594
Stevens, J., dissenting
tivities, regulation of access to election ballot does not); La Follette, 450 U. S., at 120-121 (noting that it "may well be correct" to conclude that party associational rights are not unconstitutionally infringed by state open primary); id., at 131-132 (Powell, J., dissenting) (concluding that associational rights of major political parties are limited by parties' lack of defined ideological orientation and political mission). I think it clear—though the point has never been decided by this Court—"that a State may require parties to use the primary format for selecting their nominees." Ante, at 572. The reason a State may impose this significant restriction on a party's associational freedoms is that both the general election and the primary are quintessential forms of state action.4 It is because the primary is state action that an organization—whether it calls itself a political party or just a "Jaybird" association—may not deny non-Caucasians the right to participate in the selection of its nominees. Terry v. Adams, 345 U. S. 461 (1953); Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649, 663-664 (1944). The Court is quite right in stating that those cases "do not stand for the proposition that party affairs are [wholly] public affairs, free of First Amendment protections." Ante, at 573. They do, however, stand for the proposition that primary elections, unlike most "party affairs," are state action.5 The protections that the First
4 Indeed, the primary serves an essential public function given that, "[a]s a practical matter, the ultimate choice of the mass of voters is predetermined when the nominations [by the major political parties] have been made." Morse v. Republican Party of Va., 517 U. S. 186, 205-206 (1996) (opinion of Stevens, J.) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, 319 (1941).
5 Contrary to what the Court seems to think, I do not rely on Terry and Allwright as the basis for an argument that state accommodation of the parties' desire to exclude nonmembers from primaries would necessarily violate an independent constitutional proscription such as the Equal Protection Clause (though I do not rule that out). Cf. ante, at 573-574, n. 5. Rather, I cite them because our recognition that constitutional proscriptions apply to primaries illustrates that primaries—as integral parts
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