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Grovey v. Townsend

Supreme Court of the United States · 1935 · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawFourteenth AmendmentFifteenth AmendmentState ActionPrimary ElectionsPolitical Partiesstate actionwhite primary

Facts

Petitioner alleged that he was a citizen, a member of and believer in the tenets of the Democratic party, and otherwise entitled to vote in the Democratic primary election held in Texas on July 28, 1934. Expecting to be absent from the county on primary day, he requested an absentee ballot from respondent, the county clerk, who refused the ballot because of a resolution adopted by the Texas Democratic state convention providing that only white citizens qualified under state law were eligible to membership in the Democratic party and thus entitled to participate in its deliberations. Petitioner claimed that this refusal, based on his race, violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The complaint relied on Texas statutes extensively regulating primary elections and argued that the exclusion therefore amounted to state action.

Issue

Whether a Black voter's exclusion from a Democratic primary under a resolution adopted by the Texas Democratic state convention constituted state action by Texas in violation of the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments. More specifically, the question was whether the party convention's declaration of membership qualifications should be treated as the act of the state.

Rule

When qualifications for participation in a party's counsels and primaries are declared by the party's representatives in convention assembled, and not by the state or by an entity exercising delegated state power, that action is not, on its face, state action. A state may regulate the governance and nomination procedures of political parties, yet still leave intact the party's right to exist, define its membership, and adopt its own policies; in that circumstance, exclusion from the party primary based on party membership rules does not violate the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments as state action.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

In Georgia, the Liberty Party's state convention in Atlanta adopts a resolution providing that only voters born in the United States may be members of the party and may vote in its party primary. When Noor Rahman seeks a primary ballot in Savannah, the county election clerk refuses because party officials report that Noor is not eligible for party membership under the convention resolution.

Under the majority's approach, is Noor's strongest federal constitutional claim likely to succeed?

Explanation. The majority treated exclusion as non-state action when the qualification for participation was declared by the party's representatives in convention assembled, not by statute or by an entity exercising delegated state power. Extensive regulation of primaries did not alter that result where the primary remained a party primary. The officeholder's role in refusing the ballot did not itself convert the convention's membership decision into state action.