slate's "jurisprudence" is a fantastic column, and they had a great entry this week describing the constitutional issues behind idiosyncratic primary rules [click here].
the column always does a really good job of explaining some really complicated legal issues in lay terminology, and this article is no different ... here's a taste:
What gives? Didn't the Supreme Court declare a "one person, one vote" principle back in the 1960s requiring the equal weighting of votes? And shouldn't this render most of these party rules unconstitutional? The short answer is no. Although most of the deviations from "one person, one vote" would be unconstitutional if a state put them to work in the general election for president, party primaries and caucuses are different. Aside from some really egregious no-nos, such as weighting candidate delegate strength according to the race of their supporters, courts are likely to stay out of disputes over the rules for choosing the parties' presidential nominees.
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