John Paul Stevens

“ In my view, an empirically debatable assumption about the relative number and effect of likely crossover voters in a blanket primary, as opposed to an open primary or a nominally closed primary with only a brief pre-registration requirement, is too thin a reed to support a credible First Amendment distinction. ”

“ When a political party defines the organization and composition of its governing units, when it decides what candidates to endorse, and when it decides whether and how to communicate those endorsements to the public, it is engaged in the kind of private expressive associational activity that the First Amendment protects. ”

“ As to the Court's concern that benevolent crossover voting impinges on party associational interests, ante, at 11, the District Court found that experience with a blanket primary in Washington and other evidence "suggest [ed] that there will be particular elections in which there will be a substantial amount of cross-over voting ... although the cross-over vote will rarely change the outcome of any election and in the typical contest will not be at significantly higher levels than in open primary states." ”

“ The State asserts a compelling interest in preserving the overall integrity of the electoral process, providing secrecy of the ballot, increasing voter participation in primaries, and preventing harassment of voters. But all of those interests go to the conduct of the Presidential preference primary-not to the imposition of voting requirements upon those who, in a separate process, are eventually selected as delegates. ”

“ The California Constitution empowers the voters of the State to propose statutes and to adopt or reject them. Art. 2, §8. If approved by a majority vote, such "initiative statutes" generally take effect immediately and may not be amended or repealed by the California Legislature unless the voters consent. Art. 2, §10. The amendments to the California Election Code that changed the state primary from a closed system to the blanket system presently at issue were the result of the voters' March 1996 adoption of Proposition 198, an initiative statute. ”

“ Assuming that a registered Democrat or independent who wants to vote in the Republican gubernatorial primary can do so merely by asking for a Republican ballot, the Republican Party's constitutional right "not to associate" is pretty feeble if the only cost it imposes on that Democrat or independent is a loss of his right to vote for non-Republican candidates for other offices. ”

“ Republican primary, forms no more meaningful an 'association' with the Party than does the independent or the registered Democrat who responds to questions by a Republican Party pollster. If the concept of freedom of association is extended to such casual contacts, it ceases to be of any analytic use. ”

“ Under the Court's reasoning, it would seem to follow that conducting anything but a closed partisan primary in the face of such bylaws would necessarily burden the parties' " 'freedom to identify the people who constitute the association.' " Ante, at 6-7. Given that open primaries are supported by essentially the same state interests that the Court disparages today and are not as "narrow" as nonpartisan primaries, ante, at 14-18, there is surely a danger that open primaries will fare no better against a First Amendment challenge than blanket primaries have. ”

“ Chaney, 442 U.S. 191, 199 (1979) ("There can be no complaint that [a] party's [First Amendment] right to govern itself has been substantially burdened by [state regulation] when the source of the complaint is the party's own decision to confer critical authority on the [party governing unit being regulated] ") ”