Indep.-Progressive Party v. Sec'y of Commonwealth of Massachusetts

• Decision Date: 16 January 1929
• Citation: 164 N.E. 654,266 Mass. 18
• Parties: INDEPENDENT-PROGRESSIVE PARTY et al. v. SECRETARY OF COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

266 Mass. 18

164 N.E. 654

INDEPENDENT-PROGRESSIVE PARTY et al.

v.SECRETARY OF COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Jan. 16, 1929.

Exceptions from Supreme Judicial Court, Suffolk County.

Petition by the Independent-Progressive Party and others against the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. From interlocutory and final decrees in favor of the defendant, petitioners appeal and bring exceptions. Exceptions overruled, and decrees affirmed.Conrad Reno, of Springfield, for petitioners.

Frederic W. Cook, State Secretary, Joseph E. Warner, Atty. Gen., and F. Delano Putnam, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the Commonwealth.

RUGG, C. J.

This petition was filed on October 15, 1928. Those named as plaintiffs are Independent-Progressive Party, American Home Progressive Party and four individuals ‘for Themselves and All Others having like Rights and Interests.’ Without reciting the allegations in the petition at length, it is enough to say that it sets out that a ‘mass National Convention’ of one of the political parties named as plaintiffs was held on September 29, 1928, pursunat to call at which were nominated candidates for president and vice president, and that two of the plaintiffs have consented to serve as presidential electors at large; that demand made on the defendant for certificates of nomination for presidential electors was refused and that relief sought from the state ballot law commission was denied after hearing. The basic allegations of the petition are that the statutes of this commonwealth respecting the appointment of presidential electors and the placing of the names of candidates for that office on the official ballot deny to the plaintiffs the equal protection of the laws, are discriminatory and arbitrary, provide unconstitutional classifications, and deprive the plaintiffs of liberty or property, rights and privileges contrary to the Twelfth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. There are no allegations that the defendant has not complied with all provisions of the statutes of the commonwealth. The prayers in substance are that the defendant (1) be ordered to issue certificates of nomination for presidential electors of the two alleged parties, (2) be ordered to print the names of the presidential electors of said parties on the official ballot for the then approaching election, (3) be restrained from sending out ballots which do not contain the names of the two named plaintiffs as presidential electors, (4) be restrained from laying before the Governor and Council copies of the records of votes cast for presidential electors at the approaching election, and (5) be restrained from calling to order any meeting of persons claiming to be chosen as presidential electors at the November election, from calling the roll of such electors, and from presiding over such meeting.

The case was submitted to a single justice of this court upon a statement of agreed facts, in substance, to the effect that the convention alleged in the petition was not composed of delegates elected, chosen or appointed in any manner whatever, but that sundry persons assembled at a hotel in Springfield pursuant to a call, issued by the plaintiff Reno and others, inviting the public to attend. ‘It is uncertain as to the number of people who attended that meeting. It varied from time to time; some would come in and some would go out. The petitioner Reno was there and certain of his friends. Neither the petitioner Reno nor any others of the petitioners have made any attempt to conform to any provision of the Massachusetts statutes relative to the appointment or selection of presidential electors. It is conceded on behalf of the petitioners that neither the Independent-Progressive Party nor the American Home Progressive Party was qualified under the Massachusetts statutes to hodl a convention; that the party had not at the three biennial state elections prior to 1928 polled enough votes for Governor to entitle them to a place on the ballot under the Massachusetts statutes, as the statutes require; that none of the petitioners chose to avail themselves of the provision to nominate presidential electors by means of nomination papers bearing one thousand signatures of duly qualified voters, and no such nomination papers were...