Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut
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Full Opinion
TASHJIAN, SECRETARY OF STATE OF CONNECTICUT
v.
REPUBLICAN PARTY OF CONNECTICUT ET AL.
Supreme Court of United States.
*210 Elliot F. Gerson, Special Assistant Attorney General of Connecticut, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs were Joseph I. Lieberman, Attorney General, and Barney Lapp, Daniel R. Schaefer, and Henry S. Cohn, Assistant Attorneys General.
David S. Golub argued the cause and filed a brief for appellees.[*]
Stephen E. Gottlieb filed a brief for James MacGregor Burns et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance.
Bruce A. Morrison, pro se, filed a brief for Senator Christopher J. Dodd et al. as amici curiae.
JUSTICE MARSHALL delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellee Republican Party of the State of Connecticut (Party) in 1984 adopted a Party rule which permits independent voters registered voters not affiliated with any political party to vote in Republican primaries for federal and statewide offices. Appellant Julia Tashjian, the Secretary of the State of Connecticut, is charged with the administration of the State's election statutes, which include a provision requiring voters in any party primary to be registered members *211 of that party. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 9-431 (1985).[1] Appellees, who in addition to the Party include the Party's federal officeholders and the Party's state chairman, challenged this eligibility provision on the ground that it deprives the Party of its First Amendment right to enter into political association with individuals of its own choosing. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of appellees. 599 F. Supp. 1228 (Conn. 1984). The Court of Appeals affirmed. 770 F. 2d 265 (CA2 1985). We noted probable jurisdiction, 474 U. S. 1049 (1986), and now affirm.
I
In 1955, Connecticut adopted its present primary election system. For major parties,[2] the process of candidate selection for federal and statewide offices requires a statewide convention of party delegates; district conventions are held to select candidates for seats in the state legislature. The party convention may certify as the party-endorsed candidate any person receiving more than 20% of the votes cast in a roll-call vote at the convention. Any candidate not endorsed by the party who received 20% of the vote may challenge the party-endorsed candidate in a primary election, in which the candidate receiving the plurality of votes becomes the party's nominee. Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 9-382, 9-400, 9-444 (1985). Candidates selected by the major parties, whether through convention or primary, are automatically accorded a place on the ballot at the general election. *212 § 9-379. The costs of primary elections are paid out of public funds. See, e. g., § 9-441.
The statute challenged in these proceedings, § 9-431, has remained substantially unchanged since the adoption of the State's primary system. In 1976, the statute's constitutionality was upheld by a three-judge District Court against a challenge by an independent voter who sought a declaration of his right to vote in the Republican primary. Nader v. Schaffer, 417 F. Supp. 837 (Conn.), summarily aff'd, 429 U. S. 989 (1976). In that action, the Party opposed the plaintiff's efforts to participate in the Party primary.
Subsequent to the decision in Nader, however, the Party changed its views with respect to participation by independent voters in Party primaries. Motivated in part by the demographic importance of independent voters in Connecticut politics,[3] in September 1983 the Party's Central Committee recommended calling a state convention to consider altering the Party's rules to allow independents to vote in Party primaries. In January 1984 the state convention adopted the Party rule now at issue, which provides:
"Any elector enrolled as a member of the Republican Party and any elector not enrolled as a member of a party shall be eligible to vote in primaries for nomination of candidates for the offices of United States Senator, United States Representative, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of the State, Attorney General, Comptroller and Treasurer." App. 20.
During the 1984 session, the Republican leadership in the state legislature, in response to the conflict between the newly enacted Party rule and § 9-431, proposed to amend the statute to allow independents to vote in primaries when permitted by Party rules. The proposed legislation was defeated, *213 substantially along party lines, in both houses of the legislature, which at that time were controlled by the Democratic Party.[4]
The Party and the individual appellees then commenced this action in the District Court, seeking a declaration that § 9-431 infringes appellees' right to freedom of association for the advancement of common political objectives guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and injunctive relief against its further enforcement. After discovery, the parties submitted extensive stipulations of fact to the District Court, which granted summary judgment for appellees. The District Court concluded that "[a]ny effort by the state to substitute its judgment for that of the party on . . . the question of who is and is not sufficiently allied in interest with the party to warrant inclusion in its candidate selection process . . . substantially impinges on First Amendment rights." 599 F. Supp., at 1238. Rejecting the state interests proffered by appellant to justify the statute, the District Court held that "as applied to the Republican Party rule permitting unaffiliated voters to participate in certain Republican Party primaries, the statute abridges the right of association guaranteed by the First Amendment." Id., at 1241.
