Court Opinion

ID: 8019033
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-09 02:08:20.897919+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:36:26.378988
License: Public Domain

BROWN, J.
(concurring). — I concur in the views expressed in the majority opinion by our learned Chief Justice, but there is another issue tendered by respondent’s return which should not be passed over in silence.
In said return it was asserted that relator Werremeyer was not entitled to have his name printed upon the ballots of the Democratic party because he had not paid the filing fee to the Democratic Central Committee, as iequired by section 5870*, Revised Statutes 1909. In response to this defense it was urged by our learned Attorney-General that the failure of the relator to pay the filing fee is no defense in this case, because the law requiring such fee to be paid is in violation of section 9, article 2, of our Constitution, which, among other things, • ordains that “all elections shall be free and open.” In this contention the Attorney-General is correct.
The “free and open” clause of our Constitution is intended to have some application to both candidates and voters. With such restrictions as will demonstrate that a reasonable number of persons desire to vote for a candidate he should be allowed to aspire to public office and submit his claims to the voters.
Sections 5860 and 5870 of our primary election law require candidates for public office to pay. sums of money into the treasury of the political party on whose ticket they wish to be nominated before their names can appear upon the ballots of that party. To my mind such laws are against sound public policy. The State is friendly to all political parties, but upon no theory of honesty or fairness can it have a desire to *227promote the financial tvelfare of any political organization.
In a recent case of this character arising under the Constitution of .Illinois (which is in almost the precise language of our own organic law so far as it pertains to elections), it was held by the highest appellate court of that State that a primary election law was void because it required candidates for office to pay sums of money into the public treasury, thus putting a cash price on the right of a citizen to aspire to office. [People ex rel. v. Board of Election Comrs., 221 Ill. l. c. 21-23.]
If our own primary law were as good as the one condemned by the highest court of Illinois I should hesitate to enter my protest against its enforcement, for it is well known that if the money required by our law to be paid to political committées by candidates were paid into the public treasuries of the several counties and cities of our State the cost of holding our biennial primary elections would he lifted from the shoulders of the taxpayers and placed upo.n the candidates, and thus the public treasuries would gain many thousands of dollars.
Just think of the great State of Missouri requiring the payment of sums of money (vast in the aggregate) to the treasurers of political parties to he used in promoting the election of persons who happen to be nominated, and, perchance, to be used in corrupting the electorate into voting for candidates who may or may not be worthy of the offices to which they aspire. Such a law is enough to make every honest man in our State hide his face with shame.
The primary election law we now have is obviously intended to help the party which is temporarily in the ascendency. It no doubt helps the Republican party in St. Louis county, for by the election returns we see that the Republican candidates usually win in that particular county; consequently, many persons will seek *228nominations on that ticket and pay money to the treasurer of the Republican committee of that county for the chance of being nominated. It helps the Democratic party in Monroe county, and probably helps the Progressive party in Mercer, but it hurts minority parties everywhere, because it discourages persons from becoming candidates upon the ticket of a minority party, however much their views may be in accord with its principles, and to that extent at least it impedes the “free and open” elections which are contemplated in our Constitution. Under the guise of law it takes money from candidates all over the State, which, if collected at all, should be paid into the public treasuries of the several counties and cities, thereby relieving taxpayers who have quite enough burdens to bear without carrying the expense of primary elections.
Entertaining these views, I hold that those provisions of our primary election law upon which respondent relies are invalid, and that our absolute writ of mandamus was properly issued.