Party Loyalty Pledges- Review of Supreme Court, Ray v Blair 1952
Donald Trump has made the headlines by pledging to support and not work against the presidential nominee of the Republican party, whoever it is. In RAY v. BLAIR, (1952) the US Supreme Court, overturning the Alabama Supreme Court, ruled that the Alabama democratic party requiring presidential electors topledge to support the presidential candidate nominated by the national democratic party, did not constitute a violation of the constitution or the twelfth amendment thereof. I condensed the majority (from 3254 to 1882 words) and minority (from 1249 to 707 words) opinions in this case (see below). First I present my opinion which is that in this case the majority was correct:
MY OPINION
There is nothing in the 12th amendment of the US Constitution, to restrict political parties from putting restraints on the behavior of those who voluntarily join the party. Political parties should be free to follow their own rules so long as no crime is committed. The people using political parties if they wish, are supposed to control the government, as opposed to the government controlling the people and their parties. The fact that an organization such as a political party is involved in influencing the outcome of elections does not make it a government entity strictly bound by the constitution. Political parties are groups of people who seek to, by way of teamwork, elect candidates they favor. This teamwork could consist of ridiculous or unjust processes, but so long as such processes are not criminal, it is not the government's 'constitutional' business to regulate them. A political party could require that those who who run for their party's nomination give up some constitutional right, yet such would not necessarily abrogate the constitution. for example If a political party decided to appoint candidates based on random number generation, it would not the government's 'constitutional' business to force them to change, even admitting that such randomness would impair the quality of government. If a man is offended by the restraints placed upon him by his party, he is free to leave the party and join another party, create a party, or run for office as an independent individual. When voters are free to choose between uncommitted electors and pledged electors, such is preferable to being able to choose only from uncommitted electors. Voters are notoriously ignorant regarding candidates and issues; this ignorance is much greater with regards to the character and beliefs of presidential electors, compared to presidential candidates.
CONDENSED MAJORITY OPINION
Where a state authorizes a political party to choose its nominees for Presidential Electors in a state-controlled party primary election and to fix the qualifications for the candidates, it is not violative of the Federal Constitution for the party to require the candidates for the office of Presidential Elector to take a pledge to support the nominees of the party's National Convention...or for the party's officers to refuse to certify as a candidate for Presidential Elector a person otherwise qualified who refuses to take such a pledge...
2. Exclusion of a candidate in a party primary by a state or political party because such candidate will not pledge to support the party's nominees is a method of securing party candidates in the general election who are pledged to the philosophy and leadership of that party; and it is an exercise of the state's right ...to appoint electors in such manner as it may choose. United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299 , and Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 ...
3. The Twelfth Amendment does not bar a political party from requiring of a candidate for Presidential Elector in its primary a pledge to support the nominees of its National Convention...
4. The requirement of such a pledge does not deny equal protection or due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U.S. 536 , distinguished. P. 226, n. 14. 257 Ala. ___, 57 So.2d 395, reversed.
The Alabama Supreme Court upheld, on federal constitutional grounds, a ...writ ...requiring...the Chairman of the...Committee of the Democratic Party, to certify respondent as a candidate for Presidential Elector in a Democratic Primary ...This Court granted certiorari...In a...decision announced on April 3, 1952, in advance of the preparation of this opinion, this Court reversed that judgment...
MR. JUSTICE REED delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Supreme Court of Alabama upheld a...writ ...requiring the petitioner, the chairman of that state's Executive Committee of the Democratic Party, to certify respondent Edmund Blair, a member of that party...as a candidate for Presidential Elector...Respondent Blair was admittedly qualified as a candidate except that he refused to...pledge to aid and support "the nominees of the National Convention of the Democratic Party for President and Vice-President of the United States." The chairman's refusal of certification was based on that omission.
The mandamus was approved on the...ground that the... requirement restricted the freedom of a federal elector to vote in his Electoral College for his choice for President...The pledge was held void as unconstitutional under the Twelfth Amendme...of the Constitution of the United States...Because the mandamus was based on this federal right specially claimed by respondent, we granted certiorari...
