Court Opinion

ID: 9712990
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:04:34.896404+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:15.660776
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, District Judge
(dissenting).
I must respectfully dissent from the majority’s holdings that the Corrupt Practices Law was not applied unconstitutionally to the NDPA in this case and that the Garrett Law is constitutional on its face, and, therefore, from the conclusion that some or all of the NDPA candidates are not entitled to a place on the November-ballot.
I. THE CORRUPT PRACTICES LAW
I fully concur in the majority’s holding that the Alabama Corrupt Practices Law is constitutional on its face. The law is a reasonable approach to a difficult problem. Although disqualification of the candidate for noncompliance is a drastic remedy, the legislature might well conclude that such a remedy is necessary to foster voluntary compliance.
The best of laws, however, can be invoked in an unworthy manner. Here, it was invoked strictly as an afterthought. As the majority concedes:
“When the Secretary of State declined to certify to' the Judges of Probate NDPA candidates who filed nominations in her office she did not assert failure to comply with the Act as one of her motivations. Her motivation is irrelevant to a judicial determination of whether the Act is constitutional on its face.” (Emphasis added.)
The Corrupt Practices Act has not fallen into disuse. Nor, as the cases cited by the majority indicate, has the remedy of disqualification. In all those cases, however, the Act was invoked by opposing candidates or by concerned voters. Alabama State officials having adopted a consistent practice of relying on party and public policing and enforcement of this Act, it is not tolerable for this Court to allow these officials to make their first foray in the enforcement direction against a small, new, and almost surely impecunious group of candidates seeking to form a new party in Alabama. This is particularly true when the defendant officials who are taking such action are candidates for presidential electors on the ballot of an opposing party. Whether or not a formal conflict of interest, this circumstance, when conjoined with those above, justifies the inference that the *1015Corrupt Practices Act, fair on its face, has been:
“applied and administered by public authority with an evil eye and an unequal hand, so as practically to make unjust and illegal discriminations between persons in similar circumstances * * * ” Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 373-374, 6 S.Ct. 1064, 1073, 30 L.Ed. 220 (1886).
In this vital area of the right to vote and to run for office, the courts must not hesitate to exercise their judicial duty to ensure an evenhanded application of the Alabama election laws.
II. THE GARRETT LAW
The Garrett Law requires that candidates for office file a declaration of intention to run on or before the first day of March of the year in which the general election is held.
Although a state might reasonably require a candidate to file sufficiently in advance of the election to permit administrative preparations, defendants do not contend that such a purpose would require eight months’ notice. Indeed, as the majority recites, it is generally accepted that the Garrett Law:
“was intended to correct what the legislature viewed as an inequity against a party nominating by primary (presently only the Democratic Party), arising from the fact that parties nominating by other methods could hold back deciding upon candidates and selectively choose and place their candidates against the nominees or potential nominees by primary who appear most vulnerable.”
Protection of one political party from another political party is not a permissible object of legislation. Even if it be thought permissible, it would scarcely justify the adverse impact which this statute has on the right to an effective vote for the candidate of one’s choice. Here, the process of choice of candidates is cut off at an unreasonably early date. The candidates who seek relief from this Court find themselves in almost precisely the situation George C. Wallace found himself in by reason of an Ohio law that required a petition for nomination to state office presidential electors) be filed at least 90 days before the primary election rather than the general election. In an action by these Wallace electors a three-judge Federal Court sitting in the Southern District of Ohio,1 stated:
“This is an unreasonable requirement. The time is now past when petitions for the nomination of independent candidates for presidential electors supporting George C. Wallace could be filed, even ninety days before the November election.
“Plaintiffs concede that the State has a legitimate interest in, and a right to, an effective and efficient electoral process, thus giving the State the right to impose reasonable restrictions for legitimate purposes, after due consideration of cost, convenience and administrative burdens. On the other hand defendants have conceded that the Ohio Election Laws, as they now stand, do constitute an impairment, though it was termed ‘insubstantial’, of plaintiffs’ right to vote. In this context the judicial focus must be centered upon ascertaining whether this impairment is constitutionally permissible.
“We begin with the principle that “ ‘No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live. Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined. Our Constitution leaves no room for classification of people in a way that unnecessarily abridges that right.’ Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 17-18, 84 S.Ct. 526, 535, 11 L.Ed.2d 481.
Also, it is clear that the right of suffrage is subject only to the imposi*1016tion of state standards which are not discriminatory. Harper v. Virginia [State] Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663, 86 S.Ct. 1079, 16 L.Ed.2d 169 (1966), and Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 83 S.Ct. 801, 9 L.Ed.2d 821 (1963). The United States Supreme Court has recognized the power of the state to impose reasonable qualifications and restrictions, but has declared that these had to be established on a non-discriminatory basis and that the classifications drawn into the statutes had to be reasonable in light of their purpose. Carrington v. Rash, supra, [380 U.S. 89, 85 S.Ct. 775, 13 L.Ed.2d 675]. ‘We deal here with matters close to the core of our constitutional system.’ Carrington v. Rash, supra, 380 U.S. at page 96, 85 S.Ct. [775] at page 780. The right to choose that courts have been so zealous to protect means at the least that states may not casually deprive a class of individuals of the vote or the right of an individual to seek political office because of some remote administrative benefit to the state.
“The attention of this Court has been centered on whether the Ohio Election Laws, to the extent that these laws prevent the qualification of political parties and their candidates for ballot position, satisfy the tests of ‘necessity,’ ‘equality,’ and ‘reasonableness.’ As evidenced both on the face of these statutes as well as in their operational effect, the restrictions imposed do not meet these tests. These restrictions are violative of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and are thus constitutionally impermissible.
“We conclude that to the extent that the Ohio Election Laws impose unreasonable restrictions on the qualifications of political third parties, restrict minority participation in Ohio’s electoral process, prevent candidates for president and vice-president from qualifying as independents and deprive plaintiffs of their right .of suffrage, either by denial of ballot position or effective write-in, they are unconstitutional and void.”
If the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is invoked to protect the interests of presidential electors seeking to run as candidates for George C. Wallace’s Third Party in the State of Ohio, it can be and must be applied to protect the interests of these Negro and white candidates in the State of Alabama. Indeed, the Alabama Election Law now under scrutiny by this Court that the majority holds is not unconstitutional in its application or on its face requires a declaration of candidacy some eight months prior to the general election. To me, this is constitutionally unreasonable and therefore impermissible. I, therefore, dissent.

. Socialist Labor Party et al. v. Rhodes et al., U.S.D.C. S.D.Ohio, 290 F.Supp. 983 and filed August 29, 1968.