the utility containing a proviso for termination of service without a hearing, the court concluded that approval by the state of the regulated utility’s privately selected termination procedure did not “transmute a practice initiated by the utility and approved by the Commission into ‘state action.’ ”19
Neither state nor federal government has ordered any political party to hold a national convention, nor prescribed the method of selection or allocation of delegates to be employed in 1976. The Republican National Committee’s chosen method of allocation is a purely private choice. “[E]xercise of the choice allowed by state law where the initiative comes from it and not the State, does not make its action in doing so ‘state action’ for the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment,” 20 so held the Jackson Court.
Whatever the states’ interest in narrowing the field of Presidential candidates, it by no means logically follows that the narrowing process thus becomes a state function. The function is performed by private parties on their own initiative, and for their own purposes. The constitutional right of association protects the parties and persons involved in so doing. While not deciding specifically the issue of delegate allocation, the Supreme Court in Cousins v. Wigoda21 made it abundantly clear that the individual states are powerless to impose their will on a national party nominating convention in any manner that would interfere with the almost unfettered discretion of the parties in naming candidates.
Feeble indeed is the “state function” which no state has the power to control. Thus would seem to perish the claim that the Republican National Convention’s allocation of delegates is in any way a “state function.”
We would reject — had it been offered — any claim that the recent amendment to the Internal Revenue Code22 as to federal financing of national political conventions has imported an element of governmental involvement. Rather, considering the financing scheme alone, we deem our recent opinion in Greenya v. George Washington University23 to be controlling. After reviewing the cases discussing this issue and the relevant arguments, the court concluded that “[w]ith the possible exception of racial discrimination by recipients of government funding, . . mere financial support for particular projects also represents insufficient government involvement [to entail application of First or Fifth Amendment guarantees].”24
Considering the financing scheme cumulatively along with the other elements of government involvement previously discussed does not require a different result. Those other possible aspects of government involvement all emanate from the states and therefore cannot simply be added to federal financing to change the private character of the conventions. The Congress has sought to exercise no control over the conventions’ governance or deliberations, hence there is no nexus between the complaint of plaintiffs, malapportionment of delegates, and the financing arrangement. The Congress would be quite surprised to learn that federal financial support had the effect of changing the conventions into governmental entities.
*609In addition, there are countervailing associational rights that must be considered in drawing the “state action” threshold. “The right of members of a political party to gather in a national political convention in order to formulate proposed programs and nominate candidates for political office is at the very heart of the freedom of assembly and association which has been established in earlier cases decided by the Court.”25 As a result, courts should be reluctant to subject the conventions to constitutional restraints. Such a reluctance reinforces our conclusion that there is no “state action” involved when the political parties apportion their convention delegates.
II. Justiciability
The second threshold issue posed by this ease is whether a challenge to the formula by which a national political convention allocates its delegates among the various states presents a non justiciable “political question.” As with a finding of insufficient “state action,” a finding of nonjusticiability here obviates the necessity — -indeed, the propriety — of deciding the merits of plaintiffs’ claims.
In an earlier phase of this case Ripon Society obtained in the District Court an injunction against the use by the Republican Party of the “bonus” formula for allocation of delegates to the party’s 1972 convention.26 That injunction was stayed by Mr. Justice Rehnquist on the ground of, inter alia, “the probability of error in the result below.”27 He based his reasoning on the following passage from O’Brien v. Brown :28
No case is cited to us in which any federal court has undertaken to interject itself into the deliberative process 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. [Citation omitted] Judicial intervention in this area traditionally has been approached with great caution and restraint. [Citations omitted] 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 context. Vital rights of association guaranteed by the Constitution are also involved. [W]e entertain grave doubts as to the action taken by the Court of Appeals.29 (Emphasis added.)
