Cite as: 520 U. S. 351 (1997)
Stevens, J., dissenting
system provides. The fusion candidacy does not threaten to divide the legislature and create significant risks of factionalism, which is the principal risk proponents of the two-party system point to. But it does provide a means by which voters with viewpoints not adequately represented by the platforms of the two major parties can indicate to a particular candidate that—in addition to his support for the major party views—he should be responsive to the views of the minor party whose support for him was demonstrated where political parties demonstrate support—on the ballot.
The strength of the two-party system—and of each of its major components—is the product of the power of the ideas, the traditions, the candidates, and the voters that constitute the parties.11 It demeans the strength of the two-party system to assume that the major parties need to rely on laws that discriminate against independent voters and minor parties in order to preserve their positions of power.12 Indeed,
S. Rosenstone, R. Behr, & E. Lazarus, Third Parties in America: Citizen Response to Major Party Failure 4-9 (1984).
11 The Court of Appeals recognized that fusion politics could have an important role in preserving this value when it struck down the fusion ban. "[R]ather than jeopardizing the integrity of the election system, consensual multiple party nomination may invigorate it by fostering more competition, participation, and representation in American politics." Mc-Kenna, 73 F. 3d, at 199.
12 The experience in New York with fusion politics provides considerable evidence that neither political stability nor the ultimate strength of the two major parties is truly risked by the existence of successful minor parties. More generally, "the presence of one or even two significant third parties has not led to a proliferation of parties, nor to the destruction of basic democratic institutions." Mazmanian 69; see also The Supreme Court, 1982 Term—Independent Candidates and Minority Parties, 97 Harv. L. Rev. 1, 162 (1983) ("American political stability does not depend on a two-party oligopoly. . . . [H]istorical experience in this country demonstrate[s] that minor parties and independent candidacies are compatible with long-term political stability. Moreover, there is no reason to believe that eliminating restrictions on political minorities would change the basic structure of the two-party system in this country").
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