TERRY ET AL. v. ADAMS ET AL.
No. 52
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 16, 1953. Decided May 4, 1953.
345 U.S. 461
For opinion of MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, see post, p. 470.
For dissenting opinion of MR. JUSTICE MINTON, see post, p. 484.
J. Edwin Smith and James M. Nabrit argued the cause for petitioners. With Mr. Smith on the brief was Ira J. Allen.
Edgar E. Townes, Jr. and Clarence I. McFarlane argued the cause for respondents. With them on the brief was E. E. Townes.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS and MR. JUSTICE BURTON join.
In Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649, we held that rules of the Democratic Party of Texas excluding Negroes from voting in the party‘s primaries violated the Fifteenth Amendment. While no state law directed such exclusion, our decision pointed out that many party activities were subject to considerable statutory control. This case raises questions concerning the constitutional power of a Texas county political organization called the Jaybird Democratic Association or Jaybird Party to exclude Negroes from its primaries on racial grounds. The Jaybirds deny that their racial exclusions violate the
There was evidence that:
The Jaybird Association or Party was organized in 1889. Its membership was then and always has been limited to white people; they are automatically members if their names appear on the official list of county voters. It has been run like other political parties with an executive committee named from the county‘s voting precincts. Expenses of the party are paid by the assessment of candidates for office in its primaries. Candidates for county offices submit their names to the Jaybird Committee in accordance with the normal practice followed by regular political parties all over the country. Advertisements and posters proclaim that these candidates are running subject to the action of the Jaybird primary. While there is no legal compulsion on successful Jaybird candidates to enter Democratic primaries, they have nearly always done so and with few exceptions since 1889 have run and won without opposition in the Democratic primaries and the general elections that followed. Thus the party has been the dominant political group in the county since organization, having endorsed every county-wide official elected since 1889.
It is apparent that Jaybird activities follow a plan purposefully designed to exclude Negroes from voting and
Q. . . . Now Mr. Adams, will you tell me specifically what is the specific purpose of holding these elections and carrying on this organization like you do?
A. Good government.
Q. Now I will ask you to state whether or not it is the opinion and policy of the Association that to carry on good government they must exclude negro citizens?
A. Well, when we started it was and it is still that way, I think.
Q. And then one of the purposes of your organization is for the specific purpose of excluding negroes from voting, isn‘t it?
A. Yes.
Q. And that is your policy?
A. Yes.
Q. I will ask you, that is the reason you hold your election in May rather than in June or July, isn‘t it?
A. Yes.
Q. Because if you held it in July you would have to abide by the statutes and the law by letting them vote?
A. They do vote in July.
Q. And if you held yours at that time they would have to vote too, wouldn‘t they?
A. Why sure.
Q. And you hold it in May so they won‘t have to?
A. Well, they don‘t vote in ours but they can vote on anybody in the July election they want to.
Q. But you are not answering my question. My question is that you hold yours in May so you won‘t have to let them vote, don‘t you? A. Yes.
Q. And that is your purpose?
A. Yes.
Q. And your intention?
A. Yes.
Q. And to have a vote of the white population at a time when the negroes can‘t vote, isn‘t that right?
A. That‘s right.
Q. That is the whole policy of your Association?
A. Yes.
Q. And that is its purpose?
A. Yes.
The District Court found that the Jaybird Association was a political organization or party; that the majority of white voters generally abide by the results of its primaries and support in the Democratic primaries the persons endorsed by the Jaybird primaries; and that the chief object of the Association has always been to deny Negroes any voice or part in the election of Fort Bend County officials.
The facts and findings bring this case squarely within the reasoning and holding of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in its two recent decisions about excluding Negroes from Democratic primaries in South Carolina. Rice v. Elmore, 165 F. 2d 387, and Baskin v. Brown, 174 F. 2d 391.1 South Carolina had repealed
The South Carolina cases are in accord with the commands of the Fifteenth Amendment and the laws passed pursuant to it. That Amendment provides as follows:
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
“It follows that the amendment has invested the citizens of the United States with a new constitutional right which is within the protecting power of Congress. That right is exemption from discrimination in the exercise of the elective franchise on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” United States v. Reese, 92 U. S. 214, 218.