O’Brien did not involve the question of the overall apportionment of delegates to a party convention; rather, the issue was which of two rival slates of delegates from one state should be seated. Nevertheless, in Republican State Central Committee of Arizona v. Ripon Society, Inc.,30 Justice Rehnquist was undoubtedly correct in his perception that there is little practical or legal difference between judicial interference with a party’s seating of delegates at the time of the convention and its apportionment of delegates prior to the convention. Both *610are highly political questions, and their answers lie at the core of how the party perceives itself now and how it would like to present itself in the future.
Any doubt as to the importance the Supreme Court attaches to the freedom of a party convention to determine its own composition was put to rest recently in Cousins v. Wigoda.31 Relying heavily on the freedom of association of individuals in the political decisionmaking process, the Court held that a state had no power to dictate to a party which delegates it should take from that state — regardless of the fact that the slate chosen by the convention had not been sanctioned in accordance with state law. Central to the Court’s decision was the recognition that a party’s choice of its associates in large measure molds its political beliefs and ideas.32 This is particularly true of the party’s quadrennial convention. What the convention decides — not only as to Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominees, but also as to party organization and ideology for the next four years — is primarily determined by who is permitted by the party to come to it.
Political parties are formed for the purpose of advancing certain commonly held ideas of individuals. These individuals have always enjoyed the right to structure the party in such a way as to seek to insure that those ideas should be perpetuated. A critical factor in this structuring process is the determination of which elements of the electorate as a whole are or could be most receptive to the party’s viewpoint and programs. If the party, for example, were to decide that only individuals in rural areas can sympathize with its platform and determines to accept delegates only from such regions, clearly the party cannot be forced to accept delegates from urban areas as well without suffering a gross infringement of its right of free expression and association. As a matter of political influence — indeed, of political survival — it might well be suicidal for the party to shut out urban opinion from its deliberations on candidates and platform; but certainly no decision is more personal to the party and less appropriate for judicial interference than its choice of maintaining ideological purity at the possible cost of minimizing political effectiveness.
The direction — the nominees and the platform — the party takes at a convention is in large measure a function of whom it allows as delegates. From a constitutional perspective, the judiciary can no more prescribe the composition of the convention than it can dictate the make-up of the party, its political beliefs as stated in the platform, or its nominees.
At the same time, it is important to note that, at least in this country, most political parties are not content simply to profess a particular ideological bent. They want to win elections as well. If the political decisions they make — as to candidates, platforms, and delegate apportionment — are not vindicated at the polls, they are likely to amend their posture in an endeavor to achieve more satisfactory electoral results. To the extent that a party fails to represent the “people’s choice,” therefore, the party itself can be expected to remedy the situation. If it does not, other parties will be quick to capitalize on its error. In short, the electoral process makes the parties largely self-regulatory; their errors as to the will of the majority are largely self-corrective.
This does not mean, of course, that every political party will, or should, attempt to represent every interest in American society, or even every interest within the party itself. It may well be that in its zeal to appeal to a large cross-section of the populace the party will lose the support of that segment which in the past has given it its most loyal backing. Also, its ideological position may become so homogenized that the *611public loses confidence in the party’s political integrity. If the party tries to stand for everything, it may wind up standing for nothing in the public mind. The questions of how far the party can afford to spread its ideology and of where its best support lies in the populace are archetypally political in nature. The courts have absolutely no standards —even assuming they have the right — to make such decisions.33
At least two of the formulations of the “political question” doctrine laid down by the Supreme Court in Baker v. Carr34 are directly pertinent to this case. One bars entertainment of a suit if the court finds “a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving [the controversy].” 35 The other, closely related, formulation requires the court to stay its hand when faced with “the impossibility of deciding [the controversy] without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly for nonjudicial discretion.”36 Although troubled by the problem, this court in Georgia found a “manageable standard” for review of the Democratic Party’s delegate allocation formula in the “one man, one vote” requirement of the reapportionment decisions.37 We concluded:
