Miller v. Cunningham

PUBLISHED
Filed: December 20, 2007

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

LARRY MILLER; 11TH SENATORIAL 
DISTRICT REPUBLICAN COMMITTEE,
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
v.
JEAN CUNNINGHAM, in her official
capacity as Chairman of the
Virginia State Board of Elections;
HAROLD PYON, in his official
capacity as Vice-Chairman of the  No. 06-2334
Virginia State Board of Elections;
NANCY RODRIQUES, in her official
capacity as Secretary of the Virginia
State Board of Elections,
Defendants-Appellants.

REPUBLICAN PARTY OF VIRGINIA,
Amicus Supporting Appellees.

2 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM

LARRY MILLER; 11TH SENATORIAL 
DISTRICT REPUBLICAN COMMITTEE,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
JEAN CUNNINGHAM, in her official
capacity as Chairman of the
Virginia State Board of Elections;
HAROLD PYON, in his official
capacity as Vice-Chairman of the  No. 07-1002
Virginia State Board of Elections;
NANCY RODRIQUES, in her official
capacity as Secretary of the Virginia
State Board of Elections,
Defendants-Appellees.

REPUBLICAN PARTY OF VIRGINIA,
Amicus Supporting Appellants.


ORDER

Appellants/cross-appellees filed a petition for rehearing and rehear-
ing en banc. Appellees/cross-appellants filed a response in opposition
to the petition.

A member of the Court requested a poll on the petition for rehear-
ing en banc. The poll failed to produce a majority of the judges in
active service in favor of rehearing en banc. Judges Wilkinson and
Shedd voted to grant rehearing en banc. Chief Judge Williams and
Judges Niemeyer, Michael, Motz, Traxler, King, and Duncan voted
to deny rehearing en banc. Judge Gregory did not participate in any
consideration of this case.
 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM 3
The Court denies the petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc.
Judge Wilkinson filed an opinion dissenting from the denial of rehear-
ing en banc.

Entered at the direction of Senior Judge Wilkins for the Court.

FOR THE COURT,

/s/ Patricia S. Connor
Clerk

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge, dissenting from the denial of the peti-
tion for rehearing en banc:

The panel opinion is by its own admission narrow. It declares Vir-
ginia’s open primary law unconstitutional solely "‘as applied to the
narrow facts of this case.’" See Miller v. Brown, 503 F.3d 360, 368
(4th Cir. 2007) (citing Miller v. Brown, 465 F. Supp. 2d 584, 595
(E.D. Va. 2006)). Appellee contends these facts are "very specific" —
constitutional infirmity exists only when, as here, "an incumbent leg-
islator has exercised his prerogative to select an open primary . . .
against the wishes of his local party as a whole." Brief in Opposition
to Reh’g at 3. This means, argues the appellee, that the panel opinion
will not apply "in elections with no incumbent, in elections where the
incumbent chooses a method of renomination other than primary, and
in elections where the local party and the incumbent agree on the
method of renomination." Id. at 4. Presumably, the panel opinion will
also not apply in elections where the incumbent declines to exercise
the power to select the method of renomination.

I respect the panel’s desire to write narrowly. Narrow rulings have
much to commend them as a general matter, particularly in the consti-
tutional context. They ensure that broad judicial decisions do not
over-constitutionalize the most fundamental and difficult questions
facing our society, leaving these "issues open for democratic delibera-
tion." Cass R. Sunstein, The Supreme Court, 1995 Term — Foreword:
Leaving Things Undecided, 110 Harv. L. Rev. 4, 7 (1996). Narrow
rulings are therefore seldom reason for this circuit to convene en
banc. See Brief in Opposition to Reh’g at 4 ("Simply put, given the
4 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM
very limited fact scenario to which the challenged portion of the
panel’s decision applies, this is not a case of exceptional impor-
tance.").

But in the area of election law, a narrow ruling can sometimes be
a real mistake. Political campaigns require substantial planning, and
participants in the political process must be able to rely on firmly
established legal standards. See Sunstein, supra, at 29 (arguing that
decisional minimalism may be a "large mistake" when planning is
necessary). The very least courts owe those who hold and seek public
office is a clear understanding of the ground rules by which they must
compete. Courts, of course, do not establish all of these ground rules,
but to the degree we set forth constitutional standards we must not
create uncertainty.

Notwithstanding its thoughtful decision in this case, the panel risks
leaving Virginia election law in limbo for some time by declining to
address what I believe are two fairly presented and important issues:
(1) the constitutionality of Virginia’s incumbent selection provision,
Va. Code Ann. § 24.2-509(B) (2006), and (2) the constitutionality of
open primaries, when not selected by an incumbent, see id. § 24.2-
530. While the majority winks and nods at these broader questions,
by its own terms it leaves them unaddressed. This is a mistake. These
questions must assuredly be litigated and it is not right to kick the can
down the road when those seeking elective office deserve explicit
guidance from the courts on electoral conduct.

I.

A.

