Court Opinion

ID: 9772788
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:30:05.082819+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:48.509754
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Calvert
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In an original proceeding filed in this Court relator, Grover Cantrell, seeks a writ of mandamus to compel respondents to accept his application and to place his name on the ballot to be used in the Republican Primary Election to be held in Dallas County in July.
A similar petition for writ of mandamus filed by relator in the Court of Civil Appeals for the Fifth Supreme Judicial District of Texas was by that court denied. 313 S.W. 2d 624.
Relator filed with respondents his request to have his name placed on the ballot to be used in the Republican Primary election as a candidate for nomination for Member of Congress from the Fifth Congressional District. The request is in proper form and meets all requirements prescribed by Article 13.12, Vernon’s Annotated Texas Election Code. He tendered in due time the filing fee required of those seeking nomination as the Republican candidate for Congress. His petition shows that he is eligible to hold the office he seeks.
In his petition filed in this Court relator swears that whereas in past years he was a member of the Democratic Party, he is now a member of the Republican Party. And if the separate taking of an oath to support the nominees selected at the Republi*530can Party Primary election is a prerequisite to the right to have his name placed on the ballot,1 relator has fulfilled that requirement. He has included in his petition a statement that he will support Republican Party primary nominees. The petition is sworn to in such fashion as to support a charge of perjury. In addition, he has attached to his petition a separate instrument in which he states under oath: “I am a Republican, and on my oath I state that I will support the nominee of the Republican Primary for the office of United States Representative, 5th Conressional District, and all other candidates who are nominated in the Republican Primary.”
The only reason offered by respondents for refusing to accept relator’s application is that he stated at the time of filing it that he was really a member of the Democratic Party but felt he had a better chance of securing nomination by the Republican Party. Assuming the statement to have been made, it does no more than put in issue the good faith of relator.
A request made under the provisions of Article 13.12 for a place as a candidate on a party primary ballot imports a present good faith intention of affiliating with the party. Past or present words or conduct may open that intention to doubt and question. But party officers and Executive Committees may not decide the issue against the candidate and so deciding refuse to place his name on the party primary ballot. This Court so held in Love v. Wilcox, 119 Texas 256, 28 S.W. 2d 515, 525, 70 A.L.R. 1484. We there said that “The power to pass on the sincerity of the candidate’s pledge and to endorse or condemn his past party record is to be exercised by the party voters.” Further, we quoted with approval from an opinion of the Attorney General as follows: “If proper application is made the Committee should place the name of the candidate on the ballot and the members of the party — the voters themselves — would be the best judges of his fidelity to the party and make that decision at the polls.”
If our decision in Love v. Wilcox did not settle this question once and for all, surely our decision in McDonald v. Calhoun, 149 Texas 232, 231 S.W. 2d 656, should be taken as having done so. In that case it appeared that Democratic Party officials were refusing to place the name of J. E. McDonald on the primary ballot as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the *531office of Commissioner of Agriculture. Refusal was predicated on a finding that McDonald “was not acting in good faith in his offer to take the party pledge to support the nominees of the 1950 primary * * Instances of past party infidelity were enumerated as evidence that he was not entering the party primary as a good faith member of the Democratic Party. This Court granted McDonald a writ of mandamus, stating that “All the issues thus raised are foreclosed by the decision of this Court in Love v. Wilcox, 119 Texas 256, 28 S.W. 2d 515, 70 A.L.R. 1484, rendered in 1930.”
There is no restraint, l,egal or moral, on the right of a citizen to change his affiliation, from year to year, from one political party to another for whatever reason seems to him sufficient. His reason may well be selfish. He may feel — as evidently does relator if we may judge from his statement — that a change of party affiliation will enhance his own political and personal fortunes. It is for political party voters, not their officials, to judge whether a candidate for nomination should be rejected because his candidacy is motivated by selfish considerations.
Respondents are, and on May 5 were, under a legal duty to accept relator’s application and to place his name on the Republican Party primary ballot as a candidate for the nomination he seeks. No other holding would comport with sound public policy.
We assume respondents will be guided by this opinion and will accept and file relator’s application and place his name on the primary ballot. If they do not do so, writ of mandamus will issue.
No motion for rehearing will be entertained. Rule 515, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure.
Opinion delivered June 11, 1958.

 One of the reasons given by the Court of Civil Appeals for denying relator’s petition was that he had not offered to take the pledge which Article 13.11, Texas Election Code, requires be placed at the top of all primary election ballots.