The principle which renders the questions raised in this litigation justiciable is that 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.38
This conclusion was cited and found determinative of the justiciability issue in Bode as well.39
Our decisions in Georgia and Bode were not reached without considerable pondering of the Supreme Court’s then current development of the “one man, one vote” doctrine. In the interim since the Court has illuminated in those cases discussed above40 issues which are much closer and therefore much more determinative of the issues we face here. Reflecting on these most recent Supreme Court pronouncements, it is apparent that our analysis in Georgia and Bode is inconsistent therewith.
The errors of our previous position would seem to be two. First, that the “one man, one vote” principle developed in reapportionment cases can have no application to a body which is neither elective nor representative, and which does not exercise general governmental powers. Second, even assuming a possible analogy between a legislature and a political party’s nominating convention, it is impossible meaningfully to define and identify the constituency each delegate purportedly represents. These twin logical failings of the Georgia rationale should not, we submit, be allowed to resist analysis in yet another of this Circuit’s delegate apportionment decisions. They are dealt with in turn below.
*612A. The Non-Governmental, Non-Representative Nature of a Political Party Convention
The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized, in one reapportionment case after another, that the principle of “one man, one vote” applies only to units of government which are representative in nature and exercise general governmental powers.41 If the government unit has a very limited function and its members are not accountable to particular constituencies for their decisions, the “malapportionment” of the members does no offense to the Constitution.42
Political party nominating conventions meet neither of the criteria for application of the “one man, one vote” principle. In the first place, not only do they not exercise general governmental powers, but, as discussed in Part I above, they are not a unit of government at all. It may well be that the convention serves an important societal interest in winnowing out some candidates and thereby reducing the number who appear on the ballot at the general election; but the incidental performance of a public benefit by a private association does not render its activity “state action.” Even assuming the possibility of ascribing a governmental function to a political convention, the analogy would be much closer to a special purpose unit which does not exercise normal governmental powers over the citizenry (and whose acts have disproportionate effects on different segments of the community) than to a legislature or other body with more generalized governmental authority.43
Second, and equally important, a political convention is not a representative body. Delegates need not be, and usually are not, elected to their positions.44 They are not bound to vote for any candidate and do exercise their own discretion, based partially on occurrences subsequent to their selection and often on happenings at the convention itself. Even in the minority of states where delegates are elected or selected as the by-product of a Presidential primary, the delegate is only morally bound on a limited number of ballots to stick by a particular candidate. Furthermore, as Cousins v. Wigoda made clear, the convention is free to reject any individual delegate or slate of delegates- — regardless of the method by which they were selected or elected — which does not meet with the convention’s approval.
Thus, the delegate to a convention is not comparable to a representative in a legislature. A representative has a right to compel the legislature to seat him.45 If he is not seated, the citizens of his state or district are effectively disenfranchised. In contrast, these same citizens enjoy no legal right to be represented at a political convention. They have no right, therefore, to insist on particular delegates, or to demand that those delegates vote in accordance with their wishes. To force a national convention involuntarily to accept delegates of a particular state’s choosing would be in direct contravention of each delegate’s and the party’s right of free association.
To be sure, the major parties at present accept delegations from every state to their national conventions. Moreover, the delegates can be expected *613to make known to the convention the political views of actual and potential party adherents in their respective states. Indeed, the course of reform within the Democratic Party in recent years evidences the party’s decision to become “more open,” to encourage greater “grass roots” participation, and to make its conventions theoretically more representative of the will of its “constituency.”46 This decision by the Democrats, however, was a political choice, borne of what the convention perceived was in the party’s political self-interest. If that decision, in the view of succeeding conventions, is determined to have injected too much divisiveness and factionalism within the party, the party is free to rescind it.
