378
Stevens, J., dissenting
briefs that the preservation of the two-party system supported the fusion ban, and indeed, when pressed at oral argument on the matter, the State expressly rejected this rationale. Tr. of Oral Arg. 26. Our opinions have been explicit in their willingness to consider only the particular interests put forward by a State to support laws that impose any sort of burden on First Amendment rights. See Anderson, 460 U. S., at 789 (the Court will "identify and evaluate the precise interests put forward by the State as justifications for the burden imposed by its rule"); id., at 817 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (state laws that burden First Amendment rights are upheld when they are " 'tied to a particularized legitimate purpose' ") (quoting Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U. S. 752, 762 (1973)); Burdick, 504 U. S., at 434.
Even if the State had put forward this interest to support its laws, it would not be sufficient to justify the fusion ban. In most States, perhaps in all, there are two and only two major political parties. It is not surprising, therefore, that most States have enacted election laws that impose burdens on the development and growth of third parties. The law at issue in this case is undeniably such a law. The fact that the law was both intended to disadvantage minor parties and has had that effect is a matter that should weigh against, rather than in favor of, its constitutionality.6
6 Indeed, "[a] burden that falls unequally on new or small political parties or on independent candidates impinges, by its very nature, on associational choices protected by the First Amendment." Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U. S. 780, 793-794 (1983). I do not think it is irrelevant that when antifusion laws were passed by States all over the Nation in the latter part of the 1800's, these laws, characterized by the majority as "reforms," ante, at 356, were passed by "the parties in power in state legislatures . . . to squelch the threat posed by the opposition's combined voting force." McKenna, 73 F. 3d, at 198. See Argersinger, "A Place on the Ballot": Fusion Politics and Antifusion Laws, 85 Am. Hist. Rev. 287, 302-306 (1980). Although the State is not required now to justify its laws with exclusive reference to the original purpose behind their passage,
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