Macdougall v. Green/Dissent Douglas

by William O. Douglas

United States Supreme Court

335 U.S. 281

Macdougall  v.  Green

 Argued: Oct. 18, 1948. --- Decided: Oct 21, 1948

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom Mr. Justice BLACK and Mr. Justice MURPHY concur, dissenting.

I think that the 1935 amendment of the Illinois Election Code, Ill.Rev.Stat. c. 46, § 10-2(1947), as construed and applied in this case, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

That statute requires the nominating petition of a new political party, which places candidates on the ballot for the general election, to contain 200 signatures from each of at least 50 of the 102 counties in the state. The statute does not attempt to make the required signatures proportionate to the population of each county. One effect of this requirement is that the electorate in 49 of the counties which contain 87% of the registered voters could not form a new political party and place its candidates on the ballot. Twenty-five thousand of the remaining 13% of registered voters, however, properly distributed among the 53 remaining counties could form a new party to elect candidates to office. That regulation thus discriminates against the residents of the populous counties of the state in favor of rural sections. It therefore lacks the equality to which the exercise of political rights is entitled under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Free and honest elections are the very foundation of our republican form of government. We are dealing here with important political rights of the people-the voting for electors provided by Article II, § 1, of the Constitution; the right of the people to elect senators, guaranteed by the Seventeenth Amendment; the right of the people to choose their representatives in Congress, guaranteed by Article I, § 2, of the Constitution. Discrimination against any group or class of citizens in the exercise of these constitutionally protected rights of citizenship deprives the electoral process of integrity. The protection which the Constitution gives voting rights covers not only the general election but also extends to every integral part of the electoral process, including primaries. United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 61 S.Ct. 1031, 85 L.Ed. 1368; Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649, 64 S.Ct. 757, 88 L.Ed. 987, 151 A.L.R. 1110. When candidates are chosen for the general election by a nominating petition, that procedure also becomes an integral part of the electoral process. It is entitled to the same protection as that which the Fourteenth Amendment grants any other part.

None would deny that a state law giving some citizens twice the vote of other citizens in either the primary or general election would lack that equality which the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees. See Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U.S. 536, 47 S.Ct. 446, 71 L.Ed. 759. The dilution of political rights may be as complete and effective if the same discrimination appears in the procedure prescribed for nominating petitions. See State ex rel. Ragan v. Junkin, 85 Neb. 1, 122 N.W. 473, 23 L.R.A.,N.S., 839. It would, of course, be palpably discriminatory in violation of the Equal Protection Clause if this law were aimed at the Progressive Party in the manner that the state law in Nixon v. Herndon, supra, was aimed at Negroes. But the effect of a state law may bring it under the condemnation of the Equal Protection Clause however innocent its purpose. It is invalid if discrimination is apparent in its operation. The test is whether it has some foundation in experience, practicality, or necessity. See Skinner v. State of Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541, 542, 62 S.Ct. 1110, 1113, 86 L.Ed. 1655.

It is not enough to say that this law can stand that test because it is designed to require statewide support for the launching of a new political party rather than support from a few localities. There is no attempt here, as I have said, to make the required signatures even approximately proportionate to the distribution of voters among the various counties of the state. No such proportionate allocation could of course be mathematically exact. Nor would it be required. But when, as here, the law applies a rigid, arbitrary formula to sparsely settled counties and populous counties alike, it offers no basis whatever to justify giving greater weight to the individual votes of one group of citizens than to those of another group. This legislation therefore has the same inherent infirmity as that which some of us saw in Colegrove v. Green, 328 U.S. 549, 569, 66 S.Ct. 1198, 1210, 90 L.Ed. 1432. The fact that the Constitutional itself sanctions inequalities in some phases of our political system ^[1] does not justify us in allowing a state to create additional ones. The theme of the Constitution is equality among citizens in the exercise of their political rights. The notion that one group can be granted greater voting strength than another is hostile to our standards for popular representative government.

Federal courts should be most hesitant to use the injunction in state elections. See Wilson v. State of North Carolina, 169 U.S. 586, 596, 18 S.Ct. 435, 439, 42 L.Ed. 865. If federal courts undertook the role of superintendence, disruption of the whole electoral process might result, and the elective system that is vital to our government might be paralyzed. Cf. Johnson v. Stevenson, 5 Cir., 170 F.2d 108. The equity court, moreover, must always be alert in the exercise of its discretion to make sure that its decree will not be a futile and ineffective thing. But the case, as made before us, does not indicate that either of those considerations should deter us in striking down this unconstitutional statute and in freeing the impending Illinois election of its impediments. The state officials who are responsible for the election and who at this bar confessed error in the decision of the District Court make no such intimation or suggestion. We are therefore not authorized to assume that our decree would interfere with the orderly process of the election.

Notes

1. The Federalist No. 62 explained the equality of representation of the States in the Senate as follows:

'If indeed it be right, that among a people thoroughly incorporated into one nation, every district ought to have a proportional share in the government, and that among independent and sovereign States, bound together by a simple league, the parties, however unequal in size, ought to have an equal share in the common councils, it does not appear to be without some reason that in a compound republic, partaking both of the national and federal character, the government ought to be founded on a mixture of the principles of proportional and equal representation.

'the equal vote allowed to each State is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual States, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty. So far the equality ought to be no less acceptable to the large than to the small States; since they are not less solicitous to guard, by every possible expedient, against an improper consolidation of the States into one simple republic.

'Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the constitution of the Senate is, the additional impediment it must prove against improper acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence, first, of a majority of the people, and then, of a majority of the States.'