On January 9, the Minnesota Supreme Court heard oral argument in De La Fuente v Simon, A19-1994. Here is a news story about the hearing. The article doesn’t make it easy to predict how the court will rule. The issue is whether it violates the State Constitution to give a political party complete control over who may appear on its presidential primary ballot.

One can argue that freedom of association for political parties is satisfied by the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled three times that national presidential conventions can refuse to seat delegates if the state party that sent those delegates did not conform to national party rules. Also the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. circuit ruled in LaRouche v Fowler in 1996 that the Democratic Party national convention was free to refuse to seat elected delegates pledged to Lyndon LaRouche.