208
Thomas, J., concurring in judgment
framework if a challenged election law regulates "the mechanics of the electoral process," not speech. Id., at 345; but see Eu v. San Francisco County Democratic Central Comm., 489 U. S. 214, 222-223 (1989) (first determining that California's prohibition on primary endorsements by the official governing bodies of political parties burdened speech and association and then applying strict scrutiny). I suspect that when regulations of core political speech are at issue it makes little difference whether we determine burden first because restrictions on core political speech so plainly impose a "severe burden."
When an election law burdens voting and associational interests, our cases are much harder to predict, and I am not at all sure that a coherent distinction between severe and lesser burdens can be culled from them. For example, we have subjected to strict scrutiny Connecticut's requirement that voters in any party primary be registered members of that party because it burdened the "associational rights of the Party and its members." Tashjian v. Republican Party of Conn., 479 U. S. 208, 217 (1986). We similarly treated California's laws dictating the organization and composition of official governing bodies of political parties, limiting the term of office of a party chair, and requiring that the chair rotate between residents of northern and southern California because they "burden[ed] the associational rights of political parties and their members," Eu, supra, at 231. In Storer v. Brown, 415 U. S. 724 (1974), we applied strict scrutiny to California's law denying a ballot position to independent candidates who had a registered affiliation with a qualified political party within a year of the preceding primary election, apparently because it "substantially" burdened the rights to vote and associate. Id., at 729, 736.1 And in Nor-1 Although we did not explicitly apply strict scrutiny in Storer, we said that the State's interest was "not only permissible, but compelling," and that the device the State chose was "an essential part of its overall mechanism." 415 U. S., at 736.
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