So, in the case at bar, if the Republican Party has made the political choice to invite larger delegations from the western and southern states, or from states which have traditionally voted Republican, it may be because the party believes that is the way to keep its organization in those states strong, or because it feels an obligation to reward those states for past allegiance, or because it feels delegates from those states are more likely to be of the proper ideological bent. Regardless of its reasoning, or of its sagacity, that decision is for the Republican National Convention alone to make — not for one faction within the party which was unable to persuade the convention of the merit of its position, and not for the courts.
The judiciary has neither standards by which to make the decision nor the right to make the kinds of sensitive policy determinations which are required.
B. The Unidentifiable Nature of a Political Party’s “Constituency”
Even assuming the possibility of drawing an analogy between the apportionment of representatives in a legislature and the allocation of delegates to a convention, the “one man, one vote” standard is well nigh impossible to apply in this situation. That standard depends on identifying the “man” whose “vote” is to be given equal weight with that of some other man. The reapportionment decisions use population as their criterion, and, not surprisingly, in Georgia the delegate apportionment plan was challenged on the ground that it failed strictly to conform to the relative population of the states. We correctly rejected that argument, noting that a convention delegate, unlike an elected official, does not represent the population as a whole, but a constituency which is “. significantly smaller than the whole of the electorate, and varies dramatically from state to state and from election to election.” 47
Inevitably, in Bode we were faced with the argument that the only acceptable criterion for allocating delegates was that of party strength in a state — as demonstrated by the average of the number of votes cast for the Democratic Presidential nominee in the three immediately preceding Presidential elections. We correctly rejected that argument as well, with the following analysis:
Nor is the individual to be represented identifiable except in a loose, conceptual sense. Appellees would define such individual as one who cast an anonymous vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate in. an earlier year. It seems to us that the constituency represented at a national convention does not comprise solely “Democrats,” so defined. To the extent that a voter, whether he be a registered Democrat or a Republican, third party adherent or independent, is given alternative slates by the two major parties, he has a stake in the outcome of *614the nominating process of both parties. Accordingly, the constituency for a national convention comprises to a certain degree the entire electorate. By viewing the constituency of the Democratic National Convention in this way, the application of appellees’ theory — that the allocation of delegates must be based on past performance— could theoretically result in a failure to represent, or at best, in an under-representation, of those who might wish to nominate and vote for a nominee different from the one ultimately selected at the convention. To identify and count potential Democrats is impossible, requiring desirable but unavailable clairvoyance. Elusive too is the utilization of past voting patterns — transitory political phenomena — to ascertain the current population to be represented at a national convention48 (Emphasis added.)
Added to the logical and practical bankruptcy of the “party strength” argument is the fact that in fifteen states there is no voter registration by party — a possible alternative means of determining the party’s “constituency” — and in other states the lists are outdated.49 Moreover, many voters register as “independents” in order to avoid being tagged with the label of one party or another. Finally, even registered “party members” have no duties or obligations toward the party; they may alter their membership at will. Even those who retain their membership cannot be compelled either to contribute financially to the party or display loyalty at the polls.
If neither population nor party strength can be relied upon to provide a “judicially manageable and discoverable standard” for deciding the question of delegate allocation, what possible standard remains? Certainly no combination of the two provides any more stable constitutional footing than each standing alone. Our inability to formulate a viable standard in Georgia or Bode, the refusal of the panel in the vacated opinion in the instant case to set down any clear guidelines, and the failure of the majority of this court en banc to identify the touchstone by which it has ratified the allocation plan challenged here, leads us to the conclusion that no authoritative standard exists. The absence of a judicially cognizable criterion for determining the “proper” allocation of delegates to a political convention dictates that the courts must refuse to intervene in disputes between intra-party factions over such allocation. The decision must be left to the internal decisionmaking machinery of each individual party.