Other cases have reemphasized the Fifteenth Amendment‘s specific grant of this new constitutional right.2 Not content to rest congressional power to protect this new constitutional right on the necessary and proper
“The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
And Mr. Justice Miller speaking for this Court declared that the Amendment‘s granted right to be free from racial discrimination “. . . should be kept free and pure by congressional enactments whenever that is necessary.” Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651, 665. See also United States v. Reese, supra, at 218. And see Mr. Justice Bradley‘s opinion on circuit in United States v. Cruikshank, 1 Woods 308, 314-316, 320-323. Acting pursuant to the power granted by the second section of the Fifteenth Amendment, Congress in 1870 provided as follows:
“All citizens of the United States who are otherwise qualified by law to vote at any election by the people in any State, Territory, district, county, city, parish, township, school district, municipality, or other territorial subdivision, shall be entitled and allowed to vote at all such elections, without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; any constitution, law, custom, usage, or regulation of any State or Territory, or by or under its authority, to the contrary notwithstanding.”
8 U. S. C. § 31 .
The Amendment, the congressional enactment and the cases make explicit the rule against racial discrimination in the conduct of elections. Together they show the meaning of “elections.” Clearly the Amendment includes any election in which public issues are decided or public officials selected.3 Just as clearly the Amendment
It is significant that precisely the same qualifications as those prescribed by Texas entitling electors to vote at county-operated primaries are adopted as the sole qualifications entitling electors to vote at the county-wide Jaybird primaries with a single proviso—Negroes are excluded. Everyone concedes that such a proviso in the county-operated primaries would be unconstitutional. The Jaybird Party thus brings into being and holds precisely the kind of election that the Fifteenth Amendment seeks to prevent. When it produces the equivalent of the prohibited election, the damage has been done.
For a state to permit such a duplication of its election processes is to permit a flagrant abuse of those processes to defeat the purposes of the Fifteenth Amendment. The use of the county-operated primary to ratify the result of the prohibited election merely compounds the offense. It violates the Fifteenth Amendment for a state, by such circumvention, to permit within its borders the use of any device that produces an equivalent of the prohibited election.
The only election that has counted in this Texas county for more than fifty years has been that held by the Jaybirds from which Negroes were excluded. The Democratic primary and the general election have become no more than the perfunctory ratifiers of the choice that has already been made in Jaybird elections from which Negroes have been excluded. It is immaterial that the state does not control that part of this elective process which it leaves for the Jaybirds to manage. The Jaybird primary has become an integral part, indeed the only effective part, of the elective process that determines who shall rule and govern in the county. The effect of the whole
We reverse the Court of Appeals’ judgment reversing that of the District Court. We affirm the District Court‘s holding that the combined Jaybird-Democratic-general election machinery has deprived these petitioners of their right to vote on account of their race and color. The case is remanded to the District Court to enter such orders and decrees as are necessary and proper under the jurisdiction it has retained under
Reversed and remanded.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER.
