The Supreme Court has refused to review a Ninth Circuit ruling denying political parties the right to exclude nonmembers from participation in their primaries. Hawaii law requires an open primary, and under the Ninth Circuit decision, parties would bear the burden of showing that this requirement severely burdens their rights of association. In other words when parties must open their candidate selection processes to non-members, the infringement of that associational right is not, apparently, self-evident.
The Ninth Circuit decided this incorrectly. It misconstrues the controlling Supreme Court authority, and it disregards its own entirely inconsistent decision in Washington State Democratic Party v. Reed. It is revealing that the Court’s panel’s denial of that inconsistency is tucked into a disingenuous footnote. Democratic Party of Hawaii v. Nago, 833 F.3d 1119, 1124 n.4 (2016)
So it goes nowadays for the parties. It is a sign of the times. A political party has to prove that it is harmed if forced to give nonmembers a full share of the authority to determine its nominees.
Full Article: The Political Parties and Their Problems –.