A brief overview is in order. Virginia law allows political parties
to nominate their candidates not only by primary, but also by "meth-
ods other than a primary." Va. Code Ann. § 24.2-510 (2006). These
other methods "include (but are not limited to) a party convention; a
mass meeting, also known as a ‘caucus’; and a party canvass or
unassembled caucus, also called a ‘firehouse primary.’" Miller v.
Brown, 503 F.3d 360, 362 (4th Cir. 2007) (internal citation omitted).
Primaries are conducted and paid for by the state, see id., and must
comport with Virginia’s "open primary" law, which provides: "All
 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM 5
persons qualified to vote . . . may vote at the primary. No person shall
vote for the candidates of more than one party." Va. Code Ann. at
§ 24.2-530 (2006). Political parties must conduct and fund the other
nomination procedures themselves, see Miller, 503 F.3d at 362, and
are allowed to limit participation, so long as they do so constitution-
ally. See, e.g., Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944).

Virginia law vests the power to decide "the method" of making
party nominations with the "duly constituted authorities of [a] politi-
cal party." Va. Code Ann. § 24.2-509(A) (2006). However, there is an
exception to this rule: certain incumbent officeholders, including
incumbent state legislators — and not the leadership of the party they
represent — are allowed to select the method of nomination for their
seats. Id. § 24.2-509(B);1 see also Miller, 503 F.3d at 362 (noting that
1
This statutory provision reads in full:
Notwithstanding [the party’s authority to select the method of
renomination], the following provisions shall apply to the deter-
mination of the method of making party nominations. A party
shall nominate its candidate for election for a General Assembly
district where there is only one incumbent of that party for the
district by the method designated by that incumbent, or absent
any designation by him by the method of nomination determined
by the party. A party shall nominate its candidates for election
for a General Assembly district where there is more than one
incumbent of that party for the district by a primary unless all the
incumbents consent to a different method of nomination. A
party, whose candidate at the immediately preceding election for
a particular office other than the General Assembly (i) was nomi-
nated by a primary or filed for a primary but was not opposed
and (ii) was elected at the general election, shall nominate a can-
didate for the next election for that office by a primary unless all
incumbents of that party for that office consent to a different
method.
When, under any of the foregoing provisions, no incumbents
offer as candidates for reelection to the same office, the method
of nomination shall be determined by the political party.
For the purposes of this subsection, any officeholder who
offers for reelection to the same office shall be deemed an
incumbent notwithstanding that the district which he represents
differs in part from that for which he offers for election.
Va. Code. Ann. § 24.2-509(B) (2006).
6 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM
"an incumbent state legislator is entitled to select the method of nomi-
nation for his seat").

B.

In this case, Stephen Martin, a Republican representing the 11th
District in the Senate of Virginia, exercised his statutory authority
under § 24.2-509(B) to designate a state-funded primary as the
method of nomination for his seat. Senator Martin’s selection con-
flicted, however, with the plans of the 11th District Republican Com-
mittee ("Committee"). Contrary to the dictate of Virginia’s open
primary law, the Committee wanted to exclude voters from the nomi-
nation process who had voted in recent Democratic primaries. The
Committee thus filed a § 1983 suit in federal court, arguing that Vir-
ginia’s open primary law violated the Committee’s First and Four-
teenth Amendment rights to free association.

Affirming the district court, a panel of this court agreed with the
Committee. Confining its decision to "‘the narrow facts of this case,’"
Miller, 503 F.3d at 368 (citing Miller v. Brown, 465 F. Supp. 2d 584,
595 (E.D. Va. 2006)), the panel declared Virginia’s open primary law,
§ 24.2-530, unconstitutional, but only "as applied" to the situation in
which an incumbent elects to hold an open primary against his party’s
wishes, Miller, 503 F.3d at 371.

In reaching its decision, the panel declined to consider two prop-
erly presented questions: the constitutionality of Virginia’s incumbent
selection provision, § 24.2-509(B), and the constitutionality of Vir-
ginia’s open primary law, § 24.2-530, when not selected by an incum-
bent. For the reasons mentioned earlier in this opinion, I think it was
error for the panel to leave unanswered these two questions of excep-
tional importance. The basic thing judges with life tenure owe elected
officials of periodic tenure is clarity on the rules of their contest. I
cannot predict whether my distinguished colleagues on this court will
or will not adopt at some later point the specific views expressed
herein. But I am of firm conviction that two issues critical to Virginia
election law are clearly presented by this case, and that it is the sol-
emn obligation of the court to address them.
 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM 7
II.

The first important issue not addressed by the panel opinion is the
constitutionality of Virginia’s incumbent selection provision, Va.
Code Ann. § 24.2-509(B) (2006). To me, the unconstitutionality of
this provision is clear. I fully recognize that governance is an
immensely complicated business and that the ability of parties to re-
nominate and electorates to re-elect incumbent officeholders is essen-
tial to the fund of experience and expertise that enables a large Com-
monwealth such as Virginia to be well-run. Notwithstanding the
benefits that length of service confers upon the public welfare, the
incumbent selection provision at issue here facially discriminates in
favor of incumbents, shutting down the political process and violating
the most essential requirements of equal protection. Moreover, the
provision also contravenes the First and Fourteenth Amendment
rights of political parties to free association.