Petitioners are Negroes who claim that they and all Negroes similarly situated in Fort Bend County, Texas, are denied all voice in the primary elections for county offices by the activities of respondent association, the Jaybird Democratic Association. The Jaybird Association was organized in 1889 and from that time until the present has selected, first in mass meetings but for some time by ballot of its members, persons whom the organization indorses for election in the Democratic primary for county office. The Association has never permitted Negroes to participate in its selection of the candidates to be indorsed; balloting is open only to all white citizens
The evidence, summarized by formal stipulation, shows that all rules of the Association are made by its members themselves or by its Executive Committee. Membership, defined by the rules of the Association, consists of the entire white voting population as shown in poll lists prepared by the county. The time of balloting, in what are called the Jaybird primaries, is set by the Executive Committee of the Association for a day early in May of each election year. The expenses of these primaries, the officiating personnel, the balloting places, the determination of the winner—all aspects of these primaries are exclusively controlled by the Association. The balloting rules in general follow those prescribed by the State laws regulating primaries. See
The successful candidates in the Jaybird primaries, in formal compliance with State rules in that regard, file individually as candidates in the Democratic primary held on the fourth Saturday in July. No mention is made in the filing or in the listing of the candidates on the Democratic primary ballot that they are the Jaybird indorsees. That fact is conveyed to the public by word of mouth, through newspapers, and by other private means. There is no restriction on filing by anyone else
For the sixty years of the Association‘s existence, the candidate ultimately successful in the Democratic primary for every county-wide office was the man indorsed by the Jaybird Association. Indeed, other candidates almost never file in the Democratic primary. This continuous success over such a period of time has been the result of action by practically the entire qualified electorate of the county, barring Negroes.
This case is for me by no means free of difficulty. Whenever the law draws a line between permissive and forbidden conduct cases are bound to arise which are not obviously on one side or the other. These dubious situations disclose the limited utility of the figure of speech, a “line,” in the law. Drawing a “line” is necessarily exercising a judgment, however confined the conscientious judgment may be within the bounds of constitutional and statutory provisions, the course of decisions, and the presuppositions of the judicial process. If “line” is in the main a fruitful tool for dividing the sheep from the goats, it must not be forgotten that since the “line” is figurative the place of this or that case in relation to it cannot be ascertained externally but is a matter of the mind.
Close analysis of what it is that the Fifteenth Amendment prohibits must be made before it can be determined what the relevant line is in the situation presented by this case. The Fifteenth Amendment, not the Fourteenth, outlawed discrimination on the basis of race or color with respect to the right to vote. Concretely, of course, it was directed against attempts to bar Negroes from having the same political franchise as white folk. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of
The State, in these situations, must mean not private citizens but those clothed with the authority and the influence which official position affords. The application of the prohibition of the Fifteenth Amendment to “any State” is translated by legal jargon to read “State action.” This phrase gives rise to a false direction in that it implies some impressive machinery or deliberative conduct normally associated with what orators call a sovereign state. The vital requirement is State responsibility—that somewhere, somehow, to some extent, there be an infusion of conduct by officials, panoplied with State power, into any scheme by which colored citizens are denied voting rights merely because they are colored.
As the action of the entire white voting community, the Jaybird primary is as a practical matter the instrument of those few in this small county who are politically active—the officials of the local Democratic party and, we may assume, the elected officials of the county. As a matter of practical politics, those charged by State law with the duty of assuring all eligible voters an opportunity to participate in the selection of candidates at the primary—the county election officials who are normally leaders in their communities—participate by voting in the Jaybird primary. They join the white voting community in proceeding with elaborate formality, in almost all respects parallel to the procedures dictated by Texas
The legal significance of the Jaybird primary must be tested against the cases which, in an endeavor to screen what is effectively an exertion of State authority in preventing Negroes from exercising their constitutional right of franchise, have pierced the various manifestations of astuteness. In the last of the series, Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649, we held that the State regulation there of primaries conducted by a political party made the party “required to follow these legislative directions an agency of the State in so far as it determines the participants in a primary election.” Id., at 663. Alternative routes have been suggested for concluding that the Jaybird primary is “so slight a change in form,” id., at 661, that the result should not differ in substance from that of Smith v. Allwright. The District Court found that the Jaybird Association is a political party within the meaning of the Texas legislation regulating the administration of primaries by political parties; it said that the Association could not avoid that result by holding its primary on a different date and by utilizing different methods than those prescribed by the statutes.
