Democratic Party of U.S. v. Wisconsin ex rel. La Follette

Democratic Party of U.S. v. Wisconsin ex rel. La Follette
Docket number: 79-1631
Term: 1980
Court: United States Supreme Court
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger • William Brennan • Potter Stewart • Byron White • Thurgood Marshall • Harry Blackmun • Lewis Powell • William Rehnquist • John Paul Stevens

Democratic Party of United States v. Wisconsin ex rel. La Follette was argued and decided during the October 1979 term of the U.S. Supreme Court. The case came to the court on a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin. In the case, the U.S. Supreme Court held that state election law cannot preempt the delegate selection mechanisms of a national political party for that party's national convention.

Question presented: "Can a state compel a national party convention to admit delegates from its state if those delegates were selected in a manner violating the National Party's rules?"

Background

The charter of the Democratic Party stipulated that delegates to the national convention were to be chosen through procedures in which participation was limited to registered members of the Democratic Party. Additionally, in advance of the Democratic Party's national convention in 1980, the national party established and produced a set of rules regarding delegate selection for the convention. Those rules were published in a document called the Democratic Selection Rules for the 1980 Convention. Rule 2A provided that "[p]articipation in the delegate selection process in primaries or caucuses shall be restricted to Democratic voters only who publicly declare their party preference and have that preference publicly recorded."

Election laws in the state of Wisconsin allowed registered voters who were not registered with the Democratic Party to vote in the Democratic primary without requiring a public declaration of party preference. Voters in Wisconsin's primary voted for presidential candidates for the Democratic Party's nomination, but did not vote for delegates to the national convention. Delegates to the national convention were chosen subsequent to the presidential primary among caucuses of registered Democratic Party members. However, Wisconsin law bound these delegates to vote at the Democratic Party's national convention according to the results of the open primary election results.

In May 1979, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin submitted its plan for selecting delegates to the 1980 national convention. The plan was presented under the requirements of Wisconsin's open primary laws. The plan was not approved, on the grounds that the state party's plan violated Rule 2A of the delegate selection rules for the convention. As compliance with Rule 2A was a necessary condition to participate at the national party convention, and there was no exception that could be made, the national party indicated that Wisconsin's delegates who were bound to vote according to the results of the open primary would not be seated.

The attorney general of Wisconsin, on behalf of the state, brought an original action before the Supreme Court of Wisconsin against both the national and state Democratic parties. The state sought declaratory relief to confirm that the Wisconsin delegate selection system was constitutional as applied to both the national and state parties and that, as such, the national party and state party could not refuse to seat the Wisconsin delegation at the national party convention. The state party agreed with Wisconsin's position and cross-claimed against the National Democratic Party, asking the state supreme court to order the national party to recognize the delegates as selected under Wisconsin law.

The Supreme Court of Wisconsin entered a judgment declaring that the state's system of selecting delegates to the Democratic National Convention was both constitutional and binding on the national party. The court concluded that the state had not violated the national party's constitutional right to free political association. The court said that the state's primary election laws "were themselves intended to permit persons to vote only for the candidates of the party they preferred, and that, as a practical matter, requiring a public declaration of party affiliation would not prevent persons who are not Democrats from voting in the primary … Moreover, the court reasoned that to whatever extent appellants' constitutional freedom of political association might be burdened by the Wisconsin election laws, the burden was justified by the State's 'compelling … interest in maintaining the special feature of its primary … which permits private declaration of party preference.'"

The Supreme Court of Wisconsin's opinion was handed down on January 19, 1980.

Wisconsin held its presidential primary on April 1, 1980, under existing election law. The state party chose delegates to the 1980 Democratic National Convention in compliance with the decision of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. On July 2, 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction of the appeal and stayed the judgment of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. However, on July 20, 1980, the credentials committee of the Democratic National Convention decided to seat the delegates from Wisconsin despite the fact that this action violated the U.S. Supreme Court's stay and that the delegates were selected in a manner that violated Rule 2A.

Oral argument

• Transcript and audio of oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court, December 8, 1980

Decision

The judgment of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin was reversed.

Opinion

Writing for a six-justice majority, Justice Potter Stewart argued that the 1975 opinion of the court in Cousins v. Wigoda (419 U.S. 477) governed in this dispute as well:

“

The issue is whether the State may compel the National Party to seat a delegation chosen in a way that violates the rules of the Party. And this issue was resolved, we believe, in Cousins v. Wigoda ... The Cousins Court relied upon the principle that '[t]he National Democratic Party and its adherents enjoy a constitutionally protected right of political association' ... This First Amendment freedom to gather in association for the purpose of advancing shared beliefs is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment from infringement by any State ... A political party's choice among the various ways of determining the makeup of a State's delegation to the party's national convention is protected by the Constitution. And as is true of all expressions of First Amendment freedoms, the courts may not interfere on the ground that they view a particular expression as unwise or irrational.

”

Dissent

In a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Harry Blackmun and William Rehnquist, Justice Lewis Powell argued that Wisconsin law did not directly interfere with the party's procedures for delegate selection in Wisconsin in a manner similar to what the court declared unconstitutional in Cousins:

“

All that Wisconsin has done is to require the major parties to allow voters to affiliate with them - for the limited purpose of participation in a primary - secretly, in the privacy of the voting booth. The Democrats remain free to require public affiliation from anyone wishing any greater degree of participation in party affairs. In Wisconsin, participation in the caucuses where delegates are selected is limited to publicly affiliated Democrat ... And, as noted above, the State's law requires that delegates themselves affirm their membership in the party publicly ... I am unwilling - at least in the context of a claim by one of the two major political parties - to conclude that every conflict between state law and party rules concerning participation in the nomination process creates a burden on associational rights. Instead, I would look closely at the nature of the intrusion, in light of the nature of the association involved, to see whether we are presented with a real limitation on First Amendment freedoms ... I would hold that the National Party has failed to make a sufficient showing of a burden on its associational rights.

”

See also

• Supreme Court of the United States
• History of the Supreme Court

External links

• Supreme Court of the United States