"Should Democrats participate in the selection of a Republican nominee for public office? Or Republicans help pick the Democratic Party's candidate in a primary election?

The US Supreme Court has now answered both questions with a resounding 'no,'

In striking down Calfornia's 'blanket' primary system, which lists all candidates on one ballot and allows citizens of all political stripes to vote for any party's candidate, the high court ruled that political parties in California have a constitutional right to exclude nonparty members in primary elections.

The ruling is expected to boost the clout of political parties, whose influence with American voters has been steadily eroding. At the same time, it signals to states a need to tread carefully when they experiment with different election systems, such as the blanket primary, in their determination to lift sagging voter turnout.

The decision is 'good for political parties' and, by extension, 'good for the body politic,' says Mark Braden, a partner with the law firm Baker & Hostetler, who filed a brief arguing that the blanket primary should be rejected. 'Western democracies don't function without political parties. Efforts to reform [the parties] out of existence would have been debilitating' to governance.

California established the blanket primary after 60 percent of state voters approved Proposition 198, a 1996 ballot initiative. The three other states that hold blanket primaries - Alaska, Louisiana, and Washington - presumably will also now have to revise their systems.

In its 7-to-2 decision yesterday, the court said the blanket primary violates the constitutional rightt of political parties to associate with whom they choose."

"'Proposition 198 forces petitioners to adulterate their candidate-selection process - the basic function of a political party - by opening it up to persons wholly unaffiliated with the party,' writes Justice Antonin Scalia in the majority opinion. 'Such forced association has the likely outcome indeed in this case, the intended outcome - of changing the parties message'."

"He adds, 'We can think of no heavier burden on a political party's associational freedom. Proposition 198 is therefore unconstitutional'."
....

The court ruling did not directly address the system of open primaries, held in 21 states. In those, voters can choose which party's primary they will vote in, even if they are not enrolled in that party" (Warren Richey, The Christian Science Monitor, June 27, 2000).