Throwing the Party - Batchis, Wayne

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Résumé :
The Supreme Court's jurisprudence on political parties is rooted in an incomplete story. Parties are, like voluntary clubs, associations of individuals that are represented by a singular organization. However, as political science has long understood, they are much more than this. Parties are also the voters who choose and support their candidates, the elected officials who govern, the activists and volunteers who contribute their time and energy, and the individual and organizational donors who open their wallets. Unfortunately, the Court's framework for understanding America's two-party system has largely ignored this broader conception of political parties. The result has been a distortion of the true nature of the two-party system, and a body of deeply inconsistent and contradictory constitutional case law. From primaries to campaign finance, partisan gerrymandering to ballot access, law and politics scholar Wayne Batchis interrogates, scrutinizes, and offers a proposed solution to this problematic jurisprudence....

Sommaire:
Part I. Foundations: 1. Introduction; 2. The Supreme Court's approach to political parties; 3. The association versus the individual; Part II. Party Primaries: 4. Setting the stage; 5. Primaries and the party in the electorate: the right to vote; 6. Double standards: organizations over individuals and major over minor parties; 7. Doubling down on the party organization in service of the major parties; Part III. The Party, the Court, and Campaign Finance Law: 8. Party speech through money; 9. An ill-fitting party campaign finance jurisprudence; 10. Parties and the current campaign finance landscape; Part IV. Pass? Equal Protection and a Way Forward; 11. Party and equality; 12. The political question: is there room for equal protection in partisan gerrymandering?; 13. A potential solution: the party system as a public forum; 14. Conclusion.