On November 21, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that giving the two major parties a list of the people who vote in their presidential primaries, and making it a crime to give the list to anyone else, serves a public purpose. Grebner v State, 135274. Here is the decision.

The Justices acted even though the case had only been presented to them two days ago, so obviously they didn’t have much time for careful thought. As to the point about discrimination against minor parties, the majority quoted from Chief Justice Rehnquist’s sentence in Timmons v Twin Cities Area New Party (the 1997 decision that upheld state bans on fusion) that states have an interest in discriminating “in favor of the traditional two-party system”. The Michigan Supreme Court completely ignored a 1970 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Socialist Workers Party v Rockefeller, that specifically said states may not give the list of registered voters to the qualified parties and not the unqualified parties.

The Michigan Libertarian Party is already planning a federal lawsuit to challenge the Michigan discriminatory policy.

There is still no guarantee that Michigan will hold a presidential primary in 2008. The law mandates that unless both the Democratic and Republican Parties want a presidential primary, there will be no presidential primary. Democrats earlier said they wanted a presidential primary, but since the existing law requires candidates to file if they wish to be on the ballot, and since most Democratic contenders had refused to file, it is not certain that Democrats want a primary.