The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that § 9-431 "substantially interferes with the Republican Party's first amendment right to define its associational boundaries, determine the content of its message, and engage in effective political association." 770 F. 2d, at 283.
II
We begin from the recognition that "[c]onstitutional challenges to specific provisions of a State's election laws . . . cannot be resolved by any `litmus-paper test' that will separate valid from invalid restrictions." Anderson v. Celebrezze, *214 460 U. S. 780, 789 (1983) (quoting Storer v. Brown, 415 U. S. 724, 730 (1974)). "Instead, a court . . . must first consider the character and magnitude of the asserted injury to the rights protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments that the plaintiff seeks to vindicate. It then must identify and evaluate the precise interests put forward by the State as justifications for the burden imposed by its rule. In passing judgment, the Court must not only determine the legitimacy and strength of each of those interests, it also must consider the extent to which those interests make it necessary to burden the plaintiff's rights." 460 U. S., at 789.
The nature of appellees' First Amendment interest is evident. "It is beyond debate that freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the `liberty' assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech." NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S. 449, 460 (1958); see NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 430 (1963); Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U. S. 516, 522-523 (1960). The freedom of association protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments includes partisan political organization. Elrod v. Burns, 427 U. S. 347, 357 (1976) (plurality opinion); Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 15 (1976). "The right to associate with the political party of one's choice is an integral part of this basic constitutional freedom." Kusper v. Pontikes, 414 U. S. 51, 57 (1973).
The Party here contends that § 9-431 impermissibly burdens the right of its members to determine for themselves with whom they will associate, and whose support they will seek, in their quest for political success. The Party's attempt to broaden the base of public participation in and support for its activities is conduct undeniably central to the exercise of the right of association. As we have said, the freedom to join together in furtherance of common political beliefs "necessarily presupposes the freedom to identify the people who constitute the association." Democratic Party of *215 United States v. Wisconsin ex rel. La Follette, 450 U. S. 107, 122 (1981).
A major state political party necessarily includes individuals playing a broad spectrum of roles in the organization's activities. Some of the Party's members devote substantial portions of their lives to furthering its political and organizational goals, others provide substantial financial support, while still others limit their participation to casting their votes for some or all of the Party's candidates. Considered from the standpoint of the Party itself, the act of formal enrollment or public affiliation with the Party is merely one element in the continuum of participation in Party affairs, and need not be in any sense the most important.[5]
Were the State to restrict by statute financial support of the Party's candidates to Party members, or to provide that only Party members might be selected as the Party's chosen nominees for public office, such a prohibition of potential association with nonmembers would clearly infringe upon the rights of the Party's members under the First Amendment to organize with like-minded citizens in support of common political goals. As we have said, " `[a]ny interference with the freedom of a party is simultaneously an interference with the freedom of its adherents.' " Democratic Party, supra, at 122 (quoting Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U. S. 234, 250 (1957)).[6] The statute here places limits upon the group of *216 registered voters whom the Party may invite to participate in the "basic function" of selecting the Party's candidates. Kusper v. Pontikes, supra, at 58. 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, and hence to political power in the community.[7]
*217 It is, of course, fundamental to appellant's defense of the State's statute that this impingement upon the associational rights of the Party and its members occurs at the ballot box, for the Constitution grants to the States a broad power to prescribe the "Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives," Art. I, § 4, cl. 1, which power is matched by state control over the election process for state offices. But this authority does not extinguish the State's responsibility to observe the limits established by the First Amendment rights of the State's citizens. The power to regulate the time, place, and manner of elections does not justify, without more, the abridgment of fundamental rights, such as the right to vote, see Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U. S. 1, 6-7 (1964), or, as here, the freedom of political association. We turn then to an examination of the interests which appellant asserts to justify the burden cast by the statute upon the associational rights of the Party and its members.