I believe that the constitutionality of § 24.2-509(B) is properly pre-
sented in this case: the parties are treating it as such, and the panel
necessarily considered the provision in reaching its holding. However,
failure to address the constitutionality of this provision can only mean
more litigation down the road. I see no reason to refrain from striking
down a provision that plainly runs afoul of our most fundamental con-
stitutional rights.

A.

I start my analysis of Virginia’s incumbent selection provision with
a very simple proposition: if there is going to be election law, it will
be written and enacted by incumbents. Both the United States and
Virginia Constitutions explicitly grant the legislative branch the
authority to regulate elections. The Federal Constitution states that
"Congress may at any time make or alter . . . regulations" governing
"the times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and
Representatives," U.S. Const. art. I, § 4, while the Virginia Constitu-
tion grants Virginia’s legislature broad powers to control nearly all
facets of the electoral process:

The General Assembly shall provide for the nomination of
candidates, shall regulate the time, place, manner, conduct,
8 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM
and administration of primary, general, and special elec-
tions, and shall have the power to make any other law regu-
lating elections not inconsistent with this Constitution.

Va. Const. art. II, § 4.

Given this, there is certainly nothing unconstitutional per se about
incumbents shaping the electoral process to their advantage. This is
merely a feature of American politics. The Framers were surely aware
of the desire of those who hold elective office to retain elective office,
yet they were clearly comfortable giving incumbents the authority to
write election law. Judicial intervention into the electoral process,
merely for the purpose of rooting out self-interested political behav-
ior, would therefore be an "substantial" incursion into textually and
traditionally legislative prerogatives.2 See Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U.S.
267, 306 (2004) (Kennedy, J., concurring in the judgment). Further-
more, elections are "pervasively regulated," Richard H. Pildes, The
Supreme Court, 2003 Term — Foreword: The Constitutionalization
of Democratic Politics, 118 Harv. L. Rev. 28, 51 (2004), and aggres-
sive review of legislative motivation in this area would leave the fed-
eral judiciary time to do little else but analyze election laws. The
Supreme Court has therefore been appropriately reluctant to police
2
Of course, the Supreme Court has struck down election laws for other
reasons. See, e.g., Randall v. Sorrell, 126 S. Ct. 2479 (2006) (striking
down Vermont’s campaign finance laws for violating the First Amend-
ment right to free speech); Harper v. Va. Bd. of Elections, 383 U.S. 663,
666 (1966) (striking down Virginia’s poll tax for unconstitutionally con-
ditioning the fundamental right to vote on "the affluence of the voter or
payment of any fee"); Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944) (striking
down a law that allowed the state Democratic Party to enforce its rule
requiring all voters in a primary to be white).
In reaching these decisions, the Court has, at times, discussed the fact
that election laws may serve to insulate incumbents from competition.
See, e.g., Randall, 126 S. Ct. at 2492 ("That is because contribution lim-
its that are too low can also harm the electoral process by preventing
challengers from mounting effective campaigns against incumbent
officeholders, thereby reducing democratic accountability."). In these
cases, however, the Court was discussing the self-interested nature of the
election law in the context of otherwise unconstitutional behavior, not as
the primary reason for striking the legislative action.
 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM 9
enactments in the election law context, even while explicitly recog-
nizing that self-interest may be a partial driver of legislative action in
this area. See Vieth, 541 U.S. at 298, 305 (plurality opinion) (holding
political gerrymandering to be non-justiciable for lack of a judicially
manageable standard despite the fact that redistricting is always con-
ducted with an intent to gain "political advantage").

Nonetheless, there are limits to this deference. As the Supreme
Court suggested in the famous fourth footnote of United States v.
Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144 (1938), the judiciary has a basic
obligation to keep the political process open and well-functioning. See
id. at 152 n.4. "The first instinct of power is the retention of power,"
and those who hold public office can be expected to attempt to insu-
late themselves from meaningful electoral review. McConnell v. FEC,
540 U.S. 93, 263 (2003) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting
in part). It is therefore necessary for an independent and co-equal
branch of government — the judiciary — to ensure that incumbents
are unable to create a system where the "ins . . . will stay in and the
outs will stay out." John Hart Ely, Democracy and Distrust 103
(1980); see also Michael J. Klarman, Majoritarian Judicial Review:
The Entrenchment Problem, 85 Geo. L.J. 491, 497-502 (1997).

This is because any political system that lacks accountability, "de-
mocracy’s essential minimal condition," Pildes, supra, at 44, does not
conform with even the barest requirements of equal protection, which
demand, at a minimum, that the majority is not systematically frus-
trated in enacting its policies into law. See Lucas v. Forty-Fourth
General Assembly, 377 U.S. 713, 753-54 (1964) (Stewart, J., dissent-
ing) (stating that legislative action which causes "systematic frustra-
tion" of the majority will does not meet the "basic" requirements of
equal protection); see also Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 565
(1964) (stating that "[f]ull and effective participation by all citizens
in state government requires . . . that each citizen have an equally
effective voice in the election of members of his state legislature");
Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 261-62 (1962) (Clark, J., concurring).

