Ruling Opens Connecticut GOP Primaries to Unaffiliated Voters

In a decision with potentially broad implications, a three-judge federal appeals panel in New York ruled Thursday that the Republican Party in Connecticut can open its state primaries to unaffiliated voters.

The decision overturned statutes by Connecticut’s Democratic-dominated Legislature prohibiting these voters from participating in Republican primaries.

Traditionally, states have set the rules for who can vote in primaries. But by endorsing the Republican Party’s right to make its own rules, legal scholars said, the decision could serve as a precedent for lawsuits in other states by political parties seeking to broaden membership.

In California, neither party has sought to open its primaries to independent voters.

Connecticut’s Republicans hope that by opening their primaries to unaffiliated voters, they will draw additional voters for their candidates in general elections. Since 1958, Republicans have won only four of 16 statewide elections for governor and U.S. senator.

The decision by the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a ruling last year by federal Judge Jose A. Cabranes in Connecticut. Connecticut Deputy Atty. Gen. Elliot Gerson said it would take several weeks before his office decides whether to appeal Thursday’s ruling to the Supreme Court.

Connecticut Republican Chairman Thomas D’Amore Jr. called the decision “a great constitutional victory.”

Gerson said the decision could have “enormous implications” not only for Connecticut “but for the political systems of all states and the federal government as well.”

Federal Judge Irving R. Kaufman, who wrote the court’s opinion, said: “We are faced with the situation where a statute--enacted by a Democratic-controlled state Legislature--effectively regulates the structure and candidate selection process of the Republican Party.

“In analyzing the maze of legislative motive and political effect, we cannot ignore the fact that the Democratic Party, which controls the state Legislature, may have exploited its position to structure the electoral process in such a way as to entrench itself in power and immunize itself against successful attack by the Republican Party.

“As a result of these developments, we are constrained to conclude that, to some limited extent, the state of Connecticut has stifled and inhibited robust political debate, placed obstacles in the path of the Republican Party’s pursuit of elected offices and new adherents, and thereby minimized the accountability of elected officials to their constituents.”