(Download) "Placing Unnecessary Limits on Voting and Associational Freedoms (Twenty-Fourth Federalist Society Student Symposium, Law and Freedom) (Case Note)" by Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Placing Unnecessary Limits on Voting and Associational Freedoms (Twenty-Fourth Federalist Society Student Symposium, Law and Freedom) (Case Note)
- Author : Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy
- Release Date : January 22, 2005
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 300 KB
Description
The right to vote candidates of one's choice into office is at the core of representative democracy. The ability to organize on a large scale with willing groups of voters to elect a mutually desirable candidate is prerequisite to any enjoyment of this right. If the ability to appeal to fellow voters is too heavily restricted, then society will travel down the perilous path of having its leaders selected by entrenched party leaders rather than by the considered consensus of the people. Last Term, in Clingman v. Beaver, (1) the Supreme Court acquiesced in a state's decision to hamper voters' freedom to associate for political purposes and their ability to vote for the candidate of their choice. This decision, which authorized states to deny parties and voters registered with other parties the right to come together for primary elections, serves, in Justice Stevens's words, "a naked interest in protecting the two major parties." (2) The plaintiffs in the trial court were a group of Oklahoma voters, registered with various political parties, as well as the Libertarian Party of Oklahoma (LPO), and several Libertarian candidates for office. (3) The LPO expressed an interest in opening its primary to voters enrolled in other parties, (4) and the voters desired to participate in the Libertarian primary without abandoning their principal party affiliation. (5) All plaintiffs sued in the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma under 42 U.S.C. [section] 1983 and other statutes, claiming that Oklahoma's semi-closed primary system (6) violated their rights to free political association and free speech under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. (7) The plaintiffs requested that the district court declare unconstitutional the Oklahoma statutes restricting parties from opening their primaries to persons registered with other parties, (8) and that the court enjoin the defendants--the Oklahoma State Election Board and its members--from enforcing those laws. (9)