At the very least, therefore, the need to "clear the channels of polit-
ical change," see Ely, supra, at 105-34, requires the judiciary to pre-
sume that election laws that facially discriminate in favor of
10 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM
incumbents are unconstitutional.3 Two reasons support this conclu-
sion. First, election laws that facially discriminate in favor of existing
officeholders simply go "too far": if incumbents are allowed to pass
laws explicitly and exclusively for their own benefit, there would be
no end to the advantages they could provide themselves. Incumbents
could therefore diminish the possibility for change and competition in
American politics to a degree never envisioned by the Constitution.
Second, the problems presented by judicial intervention into the polit-
ical process are not nearly as pronounced when the courts are faced
with laws that facially favor incumbents. Facially neutral laws, like
legislative redistricting schemes, may produce a de facto advantage
for incumbents, but uncovering whether that advantage reaches
unconstitutional limits requires an intrusive — and potentially error-
prone — inquiry into legislative motive. The biases of facially dis-
criminatory laws, on the other hand, are readily apparent.

Given the foregoing, Virginia’s incumbent selection statute, Va.
Code Ann. § 24.2-509(B) (2006), is plainly unconstitutional, at least
when state legislators are passing laws dealing with their own re-
election prospects. The statute facially discriminates in favor of exist-
ing officeholders, by compelling political parties to "nominate [their]
candidate[s] for election . . . by the method[s] designated" by incum-
bents. In doing so, the law leaves no doubt as to who its purported
beneficiaries are — the incumbents in Virginia’s General Assembly.
These incumbent legislators already possess numerous structural
advantages over their electoral competition: money, name-
recognition, staff, etc. To this pre-existing array of de facto advan-
tages, Virginia’s incumbent selection provision now adds the de jure
advantage that the incumbent can dictate his or her recommended
preference as to renomination procedures over a party’s express
wishes. Such an explicit advantage given to existing officeholders
3
Laws may, of course, facially benefit incumbents without posing con-
stitutional problems. For example, laws that enable state legislators to
provide constituent services — e.g., hire staff, see Va. Code Ann. § 30-
19.4 (2004), or pay office expenses, see id. at § 30-19.14 — are clearly
constitutional, despite the fact that these statutes may provide resources
that produce a de facto advantage for legislators in campaigning for
reelection. But these laws are clearly passed for a legitimate purpose,
unlike election laws passed solely to entrench incumbents in office.
 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM 11
surely threatens to entrench Virginia’s incumbents to an unconstitu-
tional extent.

In U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779, 837-38
(1995), the Supreme Court held that a state cannot place term limits
on its United States Congressmen. Thornton, however, left intact the
option of states to impose term limits on state legislators. Virginia has
declined to impose such limits, and it may well be wise and correct
in declining to do so. Nonetheless, the basic quid pro quo implied by
Thornton maintains its force: the federal courts will ensure that con-
stitutionally qualified candidates are not prevented from seeking
office, so long as those candidates do not shut down the political pro-
cess and entrench themselves once they are elected. By facially favor-
ing current officeholders, Virginia’s incumbent selection provision
violates the mandate of this quid pro quo, and threatens the "funda-
mental principle of our representative democracy," that "‘the people
should choose whom they please to govern them.’" Powell v. McCor-
mack, 395 U.S. 486, 547 (1969) (quoting 2 Elliot’s Debates 257 (A.
Hamilton, New York)).

B.

The constitutional infirmity of Virginia’s incumbent selection pro-
vision does not end with its explicit discrimination in favor of existing
officeholders. While this alone is sufficient to render Va. Code Ann.
§ 24.2-509(B) unconstitutional, the provision additionally contravenes
the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of political parties to free
association.

The Supreme Court has long recognized that the First Amendment
protects "the freedom to join together in furtherance of common polit-
ical beliefs." Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut, 479 U.S.
208, 214 (1986). A fundamental and necessary element of this free-
dom is the ability of a political party to make its own decisions:
"‘Freedom of association would prove an empty guarantee if associa-
tions could not limit control over their decisions to those who share
the interests and persuasions that underlie the association’s being.’"
Democratic Party of United States v. Wisconsin ex rel. La Follette,
450 U.S. 107, 122 n.22 (1981) (quoting Laurence H. Tribe, American
Constitutional Law 791 (1978)). Of particular importance are a politi-
12 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM
cal party’s decisions surrounding the process of selecting its nominee,
for a "party’s choice of a candidate is the most effective way in which
that party can communicate to the voters what the party represents
and, thereby, attract voter interest and support." Timmons v. Twin Cit-
ies Area New Party, 520 U.S. 351, 372 (1997) (Stevens, J., dissent-
ing).

In allowing the views of a single individual to override the wishes
of an entire political party, Virginia’s incumbent selection mechanism
fails to abide by even these basic First Amendment requirements. As
the panel correctly recognized, the incumbent is not the party, nor
even the designated representative of the party. Miller v. Brown, 503
F.3d 360, 368-70 (4th Cir. 2007). In fact, the incumbent and the party
face very different incentives with regard to the selection of nominat-
ing procedures. Id. at 369; see also Eu v. San Francisco County Dem-
ocratic Cent. Comm., 489 U.S. 214, 225 n.15 (1989) ("Simply
because a legislator belongs to a political party does not make her at
all times a representative of party interests."). The incumbent will
focus primarily on his or her chances for re-election, while the party
may have multi-faceted goals that are not necessarily best achieved
by maximizing a particular individual’s re-electability. Allowing the
incumbent to bind a party despite these differences — without the
party’s explicit or implicit consent — is the very definition of an
unconstitutional burden on the party’s associative rights, and a suffi-
cient reason, in and of itself, to declare Va. Code Ann. § 24.2-509(B)
unconstitutional.

