California Democratic Party v. Jones, 530 U.S. 567, 14 (2000)

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580

CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATIC PARTY v. JONES

Opinion of the Court

when the person favored by a majority of the party members prevails, he will have prevailed by taking somewhat different positions—and, should he be elected, will continue to take somewhat different positions in order to be renominated. As respondents' own expert concluded: "The policy positions of Members of Congress elected from blanket primary states are . . . more moderate, both in an absolute sense and relative to the other party, and so are more reflective of the preferences of the mass of voters at the center of the ideological spectrum." App. 109 (expert report of Elisabeth R. Gerber). It is unnecessary to cumulate evidence of this phenomenon, since, after all, the whole purpose of Proposition 198 was to favor nominees with "moderate" positions. Id., at 89. It encourages candidates—and officeholders who hope to be renominated—to curry favor with persons whose views are more "centrist" than those of the party base. In effect, Proposition 198 has simply moved the general election one step earlier in the process, at the expense of the parties' ability to perform the "basic function" of choosing their own leaders. Kusper, 414 U. S., at 58.

Nor can we accept the Court of Appeals' contention that the burden imposed by Proposition 198 is minor because petitioners are free to endorse and financially support the candidate of their choice in the primary. 169 F. 3d, at 659. The ability of the party leadership to endorse a candidate is simply no substitute for the party members' ability to choose their own nominee. In Eu, we recognized that party-leadership endorsements are not always effective— for instance, in New York's 1982 gubernatorial primary, Edward Koch, the Democratic Party leadership's choice, lost out to Mario Cuomo. 489 U. S., at 228, n. 18. One study has concluded, moreover, that even when the leadership-endorsed candidate has won, the effect of the endorsement has been negligible. Ibid. (citing App. in Eu v. San Francisco County Democratic Central Comm., O. T. 1988, No. 87- 1269, pp. 97-98). New York's was a closed primary; one

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