Conclusion

The majority today sidesteps the issues of state action and justiciability at the potential cost of continued disruptive litigation over the private, political decisions of national party conventions as to their future membership. This manifests a strange intent to keep this court open for the business of directing the proceedings of national political conventions- — of which there may be a surfeit in 1976 — in spite of the fact that the Supreme Court has all but told us such business is none of our business.
The determination of what formula to employ in allocating delegates involves delicate questions of how best “to achieve the practical advancement of the political ideas for the pursuit of which the [party] was formed.” 50 It is a question intensely personal to the party, involving not only the exercise of its members’ constitutional right to free association, but also political, strategic, and ideological considerations which are manifestly inappropriate for the courts. We concur in the result reached by the majority, but register our strong disagreement with their decision to avoid the decisive threshold issues in this case.

. 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).

. 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).

. 409 U.S. 1, 92 S.Ct. 2718, 34 L.Ed.2d 1 (1972). The Supreme Court has also in the interim decided the cases of Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 95 S.Ct. 449, 42 L.Ed.2d 477 (1974), and Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U.S. 163, 92 S.Ct. 1965, 32 L.Ed.2d 627 (1972). In the former case the Court held that the termination of service by a heavily regulated utility with something approaching monopoly power was not state action, absent some actual connection between the state and the termination of service. In the latter case the Court held that the refusal of a private club to serve a black guest at its dining room and bar did not constitute “state action” despite the fact that the state licensed the club to serve liquor and regulated the club in some particulars unrelated to the discriminatory practices. These two cases are arguably distinguishable on their facts, but their thrust does reinforce our conclusion, developed independently, that the states are not sufficiently involved in the actions of the national political conventions.

. Republican State Central Committee of Arizona v. Ripon Society, Inc., Application for Stay, 409 U.S. 1222, 93 S.Ct. 1475, 34 L.Ed.2d 717 (1972).

. 145 U.S.App.D.C. at 105-06, 447 F.2d at 1274-75.

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

. 372 U.S. 368, 83 S.Ct. 801, 9 L.Ed.2d 821 (1963).

. 145 U.S.App.D.C. at 107, 447 F.2d at 1276.

. 146 U.S.App.D.C. at 375, 452 F.2d at 1304.

. As we indicated earlier in Greenya v. George Washington University, 167 U.S.App. D.C. 379, 383, 512 F.2d 556, 560 (1975), we are in agreement with Judge Friendly that racial and other invidious discrimination is peculiarly offensive to the Fourteenth Amendment, hence a lesser degree of state involvement may constitute “state action” in that context. Although we are not faced with such a case here, we specifically note that our views on “state action” might well be different if the issue arose in a case presenting a claim of discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin, or sex. Accord, Weise v. Syracuse University, 522 F.2d 397, 405-407 (2nd Cir. 1975).

. 145 U.S.App.D.C. at 106, 447 F.2d at 1275 (emphasis in original).

. 372 U.S. 368, 374, 83 S.Ct. 801, 9 L.Ed.2d 821 (1963), quoting from Chapman v. King, 154 F.2d 460, 464 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 327 U.S. 800, 66 S.Ct. 905, 90 L.Ed. 1025 (1946).

. It is, in fact, doubtful that any such scheme of state or federal regulation would be constitutional. In view of the First Amendment associational rights involved, governmental regulation could only be in furtherance of a compelling interest and even then would have to be tailored to be least restrictive of the associational rights involved. Compare Cousins v. Wigoda, 419 U.S. 477, 95 S.Ct. 541, 42 L.Ed.2d 595 (1975).

. 145 U.S.App.D.C. at 106, 447 F.2d at 1275.

. See, e. g., D. Broder, The Party’s Over (1971).

. American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U.S. 767, 782 n. 14, 94 S.Ct. 1296, 39 L.Ed.2d 744 (1974).

. Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23, 32, 89 S.Ct. 5, 21 L.Ed.2d 24 (1968) (“The fact is, however, that the Ohio system does not merely favor a ‘two-party system’; it favors two particular parties — the Republicans and the Democrats — and in effect tends to give them a complete monopoly.”); American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U.S. 767, 94 S.Ct. 1296, 39 L.Ed.2d 744 (1974). Cf. Lubin v. Panish, 415 U.S. 709, 94 S.Ct. 1315, 39 L.Ed.2d 702 (1974) (exclusion of an indigent from the ballot because of an inability to pay a fixed fee).