C.

Finally, I note that it is entirely proper for us to consider the consti-
tutionality of the incumbent selection provision in this litigation. For
three reasons, I think this question is squarely presented.

First, the parties are treating it as such. The state has vigorously
argued that the incumbent is the party, placing the incumbent selec-
tion provision directly in front of this court. See Miller, 503 F.3d at
368-70 (noting that the Board’s challenge to the district court ruling
rested on an argument that the incumbent’s selection of an open pri-
mary did not burden the Republican Party’s interests). Indeed, the
panel discussed Va. Code Ann. § 24.2-509(B) at length in its opinion.
 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM 13
See id. at 369-70. It is difficult to see how judicial economy is served
by a court considering such an obviously unconstitutional provision
without ruling on its constitutionality.

Second, it is impossible to consider Virginia’s open primary law on
the facts of this case without also evaluating the incumbent selection
provision. The constitutionality of an open primary — or any other
nomination option — is inextricably linked to the manner in which
a state designates those options may be chosen. Therefore, we must
consider the two provisions in concert. Indeed, as the panel recog-
nized in limiting its decision to the "specific" circumstance where "an
incumbent legislator has exercised his prerogative to select an open
primary . . . against the wishes of his local party as a whole," Brief
in Opposition to Reh’g at 3, one cannot consider what was chosen
without asking how and by whom it was chosen.

Third, leaving the incumbent selection provision largely intact
almost certainly ensures further litigation down the road. The minute
an incumbent chooses to run, for example, a convention or closed pri-
mary against his or her party’s wishes, the party will challenge the
law, claiming that its associative rights have been violated. To repeat:
clarity is a critical component of election law — a particularly liti-
gious field — and this question should simply not be left hanging. It
is not a matter for another day.

III.

The second important issue not addressed by the panel is the con-
stitutionality of Virginia’s open primary law, Va. Code Ann. § 24.2-
530 (2006), when it is not triggered by the incumbent selection mech-
anism. The panel explicitly reserves this question in its opinion: "we
do not decide whether the open primary statute, viewed in isolation,
impermissibly burdens a political party’s associational rights." Miller
v. Brown, 503 F.3d. 360, 366 n.6 (4th Cir. 2007). Later, to emphasize
its point, the panel explicitly reserves the question again: "[h]ere, we
need not decide whether Virginia’s open primary statute, viewed in
isolation, impermissibly burdens a political party’s right to associate
with those who share its beliefs." Id. at 367. Reading the panel’s
rejection of the Committee’s facial challenge to open primaries, one
may conclude that state-mandated open primaries are constitutional.
14 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM
Id. at 364-68. Conversely, in striking Virginia’s open primary law as
applied to an incumbent-selected primary, the panel sets up a most
peculiar system in which an incumbent is free to impose on his party
any nomination mechanism he chooses — convention, caucus, fire-
house primary, closed primary — except that he cannot choose a
state-funded open primary over his party’s veto. Id. at 368-71. This
decision may be construed as mandating a constitutional preference
for closed primaries — a dramatic step certainly not dictated by
Supreme Court precedent.

To repeat once more: clarity in election law is critically important,
and the implications of the panel’s decision are not clear. The conse-
quences of this lack of clarity are considerable in this case: to the
extent the panel calls into question the constitutionality of open pri-
maries, the panel not only discourages state legislatures from making
a choice that they are perfectly entitled to make, but it also nudges
Virginia down the road to party registration, something the state has
yet to adopt. Thus, the panel opinion threatens to remove legitimate
options as to party nomination mechanisms from the people them-
selves and enshrine a principle of political polarization in constitu-
tional law. The panel could and should have made clear that a state
law mandating open primaries, through something other than an
incumbent selection provision, is perfectly constitutional. To say that
this question must await further litigation is to do the Commonwealth
a considerable disservice.

A.

A mandatory open primary should indeed be a constitutional
choice for states to make. Not the only choice by any means, or nec-
essarily the best, but a permissible one.

In Democratic Party of United States v. Wisconsin ex rel. La Fol-
lette, 450 U.S. 107, 120-24 (1981), the Court invalidated Wisconsin’s
selection of its presidential delegation by open primary because it
conflicted with the national Democratic Party’s rules for seating dele-
gates and thus infringed the national party’s associational rights. The
Court did not consider the constitutionality of state open primaries
generally — except to observe that "the Wisconsin Supreme Court
 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM 15
may well [have] be[en] correct" to uphold the Wisconsin open pri-
mary law as constitutionally valid. Id. at 121.

In Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut, 479 U.S. 208, 225
(1986), the Supreme Court invalidated a state-imposed closed primary
that disallowed participation of registered independents, where such
a primary conflicted with party rules. The Supreme Court noted,
"[t]he relative merits of closed and open primaries have been the sub-
ject of substantial debate since the beginning of this century, and no
consensus has as yet emerged." Id. at 222. The Court went on to enu-
merate the states that mandated open primaries by statute. Id. at 222
n.11. These observations hardly suggest that the open primary option
is constitutionally foreclosed. To the contrary, they suggest that the
"relative merits" of open primaries are a matter for each state to con-
sider.

In California Democratic Party v. Jones, 530 U.S. 567, 586 (2000),
the Supreme Court invalidated California’s mandatory blanket pri-
mary. The blanket primary placed all the candidates on one ballot and
allowed all registered voters, regardless of their party registration, to
vote for any candidate in any race, such that one individual could cast
votes for candidates from different parties in different races. Id. at
570. The top vote-getter of each party became the nominee of that
party for the general election. Id. The Court invalidated the California
system. In doing so, however, it expressly observed that "the blanket
primary . . . may be constitutionally distinct from the open primary."
Id. at 577 n.8. The Supreme Court distinguished open primaries in
Jones for one simple reason: open primaries do not impose an imper-
missible burden on parties’ constitutional rights.

Unlike the blanket primary in Jones, an open primary does not
force a party to allow nonmembers to participate. See id. at 577, 581.
Instead, an open primary creates an affiliation between voter and
party on the day of the election, when the voter chooses to participate
in one party’s primary to the exclusion of all others. In this respect,
it is much more akin to a constitutionally permissible closed primary
than an unconstitutional blanket primary. In Jones, the Court said a
closed primary is "qualitatively different" from a blanket primary. Id.
at 577. "Under [a closed primary] system, even when it is made quite
easy for a voter to change his party affiliation the day of the primary,
16 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM
and thus, in some sense, to ‘cross over,’ at least he must formally
become a member of the party; and once he does so, he is limited to
voting for candidates of that party." Id. (emphasis omitted).

But this seems no "qualitatively different" from what an open pri-
mary does: it allows voters to change their party affiliation on the day
of the election and limits each voter’s participation to one party’s pri-
mary. Just as in some closed party systems, members can affiliate
with the party as late as the day of the election. And, as in closed pri-
maries, an important sign of affiliation is voting exclusively in one
party’s primary. Constitutionally speaking, an open primary functions
the same way as a closed primary with same-day registration. See id.

It is no answer to say that a closed primary requires formal party
registration and an open primary does not. The act of voting exclu-
sively in one party’s primary is itself an act of affiliation. As the
Court noted in Jones, "[t]he act of voting in the [party] primary fairly
can be described as an act of affiliation with the [party]." Id. at 577
n.8 (quoting La Follette, 450 U.S. at 130 n.2 (Powell, J., dissenting)).

The importance of voting as an act of affiliation is only under-
scored in Virginia, where the act of voting is the only act of affiliation
recognized by state law. Virginia law, as noted, does not provide a
mechanism for party registration. Presenting oneself on election day
and asking for a particular party’s ballot is thus not just a declaration
of affiliation — it is the only declaration of affiliation contemplated
by Virginia law. In this, Virginia has chosen to recognize that "[t]he
act of casting a ballot in a given primary may, for both the voter and
the party, constitute a form of association that is at least as important
as the act of registering." Clingman v. Beaver, 544 U.S. 581, 601
(2005) (O’Connor, J., concurring in part & concurring in the judgment).4
4
It is no objection that Virginia law allows the state, rather than the
party, to decide who is a "member" of the party for purposes of the pri-
mary. Practically every primary system gives the state some say over
who is a "member" for purposes of voting in a state-run primary. For
example, the state may require party registration for a reasonable period
of time before a primary election. See Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U.S.
752, 760 (1973) (eleven month waiting period for nonpresidential pri-
mary reasonable). Under such a system, the party cannot choose to allow
 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM 17
In Jones, the Court showed keen awareness of such electoral
nuances. It characterized its holding as striking a primary that was
open "to persons wholly unaffiliated with the party," 530 U.S. at 581
(emphasis added), to "those who, at best, have refused to affiliate with
the party, and, at worst, have expressly affiliated with a rival," id. at
577. It distinguished between the California blanket primary — which
allowed voters who were formally registered with other parties to vote
in any party’s primary in each individual race — and open and closed
primaries, which require exclusive party affiliation. Id. at 577 & n.8.

Thus an open primary imposes no unconstitutionally severe burden
on parties’ associational rights. In rejecting a facial challenge to Vir-
ginia’s open primary law, the panel may be suggesting exactly this:
that state-mandated open primaries are constitutional. See Miller, 503
F.3d at 364-68. In deciding the as-applied challenge, the panel might
be taken to imply just the opposite: that closed primaries are constitu-
tionally permissible choices and open primaries are not. Id. at 368-71.
Any such implication is a grave one: it may discourage state legisla-
tors from mandating open primaries — a constitutional option — and
it may make the Virginia legislature feel more compelled to require
party registration. While such a step may or may not be desirable, it
is not constitutionally required. To repeat: clarity is exceptionally
important in election law, and the panel opinion’s lack of clarity on
this critically important point may throw into question the right of the
people of Virginia and other states to exercise the option of encourag-
ing open political party nomination contests that may attract new vot-
ers to a party. This is a shame. Legislators, candidates, and voters in
Virginia deserve more than unanswered questions.