Whether the Association is a political party regulated by Texas and thus subject to a duty of nondiscrimination, or is, as it claims, clearly not a party within the meaning of that legislation, failing as it does to attempt to comply with a number of the State requirements, particularly as to the date of the “primary,” is a question of State law not to be answered in the first instance by a federal court. We do not know what the Texas Supreme Court would say. An operation such
But assuming, as I think we must, that the Jaybird Association is not a political party holding a State-regulated primary, we should nonetheless decide this case against respondents on the ground that in the precise situation before us the State authority has come into play. The State of Texas has entered into a comprehensive scheme of regulation of political primaries, including procedures by which election officials shall be chosen. The county election officials are thus clothed with the authority of the State to secure observance of the State‘s interest in “fair methods and a fair expression” of preferences in the selection of nominees. Cf. Waples v. Marrast, 108 Tex. 5, 12, 184 S. W. 180, 183. If the Jaybird Association, although not a political party, is a device to defeat the law of Texas regulating primaries, and if the electoral officials, clothed with State power in the county, share in that subversion, they cannot divest themselves of the State au-
This is not a case of occasional efforts to mass voting strength. Nor is this a case of boss-control, whether crudely or subtly exercised. Nor is this a case of spontaneous efforts by citizens to influence votes or even continued efforts by a fraction of the electorate in support of good government. This is a case in which county election officials have participated in and condoned a continued effort effectively to exclude Negroes from voting. Though the action of the Association as such may not be proscribed by the Fifteenth Amendment, its role in the entire scheme to subvert the operation of the official primary brings it “within reach of the law. . . . [T]hey are bound together as the parts of a single plan. The plan may make the parts unlawful.” Mr. Justice Holmes, speaking for the Court, in Swift and Company v. United States, 196 U. S. 375, 396.
The State here devised a process for primary elections. The right of all citizens to share in it, and not to be excluded by unconstitutional bars, is emphasized by the fact that in Texas nomination in the Democratic primary is tantamount to election. The exclusion of the Negroes from meaningful participation in the only primary scheme set up by the State was not an accidental, unsought consequence of the exercise of civic rights by voters to make their common viewpoint count. It was the design, the very purpose of this arrangement that the Jaybird primary in May exclude Negro participation in July. That it was the action in part of the election officials charged by
It does not follow, however, that the relief granted below was proper. Since the vice of this situation is not that the Jaybird primary itself is the primary discriminatorily conducted under State law but is that the determination there made becomes, in fact, the determination in the Democratic primary by virtue of the participation and acquiescence of State authorities, a federal court cannot require that petitioners be allowed to vote in the Jaybird primary. The evil here is that the State, through the action and abdication of those whom it has clothed with authority, has permitted white voters to go through a procedure which predetermines the legally devised primary. To say that Negroes should be allowed to vote in the Jaybird primary would be to say that the State is under a duty to see to it that Negroes may vote in that primary. We cannot tell the State that it must participate in and regulate this primary; we cannot tell the State what machinery it will use. But a court of equity can free the lawful political agency from the combination that subverts its capacity to function. What must be done is that this county be rid of the means by which the unlawful “usage,”
MR. JUSTICE CLARK, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE REED, and MR. JUSTICE JACKSON join, concurring.
The issue is whether the Jaybird Democratic Association of Fort Bend County, Texas, by excluding Negroes from its primaries has denied to Negro citizens of the county a right to vote secured by the Fifteenth Amend-
An old pattern in new guise is revealed by the record.7 The Jaybird Democratic Association of Fort Bend County was founded in 1889 to promote “good government” in the post-Reconstruction period. During its entire life span the Association has restricted membership to whites. In earlier years, the members at mass meetings determined their choice of candidates to support at forthcoming official elections. Subsequently the Association developed a system closely paralleling the structure of the Democratic Party. The Association is governed by an Executive Committee of twenty-two persons, one from each voting precinct in the county. The Committee in each election year sets the date of the Jaybird primary for selecting by ballot the candidates to be endorsed by the Association for public office in the county. The machinery of the Jaybird Democratic Association primary now differs from the state-regulated Democratic Party primary mainly in the Association‘s prohibition of more than two consecutive terms for officeholders, the absence of a pledge on the ballot at the Jaybird primary, and the Association‘s practice of not officially filing as a ticket the names of candidates successful in its balloting. And for more than a half century the Association has adhered to its guiding principle: to deny the Negro voters of Fort Bend County any effective voice in their government.
