Open Primaries Can’t Bar Independents, Court Rules

The Supreme Court ruled today that if political parties wish to hold open primaries, states may not bar independent voters from casting ballots to determine the parties’ nominees.

By a 5-4 vote, the justices refused to resurrect a Connecticut law challenged by Republican leaders who sought participation in the party’s primaries by unaffiliated voters.

Justice Thurgood Marshall, writing for the court, said the law violated the right of free political association guaranteed by the Constitution.

“The statute here places limits upon the group of registered voters whom the party may invite to participate in the basic function of selecting the party’s candidates,” Marshall said. “The state thus limits the party’s associational opportunities at the crucial juncture at which the appeal to common principles may be translated into concerted action.”

‘Fanciful’ Reasoning

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said the ruling was based on “fanciful” reasoning.

In another decision, the court ruled that states may bar from general election ballots those candidates who fail to receive 1% of the vote in statewide primaries.

The court, in a 7-2 decision, reinstated a Washington state law declared unconstitutional by a lower court.

The court ruled, in a third decision, that confessions of mentally ill criminal defendants may be used against them.

The justices, by a 7-2 vote, said Denver prosecutors may use as evidence statements by an accused murderer who said the voice of God ordered him to confess or commit suicide.

The Connecticut law on primaries was designed only to assure that voters who refused to enroll in a political party could not help choose its candidates, Scalia said.

“It seems to me fanciful to refer to this as an interest in freedom of association between the members of the Republican Party and the putative independent voters,” he said.

Registration Required

Connecticut, like most other states, requires that voters be registered as Democrats or Republicans to be eligible to vote in the respective party primaries.

Democrats long have been the majority party in Connecticut.

In 1984, the state GOP, led by Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr., a moderate Republican with appeal to Democrats and independents, amended its rules to allow unaffiliated voters to cast ballots in the primary for the U.S. Senate and House, governor and other statewide offices.

The rule change conflicted with a 1955 state law barring unaffiliated voters from voting in primaries.

GOP leaders challenged the law in federal court and won.