Every state executive committee is given the power to fix political or other qualifications of its own members. It may determine who shall be entitled and qualified to vote in the primary election or to be a candidate therein...
The Garner case involved a pledge adopted by the State Democratic Executive Committee for printing on the primary ballot, reading as follows:
"By casting this ballot I do pledge myself to abide by the result of this Primary Election and to aid and support all the nominees thereof in the ensuing General Elections. I do further pledge myself to aid and support the nominees of the National Convention of the Democratic Party for President and Vice-President of the United States."...
....It was also said in Ray v. Garner concerning the voter's pledge that:
"Primarily, the pledge must be germane to party membership and party elections and, while the last clause of the pledge pertains to the national party, the party in Alabama will be a part of it by sending delegates to participate in the national convention, the Executive Committee having ordered their election and the party thereby having signified its intention to become a member of the national party. Therefore, it was within the competency of the Committee to adopt the resolution so binding the voters in the primary...
...political parties...were created by necessity, by the need to organize the rapidly increasing...population, scattered over our Land, so as to coordinate efforts to secure needed legislation and oppose that deemed undesirable....The party conventions of locally chosen delegates...succeeded the caucuses of self-appointed legislators...Dissatisfaction with the manipulation of conventions caused that system to be largely superseded by the direct primary. ...Various tests of party allegiance for candidates in direct primaries are found in a number of states... Such a provision protects a party from intrusion...by those with adverse political principles. ...the State Democratic Executive Committee of Alabama adopted a resolution...requiring candidates in its primary to pledge support to the nominees of the National Convention of the Democratic Party for President and Vice-President. It is this provision...which the Supreme Court of Alabama held unconstitutional in this case.
...the Supreme Court of Alabama ...said: "We appreciate the argument that from time immemorial, the electors selected to vote in the college have voted in accordance with the wishes of the party to which they belong...the effective compulsion has been party loyalty....the voting for a president and vice-president has been usually formal merely. But the Twelfth Amendment does not make it so. The nominees of the party for president and vice-president may have become disqualified, or...offensive ... to the electors ...their constituents also. They should be free to vote for another, as contemplated by the Twelfth Amendment."...
...dissenting Alabama justices...said: "Any other view...would destroy effective party government and would privilege any candidate, regardless of his political persuasion, to enter a primary election as a candidate for elector and fix his ...own qualifications for such candidacy. This is contrary to the traditional American political system." ...
The applicable constitutional provisions ...furnish no...answer to...whether a state may permit a party to require party regularity from its primary candidates for national electors...The presidential electors exercise a federal function in balloting for President and Vice-President...They act by authority of the state that...in turn receives its authority from the Federal Constitution. ...Neither...Art. II, 1, nor...the Twelfth Amendment forbids a party to require from candidates in its primary a pledge of...conformity with the...party. Unless such a requirement is implicit...neither provision of the Constitution requires a state political party...to accept persons as candidates who refuse to agree to abide by the party's requirement...
The argument against the party's power to exclude ...those unwilling to agree to ...support the national nominees...: The constitutional method for the selection of the President and Vice-President is for states to appoint electors who shall in turn vote for our chief executives. The intention...was that those electors should exercise their judgment in voting for President...requirement of a pledge is a restriction...that interferes with the performance of this constitutional duty to select the proper persons to head the Nation, according to the best judgment of the elector. This interference with the ...elector's freedom of balloting for President relates directly to the general election and is not confined to the primary...because under United States v. Classic... Smith v. Allwright...the Alabama primary is an integral part of the general election....Although Alabama, it is pointed out, requires electors to be chosen at the general election by popular vote...the real election takes place in the primary. Limitation as to entering a primary controls the results of the general election...
