Cite as: 520 U. S. 351 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
The New Party filed suit in United States District Court, contending that Minnesota's antifusion laws violated the party's associational rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The District Court granted summary judgment for the state defendants, concluding that Minnesota's fusion ban was "a valid and non-discriminatory regulation of the election process," and noting that "issues concerning the mechanics of choosing candidates . . . are, in large part, matters of policy best left to the deliberative bodies themselves." Twin Cities Area New Party v. McKenna, 863 F. Supp. 988, 994 (D. Minn. 1994).
The Court of Appeals reversed. Twin Cities Area New
Party v. McKenna, 73 F. 3d 196, 198 (CA8 1996). First, the court determined that Minnesota's fusion ban "unquestionably" and "severe[ly]" burdened the New Party's "freedom to select a standard bearer who best represents the party's ideologies and preferences" and its right to "broaden the base of public participation in and support for [its] activities." Ibid. (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). The court then decided that Minnesota's absolute ban on multiple-party nominations was "broader than necessary to serve the State's asserted interests" in avoiding intra-party discord and party splintering, maintaining a stable political system, and avoiding voter confusion, and that the State's remaining concerns about multiple-party nomination were "simply unjustified in this case." Id., at 199-200. The court noted, however, that the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit had upheld Wisconsin's similar fusion ban in Swamp v. Kennedy, 950 F. 2d 383, 386 (1991) (fusion ban did not burden associational rights and, even if it did, the State's interests justified the burden), cert. denied, 505 U. S. 1204 (1992). Nonetheless, the court concluded that Minnesota's fusion-ban provisions, Minn. Stat. §§ 204B.06, subd. 1(b), and
number of voters in the preceding state or county general election, whichever is less. §§ 204B.03, 204B.07-204B.08.
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