The Court of Appeals, in reversing the District Court, largely relied on what it deemed “the settled course of decision culminating in Collins v. Hardyman, 341 U. S.
In our view, the Court of Appeals has misconceived the thrust of our recent decisions. The
We agree with Chief District Judge Kennerly that the Jaybird Democratic Association is a political party10 whose activities fall within the Fifteenth Amendment‘s self-executing ban. See Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347, 363 (1915); Myers v. Anderson, 238 U. S. 368, 379-380 (1915).11 Not every private club, association or league organized to influence public candidacies or political action must conform to the Constitution‘s restrictions on political parties. Certainly a large area of freedom permits peaceable assembly and concerted private action for political purposes to be exercised separately by white and colored citizens alike. More, however, is involved here.
The record discloses that the Jaybird Democratic Association operates as part and parcel of the Democratic Party, an organization existing under the auspices of Texas law.12 Each maintains the same basic qualification for membership: eligibility to vote under Texas law. Although the state Democratic Party in Texas since Smith v. Allwright, supra, no longer can restrict its membership to whites, the Jaybird Democratic Association bars Negroes from its ranks. In May of each election year it conducts a full-scale white primary in which each candidate campaigns for his candidacy subject to the action of that primary and the Democratic primary of July, linking
Quite evidently the Jaybird Democratic Association operates as an auxiliary of the local Democratic Party organization, selecting its nominees and using its machinery for carrying out an admitted design of destroying the weight and effect of Negro ballots in Fort Bend
The Jaybird Democratic Association device, as a result, strikes to the core of the electoral process in Fort Bend County. Whether viewed as a separate political organization or as an adjunct of the local Democratic Party, the Jaybird Democratic Association is the decisive power in the county‘s recognized electoral process. Over the years its balloting has emerged as the locus of effective political choice. Consonant with the broad and lofty aims of its Framers, the
In sum, we believe that the activities of the Jaybird Democratic Association fall within the broad principle laid down in Smith v. Allwright, supra. For that reason we join the judgment of the Court.
MR. JUSTICE MINTON, dissenting.
I am not concerned in the least as to what happens to the Jaybirds or their unworthy scheme. I am concerned about what this Court says is state action within the
“Since the decision of this Court in the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3 (1883), the principle has become firmly embedded in our constitutional law that the action inhibited by the first section of the
Fourteenth Amendment is only such action as may fairly be said to be that of the States. That Amendment erects no shield against merely private conduct, however discriminatory or wrongful.” (Emphasis supplied.)*
As I understand MR. JUSTICE BLACK‘S opinion, he would have this Court redress the wrong even if it was individual action alone. I can understand that praiseworthy position, but it seems to me it is not in accord with the Constitution. State action must be shown.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER recognizes that it must be state action but he seems to think it is enough to constitute state action if a state official participates in the Jaybird primary. That I cannot follow. For it seems clear to me that everything done by a person who is an official is not done officially and as a representative of the State. However, I find nothing in this record that shows the state or county officials participating in the Jaybird primary.
MR. JUSTICE CLARK seems to recognize that state action must be shown. He finds state action in assumption, not in facts. This record will be searched in vain for
“There is no compulsion upon any person who receives the indorsement of the Jaybird Democratic Association of Fort Bend County, Texas, for a particular office, to run for that office or any other office. In the event such indorsee of the Association does desire to run for such office he may do so; but if he does so run for such office he must himself file his application with the Executive Chairman or Committee of the Democratic Party for the position on the Democratic Party ballot for the July primary of such Democratic Party, and must himself pay the fee as provided by law. Neither the Jaybird Democratic Association nor its Executive Committee files an application with the Democratic Party Executive Committee or Chairman that the Jaybird Democratic Association nominee be placed on the ballot for the Democratic Party July primary election.
