California Open Primary Draws US Supreme Court Scrutiny Washington, Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court will review California's open primary system, which lets the state's voters cast ballots for any candidate, regardless of party affiliation. The justices agreed to consider a joint appeal by the state's Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, and Peace and Freedom parties. Those groups say open primaries violate their constitutional rights of freedom of association. The high court case could have implications for states like Alaska, Washington and Louisiana, which have similar rules for nominating candidates. Political parties in Alaska joined the California appeal, urging the high court to step in ``before this system spreads any further.'' California, Alaska and Washington use a ``blanket primary'' under which all voters -- including independents -- may vote for any candidate on the ballot, regardless of party affiliation. For example, a voter could cast a ballot for a Democratic candidate for governor and Republican candidate for attorney general in the same primary. Louisiana uses a variant of that method, while other states let voters request the ballot for any party but restrict them to picking from among the candidates from that party. California adopted its system in a 1996 ballot initiative. Proponents argued it would produce public officials who were more moderate and more representative of the state's electorate. Two lower courts previously upheld the open primary system. In 1986 the Supreme Court struck down a Connecticut state law that required a closed primary. The high court said that law unconstitutionally limited the voters eligible to participate in primaries. The justices will hear arguments in April and issue their decision by June. The case is California Democratic Party v. Jones, 99-401. Jan/21/2000 14:09