III
Appellant contends that § 9-431 is a narrowly tailored regulation which advances the State's compelling interests by ensuring the administrability of the primary system, preventing raiding, avoiding voter confusion, and protecting the responsibility of party government.
A
Although it was not presented to the Court of Appeals as a basis for the defense of the statute, appellant argues here that the administrative burden imposed by the Party rule is a sufficient ground on which to uphold the constitutionality of *218 § 9-431.[8] Appellant contends that the Party's rule would require the purchase of additional voting machines, the training of additional poll workers, and potentially the printing of additional ballot materials specifically intended for independents voting in the Republican primary. In essence, appellant claims that the administration of the system contemplated by the Party rule would simply cost the State too much.
Even assuming the factual accuracy of these contentions, which have not been subjected to any scrutiny by the District Court, the possibility of future increases in the cost of administering the election system is not a sufficient basis here for infringing appellees' First Amendment rights. Costs of administration would likewise increase if a third major party should come into existence in Connecticut, thus requiring the State to fund a third major-party primary. Additional voting machines, poll workers, and ballot materials would all be necessary under these circumstances as well. But the State could not forever protect the two existing major parties from competition solely on the ground that two major parties are all the public can afford. Cf. Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U. S. 780 (1983); Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23 (1968). While the State is of course entitled to take administrative and financial considerations into account in choosing whether or not to have a primary system at all, it can no more restrain the Republican Party's freedom of association for reasons of its own administrative convenience than it could on the same ground limit the ballot access of a new major party.
*219 B
Appellant argues that § 9-431 is justified as a measure to prevent raiding, a practice "whereby voters in sympathy with one party designate themselves as voters of another party so as to influence or determine the results of the other party's primary." Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U. S. 752, 760 (1973). While we have recognized that "a State may have a legitimate interest in seeking to curtail `raiding,' since that practice may affect the integrity of the electoral process," Kusper v. Pontikes, 414 U. S., at 59-60; Rosario v. Rockefeller, supra, at 761, that interest is not implicated here.[9] The statute as applied to the Party's rule prevents independents, who otherwise cannot vote in any primary, from participating in the Republican primary. Yet a raid on the Republican Party primary by independent voters, a curious concept only distantly related to the type of raiding discussed in Kusper and Rosario, is not impeded by § 9-431; the independent raiders need only register as Republicans and vote in the primary. Indeed, under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 9-56 (1985), which permits an independent to affiliate with the Party as late as noon on the business day preceding the primary, see n. 7, supra, the State's election statutes actually assist a "raid" by independents, which could be organized and implemented at the 11th hour. The State's asserted interest in the prevention of raiding provides no justification for the statute challenged here.
*220 C
Appellant's next argument in support of § 9-431 is that the closed primary system avoids voter confusion. Appellant contends that "[t]he legislature could properly find that it would be difficult for the general public to understand what a candidate stood for who was nominated in part by an unknown amorphous body outside the party, while nevertheless using the party name." Brief for Appellant 59. Appellees respond that the State is attempting to act as the ideological guarantor of the Republican Party's candidates, ensuring that voters are not misled by a "Republican" candidate who professes something other than what the State regards as true Republican principles. Brief for Appellees 28.
