Indiana requires candidates on a primary election ballot to demonstrate party affiliation by either (1) having voted in the party’s two most recent primaries or (2) obtaining the county party chair’s certification of their party membership.[1] In Morales v. Rust, the Indiana Supreme Court upheld this law, concluding that it does not violate the federal or state constitutions, including the right to free association under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.[2]

John Rust, a would-be Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, initiated this case. Rust could not satisfy either of the party-affiliation requirements. His voting history was mixed. (He voted Democrat in the 2006 through 2012 primaries and Republican in 2016.[3]) And the county party chair declined to certify his membership in the party.[4] Accordingly, before his candidacy could be challenged, Rust sued Indiana election officials and the Jackson County Republican Party Chair in state court. He requested—and the trial court granted—a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the party-affiliation statute against him.[5]

The trial court agreed with Rust that the challenged statute violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments by infringing his right of association; the Seventeenth Amendment by disenfranchising voters; Article 1, Section 23 of the Indiana Constitution by violating his equal-protection rights; the void-for-vagueness and overbreadth doctrines by failing to give fair notice of prohibited conduct and by overly restricting protected speech; and the Indiana Constitution’s amendment process by adding eligibility requirements for candidacy.[6] The trial court also found the county Republican chair’s refusal to certify Rust’s membership was invalid under the Affiliation Statute according to canons of statutory interpretation.[7]

The Indiana Supreme Court reversed on all counts. Justice Mark Massa penned the majority opinion.

After briefly addressing justiciability,[8] the court began with the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Observing that both Rust and the Indiana Republican Party enjoy free-association rights, the court explained that the party-affiliation statute was an “elegant balancing” of the competing interests.[9]

Applying the Anderson-Burdick framework that applies in First and Fourteenth Amendment challenges to state election laws, the court concluded that the party-affiliation statute withstands constitutional scrutiny. Explaining that Rust does not have a “fundamental right” to run for U.S. Senate as the Republican nominee but “still enjoys a statutory right to appear on the general-election ballot as an independent, Libertarian, or write-in candidate,” the court determined that the statute “imposes a reasonable and nondiscriminatory restriction on Rust’s right to be on the primary election ballot.”[10]

The court then concluded that the state’s “important regulatory interests”—including “safeguarding parties from forced inclusion of unwanted members and candidates,” “sustaining the identifiability of political parties,” “fostering the health and ‘stability of their political systems,’” and “protect[ing] the integrity of the election process”—justify the restriction.[11]

Taking aim at the dissent, the court emphasized that it applied the First Amendment doctrine faithfully, while the dissent “express[ed] policy preferences” and would “assert[]” “raw judicial power” to “undermine[]” the will of the people and their elected representatives who enacted the statute.[12]

The court dealt with the remaining issues in short order. It rejected Rust’s argument that the statute was unconstitutionally vague or overbroad because “it is not clear what a party chair must certify.”[13] The court displayed skepticism that the void-for-vagueness doctrine had bearing on a statute that “does not prohibit certain conduct,” nor impose “civil or criminal penalties.”[14] But even assuming the doctrine applied in this context, the court concluded that the statute is not vague because it gives candidates “explicit” notice about how to satisfy its requirements. “Nor is the Affiliation Statute overbroad,” the court explained, because it “provides two reasonably crafted ways to establish party affiliation” that “balance” “associational rights for both Rust and the Republican Party.”[15]

The court also dismissed Rust’s argument that the statute violates the Seventeenth Amendment by limiting voters’ choices. Observing that this amendment “superseded the original rule in the Constitution that senators be ‘chosen by the [state] Legislatures’” in favor of direct election “by the people” of each state, the court concluded that the party-affiliation statute “is a mere procedural regulation that does not substantively change the minimum qualifications for United States Senate” and therefore does not violate the Seventeenth Amendment.[16]

Regarding Rust’s claim under Article I, Section 23 of the Indiana Constitution (the state’s privileges and immunities clause), the court found “no equal protection violation as applied to Rust” because the party-affiliation statute “applies the same requirements on everyone who desires to run in a party’s primary election, including Rust.”[17]

The court “decline[d] to reach the merits” of Rust’s claim that the law “‘improperly’ amends Article 4, Section 7 of the Indiana Constitution.”[18] That provision establishes eligibility requirements to run for the State Senate and House of Representatives, but Rust did not run for either office.

