Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/451

 502us2$22M 08-19-96 17:40:23 PAGES OPINPGT

Cite as: 502 U. S. 279 (1992)

293

Opinion of the Court

Under the interpretation of § 10–2 rendered below, however, Illinois law retains the constitutional flaw at issue in Socialist Workers Party by effectively increasing the signature requirement applicable to elections for at least some offices in subdivisions with separate districts. Under that interpretation, the failure of a party’s organizers to obtain 25,000 signatures for each district in which they run candidates disqualifies the party’s candidates in all races within the subdivision. Thus, a prerequisite to establishing a new political party in such multidistrict subdivisions is some multiple of the number of signatures required of new statewide parties. Since petitioners chose to field candidates for the county board seats allocated to the separate districts and, as required by state law, used the “component” (i. e., districtspecific) form of nominating petition, the State Supreme Court’s construction of § 10–2 required petitioners to accumulate 50,000 signatures (25,000 from the city district and another 25,000 from the suburbs) to run any candidates in Cook County elections. The State may not do this in the face of Socialist Workers Party, which forbids it to require petitioners to gather twice as many signatures to field candidates in Cook County as they would need statewide. Reed nonetheless tries to skirt Socialist Workers Party by advancing what she claims to be a state interest, not addressed by the earlier case, in ensuring that the electoral support for new parties in a multidistrict political subdivision extends to every district. Accepting the legitimacy of the interest claimed would not, however, excuse the requirement’s unconstitutional breadth. Illinois might have compelled the organizers of a new party to demonstrate a distribution of support throughout Cook County without at the same time raising the overall quantum of needed support above what the State expects of new parties fielding candidates only for statewide office. The State might, for example, have required some minimum number of signatures from each of the component districts while maintaining the total