ABSTRACT
This chapter contemplates a constitutional challenge to a front-loaded, sequential nominating process that is grounded in First and Fourteenth Amendment principles of political expression/association and equal protection. The chapter emphasizes how parties predicate their authority to control the nominating process by claiming to protect the rights of party members, yet undermine such claims by sanctioning a nominating process that does not afford to all members the most important privilege of membership. A majority of late-state voters meet virtually any definition of party member: they are the individuals whose right to participate is at the very heart of the parties’ associational freedoms but are denied meaningful and effective participation in the selection of their party’s presidential nominee by virtue of a sequential, front-loaded nominating calendar. The chapter anticipates objections to potential judicial intervention via an individual rights-based approach, but argues that grounding a challenge in basic notions of fundamental fairness may reframe and lend new impetus to a more comprehensive reform debate.
