Clingman v Beaver
In Oklahoma, a statute allows political parties to invite unaffiliated (Independent) voters to vote in its primary and runoff elections, but a party may not invite voters registered with other parties to vote in its primary. Having exercised its statutory option to allow Independents to vote in its primaries, the Libertarian Party of Oklahoma (LPO) decided it wanted to invite all registered Oklahoma voters, regardless of their political affiliations, to participate. The LPO asked the Secretary of the Oklahoma State Election Board for permission to invite all registered voters to participate in its primaries for the 2000 election cycle, and the Secretary denied the request. After announcing the same intention for the 2004 election cycle and being denied again, the LPO filed suit in federal district court claiming that the First Amendment's guarantee of free association gave it the right to invite all registered voters, regardless of political affiliation, to vote in its primaries.
The district court held the statutes constitutional, finding that the statute did not severely burden the LPO's rights of association and that the state's interest in preserving political parties as “viable and identifiable interest groups” was sufficiently important to justify the statute. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, concluding that the state's election laws impermissibly violate the LPO's associational rights. Based on past Supreme Court cases, the court of appeals concluded that the burden imposed by the statute is severe because it restricts the ability of a political party to define the group of citizens that will choose its standard-bearer. It also concluded that the state's interest in preserving the integrity of political parties was not sufficiently compelling to justify the burden imposed by the statute.
Questions Presented:
1. Whether Oklahoma's semi-closed primary election law–which allows a political party to invite non-affiliated voters but not voters registered with
another political party to vote in its partisan primary but prevents a voter registered with another political party from voting in that primary–violates the First Amendment rights of a
political party and its members to associate.
2. Whether the decision in California Democratic Party v. Jones , 530 U.S. 567 (2000) requires that a State allow a political party, at its option, to open its political party primary
election to any registered voter regardless of that registered voter's political affiliation.
3. Whether the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals erred in finding that the State of Oklahoma's restrictions constituted a severe burden on the right of association of the political party thereby
requiring the regulation to be narrowly tailored to meet a compelling state interest or whether the appropriate standard is the balancing test which has been applied in election cases before this
Court.