As we have said, "[t]here can be no question about the legitimacy of the State's interest in fostering informed and educated expressions of the popular will in a general election." Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U. S., at 796. To the extent that party labels provide a shorthand designation of the views of party candidates on matters of public concern, the identification of candidates with particular parties plays a role in the process by which voters inform themselves for the exercise of the franchise. Appellant's argument depends upon the belief that voters can be "misled" by party labels. But "[o]ur cases reflect a greater faith in the ability of individual voters to inform themselves about campaign issues." Id., at 797. Moreover, appellant's concern that candidates selected under the Party rule will be the nominees of an "amorphous" group using the Party's name is inconsistent with the facts. The Party is not proposing that independents be allowed to choose the Party's nominee without Party participation; on the contrary, to be listed on the Party's primary ballot continues to require, under a statute not challenged here, that the primary candidate have obtained at least 20% of the vote at a Party convention, which only Party *221 members may attend. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 9-400 (1985). If no such candidate seeks to challenge the convention's nominee in a primary, then no primary is held, and the convention nominee becomes the Party's nominee in the general election without any intervention by independent voters.[10] Even assuming, however, that putative candidates defeated at the Party convention will have an increased incentive under the Party's rule to make primary challenges, hoping to attract more substantial support from independents than from Party delegates, the requirement that such challengers garner substantial minority support at the convention greatly attenuates the State's concern that the ultimate nominee will be wedded to the Party in nothing more than a marriage of convenience.
In arguing that the Party rule interferes with educated decisions by voters, appellant also disregards the substantial benefit which the Party rule provides to the Party and its members in seeking to choose successful candidates. Given the numerical strength of independent voters in the State, one of the questions most likely to occur to Connecticut Republicans in selecting candidates for public office is how can the Party most effectively appeal to the independent voter? By inviting independents to assist in the choice at the polls between primary candidates selected at the Party convention, the Party rule is intended to produce the candidate and platform most likely to achieve that goal. The state statute is said to decrease voter confusion, yet it deprives the Party and its members of the opportunity to inform themselves as to the level of support for the Party's candidates among a critical group of electors. "A State's claim that it is enhancing the ability of its citizenry to make wise decisions by restricting the flow of information to them must be viewed with some skepticism." Anderson v. Celebrezze, supra, at 798. The State's legitimate interests in preventing voter confusion *222 and providing for educated and responsible voter decisions in no respect "make it necessary to burden the [Party's] rights." 460 U. S., at 789.
D
Finally, appellant contends that § 9-431 furthers the State's compelling interest in protecting the integrity of the two-party system and the responsibility of party government. Appellant argues vigorously and at length that the closed primary system chosen by the state legislature promotes responsiveness by elected officials and strengthens the effectiveness of the political parties.
The relative merits of closed and open primaries have been the subject of substantial debate since the beginning of this century, and no consensus has as yet emerged.[11] Appellant *223 invokes a long and distinguished line of political scientists and public officials who have been supporters of the closed primary. But our role is not to decide whether the state legislature was acting wisely in enacting the closed primary system in 1955, or whether the Republican Party makes a mistake in seeking to depart from the practice of the past 30 years.[12]
We have previously recognized the danger that "splintered parties and unrestrained factionalism may do significant damage to the fabric of government." Storer v. Brown, 415 U. S., at 736. We upheld a California statute which denied access to the ballot to any independent candidate who had voted in a party primary or been registered as a member of a political party within one year prior to the immediately preceding primary election. We said:
"[T]he one-year disaffiliation provision furthers the State's interest in the stability of its political system. We also consider that interest as not only permissible, but compelling and as outweighing the interest the candidate and his supporters may have in making a late *224 rather than an early decision to seek independent ballot status." Ibid.
The statute in Storer was designed to protect the parties and the party system against the disorganizing effect of independent candidacies launched by unsuccessful putative party nominees. This protection, like that accorded to parties threatened by raiding in Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U. S. 752 (1973), is undertaken to prevent the disruption of the political parties from without, and not, as in this case, to prevent the parties from taking internal steps affecting their own process for the selection of candidates. The forms of regulation upheld in Storer and Rosario imposed certain burdens upon the protected First and Fourteenth Amendment interests of some individuals, both voters and potential candidates, in order to protect the interests of others. In the present case, the state statute is defended on the ground that it protects the integrity of the Party against the Party itself.