There is nothing on the ballot of the Democratic Party primary to indicate that any person appearing thereon does or does not have the indorsement of the Jaybird Democratic Association. “The name of the applicant for a place on the Democratic Party ballot is not placed on said ballot unless he complies with the laws of the State of Texas, even though such applicant were indorsed by the Jaybird Democratic Association; and every qualified applicant who makes the required application to the Democratic Executive Committee and pays the requisite fee is placed on the Democratic Party primary ballot for the July Democratic primary though not indorsed by the Jaybird Democratic Association.
“No member of the Negro race, nor any other person qualified under the laws of the State of Texas to become a candidate, has been refused a place on the Democratic Party primary ballot for Fort Bend County, Texas, by the Democratic Party.”
Neither is there any more evidence that the Jaybird Association avails itself of or conforms in any manner to any law of the State of Texas. As to the Jaybird Association‘s relation to the State, I again quote the stipulation in the record:
“There is no political organization in Fort Bend County, Texas, by the official name or designation ‘Jaybird Party‘. At all times since 1889, however, there has been and still is, an organization in Fort Bend County, Texas, by the name of ‘Jaybird Democratic Association of Fort Bend County, Texas‘. Said Association, however, has not since 1938, and it does not: (a) Have a State organization; (b) Follow or attempt to comply with any of the provisions of Article 3163 of the Revised Statutes of Texas, or
of any other statutes of the State of Texas with reference to primary elections or general elections; (c) Hold any convention or ‘primary election’ on the legal primary election day, to-wit: The fourth Saturday in July or the fourth Saturday in August, of any year; (d) Hold any primary convention in any precinct on the Saturday preceding a legal primary election day; (e) By the chairman of a county committee, or otherwise, certify to the County Clerk of Fort Bend County, Texas, or to the County Judge thereof, or to any official committee or other representative of the Democratic or Republican party, any nominations or indorsements made by the Association; (f) Have, or cause to be, printed in a separate column headed by the Association name any nominations on any official ballot used, or for use in, a primary or general election held on a legal primary election day or general election day; (nor does the name, Jaybird Democratic Association of Fort Bend County, Texas, or any part or indication thereof, appear on any ballot in any election other than the primaries, or other special voting occasions, held by the Association itself and alone); (g) Make, or cause to be made, a written application to the County Judge for such printing, signed and sworn to by 3% of the entire vote cast in Fort Bend County at the last preceding general election. “No officer nor Committee of such Association certifies the result of the Association membership vote, nor any nominations of the Association, to the County Clerk of Fort Bend County, Texas, nor to the Democratic Party Executive Committee nor to the Committee or official of any party with a statewide organization.
“In the last few years some of the members of the Negro race have offered to vote in the Democratic Party primaries and no member of the Negro race who had qualified under the laws of the State of Texas to vote has been refused the right to vote. Some of the members of the Negro race have offered to vote in a general election in Fort Bend County, Texas, and no member of the Negro race qualified to vote has been refused a vote. . . . . .
“The Jaybird Democratic Association of Fort Bend County, Texas, is not, and does not have, a state organization, but limits its May and June Association primaries to only the county and precinct offices, except that the membership of the Association does vote its preference for the office of District Clerk in Fort Bend County.
“The persons seeking the indorsement of the Jaybird Democratic Association of Fort Bend County, Texas, at its May or June Primaries are not required by the Association to file any expense account and do not file expense accounts with any State or local official, Committee or Board.”
These stipulations from the record show the complete absence of any compliance with the state law or practice, or cooperation by or with the State. Even if it be said to be a political organization, the Jaybird Association avails itself of no state law open to political organizations, such as
However, its action is not forbidden by the law of the State of Texas. Does such failure of the State to act to prevent individuals from doing what they have the right as individuals to do amount to state action? I venture the opinion it does not.
So it seems to me clear there is no state action, and the Jaybird Democratic Association is in no sense a part of the Democratic Party. If it is a political organization, it has made no attempt to use the State, or the State to use it, to carry on its poll.
