Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who died September 3, was almost always a foe of minor parties and independent candidates. He voted against them on ballot access, and on debates, and on fusion. He wrote the decision in Timmons v Twin Cities Area New Party. That decision not only upheld state laws that prohibit two parties from jointly nominating the same candidate. It went further, and seemed to suggest that it is constitutional to pass election laws of all kinds that hobble minor parties. He is the only justice who ever used the term “two-party system” to justify laws that discriminate against minor parties and independent candidates.
Rehnquist voted to keep John B. Anderson off the Ohio ballot in 1980, and he voted to keep Eugene McCarthy off the Texas ballot in 1976. Fortunately, both times he was in the court minority.
In 1999 he bitterly dissented when the Court majority invalidated state laws that require petition circulators to be registered voters. He charged that “convicted drug dealers” would now be able to circulate petitions.
In 1997, during the oral argument in Arkansas Educational TV Commission v Forbes (the case on whether public TV can sponsor candidate debates and invite only the Democrat and Republican), he sarcastically refered to the independent candidate who had filed the lawsuit as “Wacko Willie”.