Cite as: 520 U. S. 351 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
This interest does not permit a State to completely insulate the two-party system from minor parties' or independent candidates' competition and influence, Anderson, supra, at 802; Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23 (1968), nor is it a paternalistic license for States to protect political parties from the consequences of their own internal disagreements. Eu, supra, at 227; Tashjian, 479 U. S., at 224. That said, the States' interest permits them to enact reasonable election regulations that may, in practice, favor the traditional two-party system, see Burnham Declaration, App. 12 (American politics has been, for the most part, organized around two parties since the time of Andrew Jackson), and that temper the destabilizing effects of party splintering and excessive factionalism. The Constitution permits the Minnesota Legislature to decide that political stability is best served through a healthy two-party system. See Rutan v. Republican Party of Ill., 497 U. S. 62, 107 (1990) (Scalia, J., dissenting) ("The stabilizing effects of such a [two-party] system are obvious"); Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S. 109, 144-145 (1986) (O'Connor, J., concurring) ("There can be little doubt that the emergence of a strong and stable two-party system in this country has contributed enormously to sound and effective government"); Branti v. Finkel, 445 U. S. 507, 532 (1980) (Powell, J., dissenting) ("Broad-based political parties supply an essential coherence and flexibility to the American political scene"). And while an interest in securing the perceived benefits of a stable two-party system will not justify unreasonably exclusionary restrictions, see Williams, supra, at 31-32, States need not remove all of the many hurdles third parties face in the American political arena today.
In Storer, we upheld a California statute that denied ballot positions to independent candidates who had voted in the immediately preceding primary elections or had a registered party affiliation at any time during the year before the same
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