...Classic and Allwright cases...In the former case, we dealt with the power of Congress to punish frauds in the primaries "[w]here the state law has made the primary an integral part of the procedure of choice." We held that Congress had such power because the primary was a necessary step in the choice of candidates for election as federal representatives. Therefore the sanctions of ...the...Criminal Code...which forbade injury to constitutionally secured rights, applied to the right to vote in the primary. ...In the latter, the problem was the ...exclusion of citizens by a party as electors in a party primary because of race. We held, on consideration of state participation in the regulation of the primary, that the party exclusion was state action and such state action was unconstitutional because the primary and general election were a single instrumentality for choice of officers. The Fifteenth Amendment's prohibition of abridgment by a state of the right to vote on account of race made the exclusion unconstitutional...
In Alabama, too, the primary and general elections are a part of the state-controlled elective process...A state's or a political party's exclusion of candidates from a party primary because they will not pledge to support the party's nominees is a method of securing party candidates in the general election, pledged to the philosophy and leadership of that party. It is an exercise of the state's right to appoint electors in such manner, subject to possible constitutional limitations, as it may choose...The fact that the primary is a part of the election machinery is immaterial unless the requirement of pledge violates some constitutional or statutory provision. It was the violation of a secured right that brought about the Classic and Allwright decisions. Here they do not apply unless there was a violation of the Twelfth Amendment by the requirement to support the nominees of the National Convention...
Secondly, we consider the argument that the Twelfth Amendment demands absolute freedom for the elector to vote his own choice, uninhibited by a pledge. It is true that the Amendment says the electors shall vote by ballot. But it is also true that the Amendment does not prohibit an elector's announcing his choice beforehand, pledging himself. The suggestion that in the early elections candidates for electors...would have hesitated...to pledge themselves to support party nominees in the event of their selection as electors is impossible to accept....the electors were expected to support the party nominees. ...more than twenty states do not print the names of the candidates for electors on the general election ballot...they allow a vote for the presidential candidate of the national conventions to be counted as a vote for his party's nominees for the electoral college...This long-continued ... interpretation of the constitutional propriety of an implied or oral pledge of his ballot by a candidate...for elector as to his vote in the electoral college weighs heavily in considering the constitutionality of a pledge...
However, even if such promises of candidates for the electoral college are legally unenforceable because violative of an assumed constitutional freedom of the elector under the Constitution, Art. II, 1, to vote as he may choose in the electoral college, it would not follow that the requirement of a pledge in the primary is unconstitutional. A candidacy in the primary is a voluntary act of the applicant. He is not barred, discriminatorily, from participating but must comply with the rules of the party. Surely one may voluntarily assume obligations to vote for a certain candidate. The state offers him opportunity to become a candidate for elector on his own terms...the state does offer the opportunity for the development of ...strong political organizations where the need is felt for them by a sizable block of voters. Such parties may leave their electors to their own choice...
We conclude that the Twelfth Amendment does not bar a political party from requiring the pledge to support the nominees of the National Convention. Where a state authorizes a party to choose its nominees for elector ...we see no federal constitutional objection to the requirement of this pledge.
CONDENSED MINORITY OPINION, JUSTICES JACKSON & DOUGLAS DISSENTING
The Constitution and its Twelfth Amendment allow each State, in its own way, to name electors with such personal qualifications, apart from stated disqualifications, as the State prescribes...When chosen, they perform a federal function of balloting for President ...But federal statute undertakes no control of their votes beyond providing "The electors shall vote for President and Vice President, respectively, in the manner directed...by the Constitution," ...and the Constitution requires only that they "vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves." ...the plan originally contemplated, what is implicit in its text, that electors would be free agents, to exercise an independent and nonpartisan judgment as to the men best qualified for the Nation's highest offices...under that plan no state law could control the elector...
This arrangement miscarried. Electors,...officially became voluntary party lackeys and intellectual nonentities to whose memory we might justly paraphrase a tuneful satire:
They always voted at their Party's call And never thought of thinking for themselves at all.