"members" who have been registered for a shorter period to vote in the
primary, no matter how much the party may desire it. Alternatively, the
state may allow party registration on the very day of the election, see
Jones, 530 U.S. at 577, and the party may not turn away those who fol-
low the law. If this poses any associational burden at all on the wishes
of the party, the Court suggested in Jones that it is not an unconstitu-
tional one. See id. It is far from clear to me that the Virginia open pri-
mary poses any more of an associational burden than a system such as
this.
18 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM
B.

The panel does imply that a mandatory open primary may be con-
stitutionally problematic by dismissing the state’s asserted interests in
support of it. See Miller, 503 F.3d at 370-71. The panel may believe
it rejects these interests on the basis of Jones, but applying language
from Jones to a type of primary that Jones expressly distinguished is
a complete transposition of context. A state interest that may be insuf-
ficient to uphold one type of primary may be sufficient with regard
to an entirely different type where the burden on parties’ associative
interests is concededly less severe. The panel regrettably gives short
shrift to important state interests that underlie the open primary tradi-
tion.

First, by not requiring formal party registration, Virginia has made
an administrative choice squarely within its power over its election
process. See, e.g., Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428, 433 (1992);
Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U.S. 752, 760 (1973). The state may make
the reasonable decision not to track party affiliations as part of the
voter registration process for any number of reasons, the least of
which is simple ease and efficiency. Conversely, political parties do
not have a constitutional right to demand that the state require formal
party declarations of all registered voters. To accommodate the
Republican Party’s demands, as expounded here, would appear to
entail striking and replacing portions of Virginia’s neutrally formu-
lated voter registration apparatus.

Second, by not requiring formal and public declarations of party
affiliation, the state has chosen to protect its voters’ privacy interests.
While the Supreme Court in Jones suggested that this interest might
not in all cases be compelling, it remains a permissible interest, and
in some cases a compelling one. Meanwhile, adoption of the Republi-
can Party Plan, at least the proposal set forth in this case, would run
roughshod over voters’ privacy interests, requiring either the Party or
the state to inquire into voters’ five-year voting histories.

Relatedly, Virginia may also choose to protect its voters’ ability to
change party affiliations with minimal interference from the state.
This is not an instance of the state impermissibly privileging a "non-
member’s desire to participate in [a] party’s affairs" over the "right
 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM 19
of the party to determine its own membership qualifications." Jones,
530 U.S. at 583 (quoting Tashjian, 479 U.S. at 215 n.6). It is an
instance of the state protecting voters’ ability to become members of
the party to whose views they sincerely ascribe.

The Supreme Court has held that states may within constitutional
limits make it more difficult for individuals to change party affilia-
tion. See Rosario, 410 U.S. at 760 (state requiring party registration
eleven months before nonpresidential primary reasonable). But it has
never held that a state may not make party affiliation easier. In fact,
it has struck some state impediments to party affiliation as impermiss-
ibly infringing voters’ "constitutional freedom to associate with the
political party of their choice." See Kusper v. Pontikes, 414 U.S. 51,
61 (1973) (state law requiring party registration twenty-three months
before primary infringed voters’ constitutional freedom). As noted in
Jones, a state that requires formal party registration may constitution-
ally allow changes in registration on the day of the election, see 530
U.S. at 577, thus achieving the same protection of voters’ interests as
Virginia’s system. Given issues of war and peace, economic up and
downturns, tax policy and spending priorities, not to mention issues
with intense appeal to particular groups of citizens, voters may well
want to rethink their party affiliations. The Virginia system gives
them a chance to do so.

Finally, Virginia’s open primary law promotes the state’s interest
in encouraging voter participation. An open primary in this sense
reflects a century of efforts among states — not always willingly
undertaken — to expand the franchise and ballot access. The Court
has recognized that "[t]he right to vote freely for the candidate of
one’s choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restric-
tions on that right strike at the heart of representative government."
Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 555 (1964). It has taken states to task
for policies that limited the choices voters had in casting their ballots.
See, e.g., Bullock v. Carter, 405 U.S. 134 (1972); Williams v. Rhodes,
393 U.S. 23 (1968); Harper v. Va. Bd. of Elections, 383 U.S. 663
(1966). These decisions suggest that states labor under a duty to
expand participation, not to restrict it.

C.

I emphasize these points not merely in defense of the constitution-
ality of Virginia’s open primary law, but because the implications of
20 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM
proscribing all states from ever prescribing open primaries could not
be more profound. To the extent the panel’s position is interpreted to
draw into question open primaries, it threatens to push American poli-
tics into a one-size-fits-all direction. If the panel’s rejection of the
Committee’s facial challenge to open primaries is taken to be its hold-
ing, that will be all to the good. If the panel’s as applied holding is
taken to imply that a mandatory open primary law would impose a
severe burden on a party’s associational rights, that will be a loss. In
fact, a constitutional ban on open primary laws such as Virginia’s
would be just one more small step in making ours an ever more
divided country.