Finally, the court rejected Rust’s argument that the county party chair’s refusal to certify his party membership “violates multiple canons of statutory construction.”[19] Rust argued that the refusal conflicted with the purpose and spirit of the law, added words to the statute, rendered part of the statute meaningless, and conflicted with Indiana Code section 3-10-1-2. The court disagreed, concluding that statute’s “plain language” grants the chair “broad discretion to certify that Rust is a member of the Republican Party.”[20]

Justice Molter issued a concurring opinion, joined by Justice Slaughter, describing a narrower First Amendment holding. He agreed that the party-affiliation statute “does not impermissibly burden Rust’s First Amendment rights because its requirement to either become a party member or vote in the party’s primaries was not too onerous for Rust to satisfy.”[21] Going beyond the majority’s interpretation, Justice Molter opined that the plain text does not authorize a county party chair to do anything “more than just certifying whether an aspiring candidate is a party member.”[22] The law does not allow party chairs “to decide whether to give candidates the party’s permission to run for a particular office.”[23]

Justice Molter also identified a problem with suing the county party chair in her “official capacity” for refusing to certify Rust. Explaining that Rust could have sued the chair to obtain a mandate if she “was a state actor with a ministerial duty to certify party membership,” Justice Molter stated that Rust abandoned this issue.[24] Nevertheless, as a matter of constitutional avoidance, “[the court] can’t invalidate the statute before Rust demonstrates that invalidating the statute on constitutional grounds is his last resort rather than his first.”[25]

Finally, Justice Molter concluded that the First Amendment claim fails under Anderson-Burdick. On its face, the statute does not constitute a severe burden on candidates’ rights. And as applied, Rust failed to show that “the impediments to Rust either obtaining party member certification or voting in the party’s primaries are substantial enough” to “clearly outweigh its benefits.”[26]

Justice Goff, joined by Chief Justice Rush, dissented. Describing the law as “legislative overreach,” Justice Goff concluded that the party-affiliation statute violates the First Amendment.[27]

He disagreed with the majority that the party-affiliation statute imposes only a “minor” burden. Although Rust may run for office in the general election, “there is no realistic way for Rust to hold himself out to others as a Republican in the general election, other than standing in the Republican Party’s primary.”[28] And the state’s interests, while “legitimate,” nevertheless “fall far short . . . of justifying the Statute’s ballot-access restrictions as applied to Rust.”[29] The dissent discounted the state’s interests in preventing “voter confusion” and “ballot overcrowding” because there was “nothing here to suggest that” it had been a problem “in recent years.”[30] Likewise, the state’s interest “in guarding against party raiding and frivolous candidates” is weak because “the State itself created that risk in the first place through the primary voting method it adopted,” which does not require any formal membership or registration with a party before voting in the party’s primary.[31] And, in the dissent’s view, the Republican Party’s First Amendment right of association “does not necessarily align with the State’ interest” and should not be considered in the balancing analysis.[32]

Ultimately, “penalizing [Rust] for having voted in the Democratic Primary twelve years ago” and ignoring other actions demonstrating his affiliation with the Republican Party, such as his donations to the national party, creates an “onerous burden” without serving sufficiently weighty state interests.[33] In Justice Goff’s view, “the Court forsakes its role as a check and balance to the legislature if it ‘simply defers to the General Assembly’s decision on how to weigh the people’s liberty.’”[34]

 

[1] Ind. Code § 3-8-2-7(a)(4).

[2] 228 N.E.3d 1025, 1030-31 (Ind. 2024).

[3] Id. at 1032.

[4] Id.

[5] Id. at 1032-33.

[6] Id. at 1033.

[7] Id.

[8] Id. at 1033-34.

[9] Id. at 1031.

[10] Id. at 1038-39 (emphasis in original).

[11] Id. at 1041-43 (emphases omitted).

[12] Id. at 1046-48.

[13] Id. at 1049.

[14] Id. (emphasis omitted).

[15] Id. at 1050.

[16] Id. at 1050-52 (quoting U.S. Const. amend. XVII).

[17] Id. at 1053. (emphasis omitted).

[18] Id.

[19] Id. at 1054.

[20] Id.

[21] Id. at 1056 (Molter, J., concurring).

[22] Id. at 1058 (emphasis in original).

[23] Id. (emphasis in original).

[24] Id. at 1061.

[25] Id.

[26] Id. at 1064.

[27] Id. at 1066 (Goff, J., dissenting).

[28] Id. at 1073.

[29] Id.

[30] Id.

[31] Id. at 1074.

[32] Id. at 1076.

[33] Id. at 1075, 1080.

[34] Id. at 1080.

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