...the Electoral College suffered atrophy ...in 1948, Alabama's Democratic Party Electors refused to vote for the nominee of the Democratic National Convention...the party organization, exercising state-delegated authority, closed the...primary to any candidate for elector unless he would pledge himself, under oath, to support any candidate named by the Democratic National Convention. ...this effectively forecloses any chance of the State being represented by an unpledged elector...before one can become an elector for Alabama, its law requires that he must pawn his ballot to a candidate not yet named, by a convention not yet held...if the nominee repudiates the platform adopted by the same convention, ...the elector is bound to vote for him...the State has sought to achieve control of the electors' ballots. But the balloting cannot be constitutionally subjected to...such control because it was intended to be free, an act performed after all functions of the electoral process left to the States have been completed. The Alabama Supreme Court held that such a requirement violates the Federal Constitution, and I agree.
...this law...make(s) a legal obligation of what has been a voluntary general practice. If custom were sufficient authority for amendment of the Constitution by Court decree, the decision...would be warranted....I do not think powers or discretions granted to federal officials by the Federal Constitution can be forfeited by the Court for disuse. A political practice which has its origin in custom must rely upon custom for its sanctions...
The demise of the ...electoral system...not...a disaster...it is a ...distorting factor in...elections which may resolve...popular defeat into...electoral victory...it is open to local corruption...once so flagrant as to threaten the stability of the country. To ... substitute direct election of the President...would seem to me a gain for simplicity and integrity...
But the Court's decision...is to entrench the worst features of...constitutional law and to elevate the perversion of the forefathers' plan into a constitutional principle. This...cannot plead the excuse that it is a practical remedy for the evils...of the system.
The Court is sanctioning...power in the hands of any faction that can get control of the Democratic National Convention to make it sure of Alabama's electoral vote.
...This device of prepledged...electors imposes upon the party within the State...loyalty to the controlling element in the national party...If we desire free elections, we should not add to the leverage over local party representatives always possessed by those who ...dispense the patronage of a national administration.
The view of many that it is the progressive...element of the party that will...advantage from this device does not prove...the device ...has any...proper place in a truly...progressive...government...party control entrenched by ...exclusion of nonconforming party members is a means which ...cannot be justified by any end...we should foster the power ...to be independent...
Candidates for elector...may announce to their constituents their policies ...and assume a moral duty to carry them out if...chosen. ...But this plan effects a...suppression of competition between different views within the party. All ...not ready to follow blindly anyone chosen by the national convention are excluded from the primary, and that...means also from the election.
...be it ever so benevolent and virtuous, the end cannot justify these means.
I would affirm the decision of the Supreme Court of Alabama.
MY OPINION
There is nothing in the 12th amendment of the US Constitution, to restrict political parties from putting restraints on the behavior of those who voluntarily join the party. Political parties should be free to follow their own rules so long as no crime is committed. The people using political parties if they wish, are supposed to control the government, as opposed to the government controlling the people and their parties. The fact that an organization such as a political party is involved in influencing the outcome of elections does not make it a government entity strictly bound by the constitution. Political parties are groups of people who seek to, by way of teamwork, elect candidates they favor. This teamwork could consist of ridiculous or unjust processes, but so long as such processes are not criminal, it is not the government's 'constitutional' business to regulate them. A political party could require that those who who run for their party's nomination give up some constitutional right, yet such would not necessarily abrogate the constitution. for example If a political party decided to appoint candidates based on random number generation, it would not the government's 'constitutional' business to force them to change, even admitting that such randomness would impair the quality of government. If a man is offended by the restraints placed upon him by his party, he is free to leave the party and join another party, create a party, or run for office as an independent individual. When voters are free to choose between uncommitted electors and pledged electors, such is preferable to being able to choose only from uncommitted electors. Voters are notoriously ignorant regarding candidates and issues; this ignorance is much greater with regards to the character and beliefs of presidential electors, compared to presidential candidates.
CONDENSED MAJORITY OPINION
Where a state authorizes a political party to choose its nominees for Presidential Electors in a state-controlled party primary election and to fix the qualifications for the candidates, it is not violative of the Federal Constitution for the party to require the candidates for the office of Presidential Elector to take a pledge to support the nominees of the party's National Convention...or for the party's officers to refuse to certify as a candidate for Presidential Elector a person otherwise qualified who refuses to take such a pledge...
