Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 3, 1995 TAG: 9510030091
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
``If you don't pay $45, you have absolutely no say in how the Republican nominee for Senate in Virginia is selected,'' Pamela S. Karlan argued for three University of Virginia law students who challenged the fee as an illegal poll tax.
But E. Duncan Getchell Jr., the state GOP's lawyer, said the 1965 federal Voting Rights Act does not apply when political parties choose their nominees through state conventions instead of primary elections.
The law wouldn't even keep parties from holding all-white state conventions, he contended.
Law students Fortis Morse, Kenneth Bartholomew and Kimberly Enderson challenged the state party's fee requirement for delegates who attended the 1994 convention. The students' leader was Morse, of Pearisburg, whose family in Giles County has long been active in Republican Party politics.
Oliver North was nominated for the Senate but lost in the general election to Democratic incumbent Sen. Charles Robb.
The students' lawsuit argued that the Voting Rights Act required the Virginia Republicans to seek Justice Department approval for the decision to impose a fee.
Virginia and other states covered by the 1965 law must prove that changes in state election laws are not racially discriminatory.
A three-judge federal appeals court in Charlottesville ruled that Justice Department preclearance authority applies only to a political party's conduct of primary elections, not nominating conventions.
Getchell urged the high court to uphold that ruling. State conventions are ``intensely political'' and do not come under the law's purview, he said.
``That's a curious line to draw,'' said Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. ``I thought you would say the law doesn't reach political parties.''
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested that choosing party nominees at a convention is essentially a substitute for holding a primary election.
``The function is identical, is it not?'' she asked. ``So why shouldn't the coverage be the same?''
Getchell said primary elections and party conventions are ``different political animals.''
Justice Antonin Scalia raised freedom-of-association concerns, questioning whether the government could bar the formation of a political party that was all women, all blacks, all whites or perhaps all rich people.
Justice Department lawyer Paul Bender, arguing in support of the students, said such a party could be prevented from receiving special benefits, such as preferential placement on the election ballot.
by CNB