The truth is there is much to be said for a variety of models of party
registration and primary organization. Our federal system protects this
flexibility. It reposes in state legislatures a traditional and historical
power to choose between forms of primaries, between voter registra-
tion by party and not. Options are indicative of the diversity of Amer-
ican politics in which one size does not fit all, and in which state
electoral laws (on voter registration, primary dates, third-party ballot
eligibility, etc.) have never been thought to constrict the ongoing
experimentation that is American democracy.

Traditionally, states have been able to shape the details of their
own democratic experiment. They could, for example, choose to
require party registration eleven months prior to an election, or thirty
days prior, or not at all. See, e.g., Rosario, 410 U.S. at 760. By requir-
ing advance registration and restricting primary participation to such
voters, states may adopt a model of candidate selection which maxi-
mizes the power of a party’s core adherents or "base." Base politics
has much to commend it. It develops core principles and crystallizes
issues, and it can serve to clarify differences and sharpen the edges
of partisan debate. And party partisanship is hardly a bad thing;
indeed it underlies the vigor and vitality of our political life.

But the model of base politics is not the only one, nor has the
American political tradition ever declared that it is. A state may con-
clude that the nominating process should leave room for less fervently
committed partisans to have some say. A state may conclude that an
open primary leads to a more participatory election. A state may con-
clude that an open primary leads candidates to make more moderate
 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM 21
and broad-based appeals. A state may conclude that an open primary
better serves the needs of its voters, who may respond to the ever-
changing political scene with a sincere desire to change their party
affiliation. An open primary encourages parties to be evolutionary
instruments, rather than static ones. And it encourages potential voters
to look at parties anew.

There is no one answer to this closed versus open primary debate,
and the Constitution should not seek to impose one now and for all
time. Rather, there are good reasons to leave our state legislatures
with this flexibility. Elections are events of public import and do not
warrant the exclusion of the judgment of elected representatives. State
legislators, moreover, represent the political parties themselves, and
there is no danger they will leave party politics, the very soil that has
nurtured them, to wither on the vine.

Virginia’s preference for state-funded open primaries is not unique.
A number of states mandate open primaries. See, e.g., Haw. Rev. Stat.
§ 12-31; Idaho Code §§ 34-402, 34-404, 34-904; Mich. Comp. Laws
§ 168.576; Minn. Stat. § 204D.08; Mo. Rev. Stat. § 115.397; Mont.
Code Ann. § 13-10-301; N.D. Cent. Code § 16.1-11-22; Vt. Stat.
Ann. tit. 17, § 2363; Wis. Stat. §§ 5.37, 6.80. Still other states conduct
primaries with some attributes of open primaries. And even if the
number of open primary states had been far fewer, the respect due and
owing them would be no less. Nebraska has bucked the national con-
sensus on bicameralism, see Neb. Const. art. III, § 1; Kentucky, New
Jersey, and Virginia elect their governors in odd numbered years, see
Ky. Const. § 95; N.J. Const. art. XI, § 3; Va. Code Ann. § 24.2-210
(2006). If our federal system stands for anything, it is that the con-
trarian spirit of a state must be respected.

If the panel decision should ever be interpreted to call into question
the variety of systems at work in our fifty states, its threat to political
life as we know it would be severe. Whether the panel intended to
take the matter of open primaries out of legislators’ hands and place
it wholly in those of unelected party officials and unelected judges is
unclear, as its disposition of the different challenges before it point in
different directions. But if it intended to do so, this would be move-
ment in the wrong direction. This would make our public life less
democratic; not more.
22 MILLER v. CUNNINGHAM
Any reinvention of the right of association to disturb the historic
balance and interplay between state laws and party rules, and to
undermine the historic diversity of state systems would be unfortu-
nate. The outcome will be the replacement of the diverse electoral
systems of our states with a court-dictated approach. The choice
between open and closed nominating processes has always been
deemed a permissible one for states to make. What now in our present
Constitution makes it different today?

In undermining our nation’s political diversity, a flat constitutional
ban on open primaries would paradoxically risk our unity and give
freer rein to polarizing trends in our political life. I do not intend to
elaborate on the gerrymandered districts, non-ending election cycles,
criminalization of political differences, etc., that observers beyond
number have indicated are making common ground less easy to find
and fracturing our wholeness as a nation. Such concerns may be
alarmist, and yet it would be error to dismiss them out of hand. But
these structural developments have at least occurred within the politi-
cal process itself, and the political process may in time be counted
upon to supply a corrective. However, by throwing open primaries
into constitutional question, judges are threatening to constitutionalize
polarization, for which by definition there is no political remedy. This
would enshrine in our founding document a divisive principle for a
nation that has suffered too much division already.

The essence of our constitutionalism is that one size does not
invariably fit all. That is the whole point of our federal system — to
keep different approaches to democratic governance alive. There is no
one right answer. At a minimum, courts should not use the American
Constitution to weaken the centrist impulses in American politics. It
should be clear that an open primary, where candidates must compete
for votes beyond their party’s core adherents, is a permissible choice
for a state to make. To use our unelected powers to foreclose this
electoral option would prove the worst of self-inflicted wounds.