Under these circumstances, the views of the State, which to some extent represent the views of the one political party transiently enjoying majority power, as to the optimum methods for preserving party integrity lose much of their force. The State argues that its statute is well designed to save the Republican Party from undertaking a course of conduct destructive of its own interests. But on this point "even if the State were correct, a State, or a court, may not constitutionally substitute its own judgment for that of the Party." Democratic Party of United States v. Wisconsin ex rel. La Follette, 450 U. S., at 123-124 (footnote omitted). The Party's determination of the boundaries of its own association, and of the structure which best allows it to pursue its political goals, 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." Id., at 124.[13]
*225 We conclude that the State's enforcement, under these circumstances, of its closed primary system burdens the First Amendment rights of the Party. The interests which the appellant adduces in support of the statute are insubstantial, and accordingly the statute, as applied to the Party in this case, is unconstitutional.
IV
Appellant argues here, as in the courts below, that implementation of the Party rule would violate the Qualifications Clause of the Constitution, Art. I, § 2, cl. 1, and the Seventeenth Amendment because it would establish qualifications for voting in congressional elections which differ from the voting qualifications in elections for the more numerous house of the state legislature.[14] The Party rule as adopted permits independent voters to vote in Party primaries for the offices of United States Senator and Member of the House of Representatives, and for statewide offices, but is silent as regards *226 primaries held to contest nominations for seats in the state legislature. See supra, at 212. Appellant contends that the Qualifications Clause and the Seventeenth Amendment require an absolute symmetry of qualifications to vote in elections for Congress and the lower house of the state legislature, and that the Party rule, if implemented according to its terms, would require lesser qualifications for voting in Party primaries for federal office than for state legislative office.
The Court of Appeals rejected appellant's argument, holding that the Qualifications Clause and the parallel provision of the Seventeenth Amendment do not apply to primary elections. 770 F. 2d, at 274. The concurring opinion took a different view, reaching the conclusion that these provisions require only that "anyone who is permitted to vote for the most numerous branch of the state legislature has to be permitted to vote" in federal legislative elections. Id., at 286 (Oakes, J., concurring). We agree.
We recognize that the Federal Convention, in adopting the Qualifications Clause of Article I, § 2, was not contemplating the effects of that provision upon the modern system of party primaries. As we have said:
"We may assume that the framers of the Constitution in adopting that section, did not have specifically in mind the selection and elimination of candidates for Congress by the direct primary any more than they contemplated the application of the commerce clause to interstate telephone, telegraph and wireless communication, which are concededly within it. But in determining whether a provision of the Constitution applies to a new subject matter, it is of little significance that it is one with which the framers were not familiar. For in setting up an enduring framework of government they undertook to carry out for the indefinite future and in all the vicissitudes of the changing affairs of men, those fundamental purposes which the instrument itself discloses." United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, 315-316 (1941).
*227 The fundamental purpose underlying Article I, § 2, cl. 1, that "[t]he House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen . . . by the People of the several States," like the parallel provision of the Seventeenth Amendment, applies to the entire process by which federal legislators are chosen. "Where the state law has made the primary an integral part of the procedure of choice, or where in fact the primary effectively controls the choice," the requirements of Article I, § 2, cl. 1, and the Seventeenth Amendment apply to primaries as well as to general elections. United States v. Classic, supra, at 318; see Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649, 659-660 (1944). The constitutional goal of assuring that the Members of Congress are chosen by the people can only be secured if that principle is applicable to every stage in the selection process. If primaries were not subject to the requirements of the Qualifications Clauses contained in Article I, § 2 and the Seventeenth Amendment, the fundamental principle of free electoral choice would be subject to the sort of erosion these prior decisions were intended to prevent.
Accordingly, we hold that the Qualifications Clauses of Article I, § 2, and the Seventeenth Amendment are applicable to primary elections in precisely the same fashion that they apply to general congressional elections. Our task is then to discover whether, as appellant contends, those provisions require that voter qualifications, such as party membership, in primaries for federal office must be absolutely symmetrical with those pertaining to primaries for state legislative office.
