THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 3, 1995 TAG: 9510030289
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 42 lines
The Virginia Republican Party illegally required delegates to pay a fee to participate in last year's nominating convention, the Supreme Court was told Monday.
``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.
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 pre-clearance 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. by CNB