Rice v. Elmore, 165 F. 2d 387, is cited as authority for the position of the petitioners. In that case, South Carolina had repealed all its laws relating to the conduct of primaries. The only primary conducted was by the Democratic Party of South Carolina in accordance with rules adopted by the Party. It was stipulated on the trial of that case that the Democratic Party “conducts nominating primaries and thereafter prints its ballots for use in the General Elections with the names of its nominees
Thus it will be seen that there the Democratic Party furnished not only the candidate in the general election, but it also furnished the only ballot one could vote in that election. So the State in the general election accepted the ballot of the Democratic Party as its official ballot, and on that ballot no Negro had been permitted to vote. Clearly, the State adopted the Democratic Party‘s procedure as its action. The State and the Democratic Party effectively cooperated to carry on this two-step election procedure.
No such action is taken by the Jaybird Association. It neither files, certifies, nor supplies anything for the primary or election. The winner of the poll in the Jaybird Association contest files in the Democratic primary, where he may and sometimes has received opposition, and successful opposition, in precinct contests for County Commissioner, Justice of the Peace and Constable. There is no rule of the Jaybird Association that requires the successful party in its poll to file in the Democratic primary or elsewhere. It is all individual, voluntary action. Neither the State nor the Democratic Party
Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649, is in no manner controlling. In that case, the State had set up the machinery for the Democratic Party to conduct its primary. The State of Texas made the Democratic Party its agent for the conducting of a Democratic primary. Of course, the Democratic Party could not run that primary, set up under the auspices of the State, in a manner to exclude citizens of Texas therefrom because of their race. That such is the basis of the Court‘s opinion in Smith v. Allwright, supra, is apparent from the following quotation taken from that case:
“Primary elections are conducted by the party under state statutory authority. The county executive committee selects precinct election officials and the county, district or state executive committees, respectively, canvass the returns. These party committees or the state convention certify the party‘s candidates to the appropriate officers for inclusion on the official ballot for the general election. No name which has not been so certified may appear upon the ballot for the general election as a candidate of a political party. . . .
“We think that this statutory system for the selection of party nominees for inclusion on the general election ballot makes the party which is required to follow these legislative directions an agency of the State in so far as it determines the participants in a primary election. The party takes its character as a state agency from the duties imposed upon it by state statutes; the duties do not become matters of private law because they are performed by a political party.” 321 U. S. 649, 663. (Emphasis supplied.)
I do not understand that concerted action of individuals which is successful somehow becomes state action. However, the candidates endorsed by the Jaybird Association have several times been defeated in primaries and elections. Usually but not always since 1938, only the Jaybird-endorsed candidate has been on the Democratic official ballot in the County.
In the instant case, the State of Texas has provided for elections and primaries. This is separate and apart and wholly unrelated to the Jaybird Association‘s activities. Its activities are confined to one County where a group of citizens have appointed themselves the censors of those who would run for public offices. Apparently so far they have succeeded in convincing the voters of this County in most instances that their supported candidates should win. This seems to differ very little from situations common in many other places far north of the Mason-Dixon line, such as areas where a candidate must obtain the approval of a religious group. In other localities, candidates are carefully selected by both parties to
The courts do not normally pass upon these pressure groups, whether their causes are good or bad, highly successful or only so-so. It is difficult for me to see how this Jaybird Association is anything but such a pressure group. Apparently it is believed in by enough people in Fort Bend County to obtain a majority of the votes for its approved candidates. This differs little from the situation in many parts of the “Bible Belt” where a church stamp of approval or that of the Anti-Saloon League must be put on any candidate who does not want to lose the election.
The State of Texas in its elections and primaries takes no cognizance of this Jaybird Association. The State treats its decisions apparently with the same disdain as it would the approval or condemnation of judicial candidates by a bar association poll of its members.
In this case the majority have found that this pressure group‘s work does constitute state action. The basis of this conclusion is rather difficult to ascertain. Apparently it derives mainly from a dislike of the goals of the Jaybird Association. I share that dislike. I fail to see how it makes state action. I would affirm.