Our inquiry begins with an examination of the Framers' purpose in enacting the first Qualifications Clause. It is clear that the Clause was intended to avoid the consequences of declaring a single standard for exercise of the franchise in federal elections. The state governments represented at the Convention had established varying voter qualifications, and substantial concern was expressed by delegates as to the likely effects of a federal voting qualification which disenfranchised voters eligible to vote in the States. James *228 Wilson argued that "[i]t would be very hard and disagreeable for the same persons, at the same time, to vote for representatives in the State Legislature, and to be excluded from a vote for those in the National Legislature." J. Madison, Journal of the Federal Convention 467 (E. Scott ed. 1893) (hereinafter Madison's Journal). Oliver Ellsworth predicted that "[t]he people will not readily subscribe to a National Constitution, if it should subject them to be disfranchised." Id., at 468. Benjamin Franklin argued, in the same vein, that "[t]he sons of a substantial farmer, not being themselves freeholders, would not be pleased at being disfranchised, and there are a great many persons of that description." Id., at 471. James Madison later defended the resulting provision on similar grounds:
"To have reduced the different qualifications in the different States, to one uniform rule, would probably have been as dissatisfactory to some of the States, as it would have been difficult to the Convention. The provision made by the Convention appears therefore, to be the best that lay within their option. It must be satisfactory to every State; because it is conformable to the standard already established, or which may be established by the State itself." The Federalist No. 52, p. 354 (J. Cooke ed. 1961).
In adopting the language of Article I, § 2, cl. 1, the Convention rejected the suggestion that a property qualification was necessary to restrict the availability of the federal franchise. See Madison's Journal 468-473; 2 M. Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, pp. 200-216 (1966). Far from being a device to limit the federal suffrage, the Qualifications Clause was intended by the Framers to prevent the mischief which would arise if state voters found themselves disqualified from participation in federal elections. The achievement of this goal does not require that qualifications for exercise of the federal franchise be at all *229 times precisely equivalent to the prevailing qualifications for the exercise of the franchise in a given State. The fundamental purpose of the Qualifications Clauses contained in Article I, § 2, and the Seventeenth Amendment is satisfied if all those qualified to participate in the selection of members of the more numerous branch of the state legislature are also qualified to participate in the election of Senators and Members of the House of Representatives.
Our conclusion that these provisions do not require a perfect symmetry of voter qualifications in state and federal legislative elections takes additional support from the fact that we have not previously required such absolute symmetry when the federal franchise has been expanded. In Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U. S. 112 (1970), five Justices agreed that the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970 could constitutionally establish a minimum age of 18 for voters in federal elections, while a majority of the Court also concluded that Congress was without power to set such a minimum age in state and local elections. See id., at 117-118 (Black, J., announcing the judgments of the Court). Appellant's reading of the Qualifications Clause, which would require identical voter qualifications in state and federal legislative elections, is plainly inconsistent with these holdings. We hold that the implementation of the Party rule does not violate the Qualifications Clause or the Seventeenth Amendment because it does not disenfranchise any voter in a federal election who is qualified to vote in a primary or general election for the more numerous house of the state legislature.
V
We conclude that § 9-431 impermissibly burdens the rights of the Party and its members protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The interests asserted by appellant in defense of the statute are insubstantial. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
*230 JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE SCALIA joins, dissenting.
The threshold issue presented by this case is whether, consistently with the Constitution, a State may permit a voter to participate in elections to the Congress while preventing that same person from voting for candidates to the most numerous branch of the state legislature. If we respect the plain language of Article I, § 2, cl. 1, of the Constitution and the Seventeenth Amendment, the intent of the Framers, and the reasoning of the opinions in Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U. S. 112 (1970), we must answer that question in the negative.
Every person who votes in a federal election for a Member of the House of Representatives or for a United States Senator must be qualified to vote for candidates to the most numerous branch of the state legislature. The Constitution has imposed this condition of voter eligibility on congressional elections since 1789[1] and on senatorial elections since the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified in 1913.[2]
As the Court recognizes, ante, at 227, a primary election is part of the process by which Members of the House and Senate are "chosen . . . by the People." U. S. Const., Art. I, § 2, cl. 1. Cf. United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, 315 (1941). In Connecticut one of the qualifications for voters in Republican Party primary elections for the lower house of the state legislature is that the person be "on the last-completed enrolment list of such party in the municipality or voting district . . . ." Conn. Gen. Stat. § 9-431 (1985). Thus, only enrolled Republicans may vote in the Republican primary for the state legislature.