2. Exclusion of a candidate in a party primary by a state or political party because such candidate will not pledge to support the party's nominees is a method of securing party candidates in the general election who are pledged to the philosophy and leadership of that party; and it is an exercise of the state's right ...to appoint electors in such manner as it may choose. United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299 , and Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 ...
3. The Twelfth Amendment does not bar a political party from requiring of a candidate for Presidential Elector in its primary a pledge to support the nominees of its National Convention...
4. The requirement of such a pledge does not deny equal protection or due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U.S. 536 , distinguished. P. 226, n. 14. 257 Ala. ___, 57 So.2d 395, reversed.
The Alabama Supreme Court upheld, on federal constitutional grounds, a ...writ ...requiring...the Chairman of the...Committee of the Democratic Party, to certify respondent as a candidate for Presidential Elector in a Democratic Primary ...This Court granted certiorari...In a...decision announced on April 3, 1952, in advance of the preparation of this opinion, this Court reversed that judgment...
MR. JUSTICE REED delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Supreme Court of Alabama upheld a...writ ...requiring the petitioner, the chairman of that state's Executive Committee of the Democratic Party, to certify respondent Edmund Blair, a member of that party...as a candidate for Presidential Elector...Respondent Blair was admittedly qualified as a candidate except that he refused to...pledge to aid and support "the nominees of the National Convention of the Democratic Party for President and Vice-President of the United States." The chairman's refusal of certification was based on that omission.
The mandamus was approved on the...ground that the... requirement restricted the freedom of a federal elector to vote in his Electoral College for his choice for President...The pledge was held void as unconstitutional under the Twelfth Amendme...of the Constitution of the United States...Because the mandamus was based on this federal right specially claimed by respondent, we granted certiorari...
Every state executive committee is given the power to fix political or other qualifications of its own members. It may determine who shall be entitled and qualified to vote in the primary election or to be a candidate therein...
The Garner case involved a pledge adopted by the State Democratic Executive Committee for printing on the primary ballot, reading as follows:
"By casting this ballot I do pledge myself to abide by the result of this Primary Election and to aid and support all the nominees thereof in the ensuing General Elections. I do further pledge myself to aid and support the nominees of the National Convention of the Democratic Party for President and Vice-President of the United States."...
....It was also said in Ray v. Garner concerning the voter's pledge that:
"Primarily, the pledge must be germane to party membership and party elections and, while the last clause of the pledge pertains to the national party, the party in Alabama will be a part of it by sending delegates to participate in the national convention, the Executive Committee having ordered their election and the party thereby having signified its intention to become a member of the national party. Therefore, it was within the competency of the Committee to adopt the resolution so binding the voters in the primary...
...political parties...were created by necessity, by the need to organize the rapidly increasing...population, scattered over our Land, so as to coordinate efforts to secure needed legislation and oppose that deemed undesirable....The party conventions of locally chosen delegates...succeeded the caucuses of self-appointed legislators...Dissatisfaction with the manipulation of conventions caused that system to be largely superseded by the direct primary. ...Various tests of party allegiance for candidates in direct primaries are found in a number of states... Such a provision protects a party from intrusion...by those with adverse political principles. ...the State Democratic Executive Committee of Alabama adopted a resolution...requiring candidates in its primary to pledge support to the nominees of the National Convention of the Democratic Party for President and Vice-President. It is this provision...which the Supreme Court of Alabama held unconstitutional in this case.
...the Supreme Court of Alabama ...said: "We appreciate the argument that from time immemorial, the electors selected to vote in the college have voted in accordance with the wishes of the party to which they belong...the effective compulsion has been party loyalty....the voting for a president and vice-president has been usually formal merely. But the Twelfth Amendment does not make it so. The nominees of the party for president and vice-president may have become disqualified, or...offensive ... to the electors ...their constituents also. They should be free to vote for another, as contemplated by the Twelfth Amendment."...
...dissenting Alabama justices...said: "Any other view...would destroy effective party government and would privilege any candidate, regardless of his political persuasion, to enter a primary election as a candidate for elector and fix his ...own qualifications for such candidacy. This is contrary to the traditional American political system." ...
