Court Opinion

ID: 9667713
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:53:20.265528+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:40.112036
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Garwood
dissenting.
No doubt the State Convention did have authority to nominate Judge Williams, and the exercise of this authority cured any vice in the presentment of his name to the Convention by even a spurious delegation, if the seated Bexar County delegation were actually spurious.
On the other hand, I think the judgment of the District Court to the effect that an actual nominee for another office, as Judge Williams was, cannot validly decline his nomination later than twenty days prior to the beginning of absentee voting, and that Judge Williams was accordingly not in a position to accept the nomination which the State Convention accorded him, was correct. The Statutes are certainly open to this construction, which is one that makes for simplicity and clarity in political matters and affords the absentee voter a better chance than he would otherwise have to exercise his franchise with full knowledge of who the candidates for the various offices are. Obviously, it is no great hardship on a person holding a nomination for one office to require him to make up his mind between that nomination and a nomination for a different office well in advance of the absentee voting period. We have little enough knowledge, as it is, about the many different candidates on our long ballots, *449and the more time we have to acquire knowledge, the more intelligent our vote will be.
Moreover, and even if the foregoing conclusion be erroneous, the injunction suit which the District Court at San Antonio decided against Judge Williams would not seem to be moot, and we art therefore confronted with a judgment which we have no power to disturb. The system of letting a suit pend for half a month in the district court, then proceeding to try it for several days and then appealing to the Supreme Court on the ground that the case is moot and the trial court judgment accordingly void, or otherwise subject to review by the mandamus route, is hardly one to be encouraged by straining our conception of “moot.” The injunction was clearly an independent suit wholly disconnected from the rest of the case. It involved no fact questions and only a single question of law. Considering our various rules for expediting appellate review in injunction cases, the obvious interests of both parties in a quick decision and the well-known disposition of our appellate courts to act promptly when necessary, there would seem to have been adequate time for this case to have pursued the true appellate route in time for the decision to be available before the beginning of absentee voting.
I think the petition for mandamus should be denied.
Opinion delivered October 1, 1954.