. 419 U.S. 345, 95 S.Ct. 449, 42 L.Ed.2d 477 (1974) .

. 419 U.S. at 357, 95 S.Ct. at 457.

. Ibid.

. 419 U.S. 477, 95 S.Ct. 541, 42 L.Ed.2d 595 (1975).

. Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974, Pub.L. No. 93-443, § 406, to be codified as Int.Rev.Code of 1954, § 9008.

. 512 F.2d 556 (1975).

. Id. at 560.

. Cousins v. Wigoda, 419 U.S. 477, 491, 95 S.Ct. 541, 42 L.Ed.2d 595 (1975) (Rehnquist, J., concurring).

. Ripon Society, Inc. v. National Republican Party, 343 F.Supp. 168 (D.D.C.1972).

. Republican State Central Comm. of Arizona v. Ripon Society, Inc., 409 U.S. 1222, 1225, 93 S.Ct. 1475, 34 L.Ed.2d 717 (1972).

. 409 U.S. 1, 92 S.Ct. 2718, 34 L.Ed.2d 1 (1972).

. Id. at 4-5, 92 S.Ct. 2718, quoted in 409 U.S. at 1226-27, 93 S.Ct. at 1478.

. 409 U.S. 1222, 93 S.Ct. 1475, 34 L.Ed.2d 717 (1972).

. 419 U.S. 477, 95 S.Ct. 541, 42 L.Ed.2d 595 (1975).

. Id at 487, 95 S.Ct. 541.

. Nevertheless, this court found in both Georgia and Bode that the judiciary was fully empowered to exercise oversight with regard to the delegate allocation formulas of political party nominating conventions. We did not feel at that time, prior to the Supreme Court’s decisions in O’Brien and Cousins v. Wigoda, that nonjusticiability presented a bar to our intervention in such intra-party decisionmaking.

. 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962).

. Id. at 217, 82 S.Ct. at 710.

. ibid.

. 145 U.S.App.D.C. 102, 108-09, 447 F.2d 1271, 1277-78 (1971).

. Id. at 109, 447 F.2d at 1278.

. 146 U.S.App.D.C. 373, 376, 452 F.2d 1302, 1305 (1971).

. Cousins v. Wigoda, 419 U.S. 477, 95 S.Ct. 541, 42 L.Ed.2d 595 (1975); O’Brien v. Brown, 409 U.S. 1, 92 S.Ct. 2718, 34 L.Ed.2d 1 (1972).

. See, e. g., Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District, 410 U.S. 719, 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); Avery v. Midland County, 390 U.S. 474, 88 S.Ct. 1114, 20 L.Ed.2d 45 (1968); Sailors v. Board of Education, 387 U.S. 105, 87 S.Ct. 1549, 18 L.Ed.2d 650 (1967).

. Id.

. See Salyer Land Co. v. Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District, 410 U.S. 719, 728-29, 93 S.Ct. 1224, 35 L.Ed.2d 659 (1973).

. See Developments in the Law—Election Law, 88 Harv.L.Rev. 1111, 1153-54 (1975).

. See Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 89 S.Ct. 1944, 23 L.Ed.2d 491 (1969).

. See generally A. Bickel, Reform and Continuity, The Electoral College, the Convention, and the Party System (1973); Note Presidential Nominating Conventions: Party Rules, State Law and the Constitution, 62 Geo.L.J. 1621, 1621-22 n. 5, 1627 nn. 30-31; Riddell v. National Democratic Party, 344 F.Supp. 908, 918, 921 (S.D. Miss. 1972).

. 145 U.S.App.D.C. 102, 110, 447 F.2d 1271, 1279 (1971).

. 146 U.S.App.D.C. 373, 377-78, 452 F.2d 1302, 1306-07 (1971).

. Appellants’ Br. at 28.

. Redfearn v. Delaware Republican State Comm., 502 F.2d 1123, 1127-28 (3rd Cir. 1974).