The applicable constitutional provisions ...furnish no...answer to...whether a state may permit a party to require party regularity from its primary candidates for national electors...The presidential electors exercise a federal function in balloting for President and Vice-President...They act by authority of the state that...in turn receives its authority from the Federal Constitution. ...Neither...Art. II, 1, nor...the Twelfth Amendment forbids a party to require from candidates in its primary a pledge of...conformity with the...party. Unless such a requirement is implicit...neither provision of the Constitution requires a state political party...to accept persons as candidates who refuse to agree to abide by the party's requirement...
The argument against the party's power to exclude ...those unwilling to agree to ...support the national nominees...: The constitutional method for the selection of the President and Vice-President is for states to appoint electors who shall in turn vote for our chief executives. The intention...was that those electors should exercise their judgment in voting for President...requirement of a pledge is a restriction...that interferes with the performance of this constitutional duty to select the proper persons to head the Nation, according to the best judgment of the elector. This interference with the ...elector's freedom of balloting for President relates directly to the general election and is not confined to the primary...because under United States v. Classic... Smith v. Allwright...the Alabama primary is an integral part of the general election....Although Alabama, it is pointed out, requires electors to be chosen at the general election by popular vote...the real election takes place in the primary. Limitation as to entering a primary controls the results of the general election...
...Classic and Allwright cases...In the former case, we dealt with the power of Congress to punish frauds in the primaries "[w]here the state law has made the primary an integral part of the procedure of choice." We held that Congress had such power because the primary was a necessary step in the choice of candidates for election as federal representatives. Therefore the sanctions of ...the...Criminal Code...which forbade injury to constitutionally secured rights, applied to the right to vote in the primary. ...In the latter, the problem was the ...exclusion of citizens by a party as electors in a party primary because of race. We held, on consideration of state participation in the regulation of the primary, that the party exclusion was state action and such state action was unconstitutional because the primary and general election were a single instrumentality for choice of officers. The Fifteenth Amendment's prohibition of abridgment by a state of the right to vote on account of race made the exclusion unconstitutional...
In Alabama, too, the primary and general elections are a part of the state-controlled elective process...A state's or a political party's exclusion of candidates from a party primary because they will not pledge to support the party's nominees is a method of securing party candidates in the general election, pledged to the philosophy and leadership of that party. It is an exercise of the state's right to appoint electors in such manner, subject to possible constitutional limitations, as it may choose...The fact that the primary is a part of the election machinery is immaterial unless the requirement of pledge violates some constitutional or statutory provision. It was the violation of a secured right that brought about the Classic and Allwright decisions. Here they do not apply unless there was a violation of the Twelfth Amendment by the requirement to support the nominees of the National Convention...
Secondly, we consider the argument that the Twelfth Amendment demands absolute freedom for the elector to vote his own choice, uninhibited by a pledge. It is true that the Amendment says the electors shall vote by ballot. But it is also true that the Amendment does not prohibit an elector's announcing his choice beforehand, pledging himself. The suggestion that in the early elections candidates for electors...would have hesitated...to pledge themselves to support party nominees in the event of their selection as electors is impossible to accept....the electors were expected to support the party nominees. ...more than twenty states do not print the names of the candidates for electors on the general election ballot...they allow a vote for the presidential candidate of the national conventions to be counted as a vote for his party's nominees for the electoral college...This long-continued ... interpretation of the constitutional propriety of an implied or oral pledge of his ballot by a candidate...for elector as to his vote in the electoral college weighs heavily in considering the constitutionality of a pledge...
However, even if such promises of candidates for the electoral college are legally unenforceable because violative of an assumed constitutional freedom of the elector under the Constitution, Art. II, 1, to vote as he may choose in the electoral college, it would not follow that the requirement of a pledge in the primary is unconstitutional. A candidacy in the primary is a voluntary act of the applicant. He is not barred, discriminatorily, from participating but must comply with the rules of the party. Surely one may voluntarily assume obligations to vote for a certain candidate. The state offers him opportunity to become a candidate for elector on his own terms...the state does offer the opportunity for the development of ...strong political organizations where the need is felt for them by a sizable block of voters. Such parties may leave their electors to their own choice...