*231 The Court today holds, however, that pursuant to the Republican Party of Connecticut's rules, the State must permit independent, as well as enrolled Republican, electors to vote in the Republican primary for the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States. This facial disparity between the qualifications for electors of House and Senate candidates and the more stringent qualifications for electors to the state legislature violates both Qualifications Clauses.
The Court does not dispute the fact that the plain language of the Constitution requires that voters in congressional and senatorial elections "shall have" the qualifications of voters in elections to the state legislature. The Court nevertheless separates the federal voter qualifications from their state counterparts, inexplicably treating the mandatory "shall have" language of the Clauses as though it means only that the federal voters "may but need not have" the qualifications of state voters. In support of this freewheeling interpretation of the Constitution, the Court relies on what it describes as the Framers' purpose in enacting the first Qualification Clause and on the judgment in Oregon v. Mitchell, supra. Neither of these arguments withstands scrutiny.
The excerpts from the debate among the Framers quoted by the Court, ante, at 227-229, related to a motion made by Gouverneur Morris to amend a draft of proposed Art. I, § 1, that had been prepared by the Committee on Detail. To understand the full significance of that debate it is necessary first to consider the provision that Gouverneur Morris wanted to change and then to consider the nature of his proposed amendment.
Justice Stewart accurately summarized that background in his opinion in Oregon v. Mitchell, supra:
"An early draft of the Constitution provided that the States should fix the qualifications of voters in congressional elections subject to the proviso that these qualifications might `at any Time be altered and superseded by the Legislature of the United States.' The records of *232 the Committee on Detail show that it was decided to strike the provision granting to Congress the authority to set voting qualifications and to add in its stead a clause making the qualifications `the same from Time to Time as those of the Electors, in the several States, of the most numerous Branch of their own Legislatures.' The proposed draft reported by the Committee on Detail to the Convention included the following:
" `The qualifications of the electors shall be the same, from time to time, as those of the electors in the several States, of the most numerous branch of their own legislatures.' Art. IV, § 1." 400 U. S., at 289 (concurring in part and dissenting in part) (footnotes omitted; emphasis added).
Thus, the draft that the Federal Convention of 1787 was considering when Gouverneur Morris made his motion was abundantly clear the qualifications of the federal electors "shall be the same" as the electors of the legislatures of the several States. J. Madison, Journal of the Federal Convention 449-450 (E. Scott ed. 1893). This provision would ensure uniformity of electors' qualifications within each State, but would not impose a uniform nationwide standard.[3]
It was this clause that Gouverneur Morris proposed to strike in order to substitute a clause permitting Congress to prescribe the electoral qualifications or to adopt a provision "which would restrain the right of suffrage to freeholders." Id., at 467. Not surprisingly, his proposal was defeated by a vote of 7 to 1 because it would have disenfranchised a large number of voters in States that did not impose a property qualification on the right to vote. Id., at 467, 468, 471-472. Despite the Court's reliance on the concerns that led the *233 Framers to reject the Morris proposal, they shed absolutely no light on the reasons why the Committee on Detail had previously decided that the voters' qualifications in state and federal elections "shall be the same."
The Court's reliance on the holding in Oregon v. Mitchell is equally misguided. That case tested the constitutionality of certain parts of the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970, 84 Stat. 314, including the section that lowered the minimum age of voters in both state and federal elections from 21 to 18. Four Members of the Court concluded that Congress had no such power;[4] four other Members of the Court concluded that the entire statute was valid.[5] Thus, the conclusions of all eight of those Justices were consistent with the proposition that the Constitution requires the same qualifications for state and federal elections.[6] Only Justice Black concluded that the statute was invalid insofar as it applied to state elections but valid insofar as it applied to federal elections. 400 U. S., at 125-130.
Even Justice Black's reasoning, however, supports a li