We conclude that the Twelfth Amendment does not bar a political party from requiring the pledge to support the nominees of the National Convention. Where a state authorizes a party to choose its nominees for elector ...we see no federal constitutional objection to the requirement of this pledge.
CONDENSED MINORITY OPINION, JUSTICES JACKSON & DOUGLAS DISSENTING
The Constitution and its Twelfth Amendment allow each State, in its own way, to name electors with such personal qualifications, apart from stated disqualifications, as the State prescribes...When chosen, they perform a federal function of balloting for President ...But federal statute undertakes no control of their votes beyond providing "The electors shall vote for President and Vice President, respectively, in the manner directed...by the Constitution," ...and the Constitution requires only that they "vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves." ...the plan originally contemplated, what is implicit in its text, that electors would be free agents, to exercise an independent and nonpartisan judgment as to the men best qualified for the Nation's highest offices...under that plan no state law could control the elector...
This arrangement miscarried. Electors,...officially became voluntary party lackeys and intellectual nonentities to whose memory we might justly paraphrase a tuneful satire:
They always voted at their Party's call And never thought of thinking for themselves at all.
...the Electoral College suffered atrophy ...in 1948, Alabama's Democratic Party Electors refused to vote for the nominee of the Democratic National Convention...the party organization, exercising state-delegated authority, closed the...primary to any candidate for elector unless he would pledge himself, under oath, to support any candidate named by the Democratic National Convention. ...this effectively forecloses any chance of the State being represented by an unpledged elector...before one can become an elector for Alabama, its law requires that he must pawn his ballot to a candidate not yet named, by a convention not yet held...if the nominee repudiates the platform adopted by the same convention, ...the elector is bound to vote for him...the State has sought to achieve control of the electors' ballots. But the balloting cannot be constitutionally subjected to...such control because it was intended to be free, an act performed after all functions of the electoral process left to the States have been completed. The Alabama Supreme Court held that such a requirement violates the Federal Constitution, and I agree.
...this law...make(s) a legal obligation of what has been a voluntary general practice. If custom were sufficient authority for amendment of the Constitution by Court decree, the decision...would be warranted....I do not think powers or discretions granted to federal officials by the Federal Constitution can be forfeited by the Court for disuse. A political practice which has its origin in custom must rely upon custom for its sanctions...
The demise of the ...electoral system...not...a disaster...it is a ...distorting factor in...elections which may resolve...popular defeat into...electoral victory...it is open to local corruption...once so flagrant as to threaten the stability of the country. To ... substitute direct election of the President...would seem to me a gain for simplicity and integrity...
But the Court's decision...is to entrench the worst features of...constitutional law and to elevate the perversion of the forefathers' plan into a constitutional principle. This...cannot plead the excuse that it is a practical remedy for the evils...of the system.
The Court is sanctioning...power in the hands of any faction that can get control of the Democratic National Convention to make it sure of Alabama's electoral vote.
...This device of prepledged...electors imposes upon the party within the State...loyalty to the controlling element in the national party...If we desire free elections, we should not add to the leverage over local party representatives always possessed by those who ...dispense the patronage of a national administration.
The view of many that it is the progressive...element of the party that will...advantage from this device does not prove...the device ...has any...proper place in a truly...progressive...government...party control entrenched by ...exclusion of nonconforming party members is a means which ...cannot be justified by any end...we should foster the power ...to be independent...
Candidates for elector...may announce to their constituents their policies ...and assume a moral duty to carry them out if...chosen. ...But this plan effects a...suppression of competition between different views within the party. All ...not ready to follow blindly anyone chosen by the national convention are excluded from the primary, and that...means also from the election.
...be it ever so benevolent and virtuous, the end cannot justify these means.
I would affirm the decision of the Supreme Court of Alabama.
posted by David Virgil at 5:49 AM
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