McAlpine v. Dimick

• Decision Date: 22 June 1927
• Docket Number: No. 17759.,17759.
• Citation: 157 N.E. 235,326 Ill. 240
• Parties: McALPINE v. DIMICK, County Court, et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

326 Ill. 240

157 N.E. 235

McALPINE

v.DIMICK, County Court, et al.

No. 17759.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 22, 1927.

Bill by William J. McAlpine against Fred G. Dimick, County Clerk, and others. From a decree for complainant, defendants appeal.

Affirmed.

Heard, C. J., and Stone, J., dissenting.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Lee County; William J. Emerson, Harry Edwards, and Harry L. Heer, Judges.

Oscar E. Carlstrom, Atty. Gen., Mark C. Keller, State's Atty., of Dixon, and S. S. Du Hamel, of Springfield, for appellants.

George C. Dixon and Sherwood Dixon, both of Dixon (Henry S. Dixon, Jerome F. Dixon, and Gerald Jones, all of Dixon, of counsel), for appellee.

DUNN, J.

On a taxpayer's bill the circuit court of Lee county, after overruling a demurrer to the bill and an election by the defendants to stand by their demurrer, entered a decree enjoining the county clerk of Lee county from drawing any warrant on the county treasurer for the payment to any person acting as judge or clerk at the primary election in Lee county on April 13, 1926, of any fees for such services, and from paying to any person furnishing or providing polling places, blanks, printed specimen ballots, printed official ballots, or other supplies necessary to carry out the provisions of the acts of the General Assembly providing for the holding of such primary election any pay therefor, enjoining the county board from auditing or allowing any such claim, or directing its payment and enjoining the county treasurer from paying any such warrant. The defendants appealed.

As a basis for its decree, the court held unconstitutional and void an act of the General Assembly entitled, ‘An act to provide for the holding of primary elections by political parties,’ approved March 9, 1910 (Laws Sp. Sess. of 1910, p. 46) and an act of the General Assembly entitled, ‘An act to provide for the holding of primary elections by political parties for the nomination of members of the General Assembly and the election of senatorial committeemen,’ approved March 9, 1910 (Laws Sp. Sess. of 1910, p. 77). The important question for decision, therefore, is the constitutionality of these two acts, which are referred to as the General Primary Election Law and the Legislative Primary Election Law.

The first of the above acts provided that the nomination of all candidates for all elective state, congressional, county, city, and village (including officers of the municipal court of Chicago), town, and judicial officers, members of the state board of equalization, clerks of the Appellate Courts, trustees of sanitary districts, and for the election of precinct and state central committeemen by all political parties, should be made in the manner provided in the act and not otherwise, provided that the act should not apply to the nomination of candidates for electors of President and Vice President of the United States and trustees of the University of Illinois, and should not apply to township and school elections. The act defines political parties and other terms used in the act, and provides, in section 8, that the managing committees of each political party shall comprise a state central committee, a congressional committee for each congressional district, a county central committee for each county, a city central committee for each city or village, and a precinct committee for each precinct. Section 9 provides, in paragraph 2, that at the September primary, held in 1910, and at the April primary, held every two years thereafter, each primary elector may write or attach in the space left on the primary ballot for that purpose the name of one qualified primary elector of his party in the precinct for member of his political party precinct committee, and, in paragraph 3, that the county central committee of each political party shall consist of the members of the various precinct committees of such party in the county. Section 10 provides, in paragraph (a), that the county central committee of each political party shall meet on the first Monday next succeeding the April primary at the county seat and organize by electing from its number a chairman, and either from among its own number or otherwise such other officers as the committee may deem necessary or expedient; that this meeting of the county central committee shall be known as the county convention, and the county convention of each political party shall choose delegates to the congressional and state conventions of its party, provided that in the county convention each delegate to the county convention shall have one vote and one additional vote for each 50 votes, or major fraction thereof, of his party, cast in his precinct at the last general election. Section 9, as amended in 1913, provided, in paragraph 3, that in the organization and proceedings of the county central committee each precinct committeeman shall have one vote and one additional vote for each 50 votes, or major fraction thereof, of his party, cast in his precinct for Governor at the last general election, and each ward committeeman shall have one vote for each precinct in his ward and one additional vote for each 50 votes, or major fraction thereof, of his party, cast in each precinct of his ward for Governor at the last general election. Laws of 1913, p. 310. By the same amendment it was provided, in section 10, par. (a), that in the county convention each of the precinct committeemen shall have one vote and one additional vote for each 50 votes, or major fraction thereof, or his party cast in his precinct for Governor at the last general election, and that each of such ward committeemen shall have one vote for each precinct in his ward and one additional vote for each 50 votes, or major fraction thereof, of his party, cast in each precinct of his ward for Governor at the last general election. By these enactments it was provided that the force of each elector's vote through his representatives on the county central committee, which was the managing committee of his party, and in the county convention, which selected delegates to state conventions, was determined by the number of votes cast in his precinct for his party's candidate for Governor. Section 4 defines ‘precinct’ as ‘a voting district heretofore or hereafter established by law, within which all qualified electors vote at one polling place’; and section 5 provides that the primary shall be held at the regular polling places now established, or which may hereafter be established, for the purposes of a general election. Sections 29 and 30 of the General Election Law, as amended by Laws 1913, p. 318, establish election precincts and require the board of supervisors, at its June or July meeting, to divide into districts any precinct which appears, by the number of votes cast at the general election in the previous November, to contain more than 800 voters, so that each district shall contain, as near as may be practicable, 500 voters, and not in any case more than 800.

It is averred in the bill that, by a resolution adopted on June 12, 1927, the board of supervisors provided that the first district of Dixon township should include all that part of the township lying south of the center of Rock river and east of a line commencing at a described point in the center of Rock river and running thence southerly on a certain line to the south line of said township; and that the second district should include all that part of the township lying south of the center of Rock river which is bounded on the east by the line described as the west line of district 1, and on the west by a line commencing at a described point in the center of Rock river and running thence southerly on a certain line to the south line of the township. It is further averred that, at the general election in November, 1920, the candidate of the Republican party for Governor received 188 votes in the first precinct and 285 votes in the second precinct as these precincts then existed; that at the primary election on April 8, 1924, David R. Spencer was elected Republican precinct committeeman for the first precinct, and thereupon became entitled to have 5 votes in the organization and proceedings of the county central committee and in the county convention of the Republican party, and that at the same primary election Robert W. Sterling was elected Republican precinct committeeman for the second district, and thereupon became entitled to have 7 votes in the organization and proceedings of the county central committee and in the county convention of the Republican party; that at a general election in November, 1924, the nominee of the Republican party for the office of Governor received 205 votes in the first precinct and 314 votes in the second precinct, and Spencer and Sterling, who had been elected precinct committeemen of the first and second precincts, respectively, continued to be entitled to the same number of votes as before; that each is now residing at the same place where he was residing at the time he was elected, and is a member of the Republican party and possessed of the legal qualifications required of precinct committeemen. It is further averred that by resolution of the board of supervisors on June 10, 1925, it was provided that the first precinct should include all of the territory in the north end of district 2 north of East First Street, and this territory was detached from the second precinct; that the territory so detached from the second precinct and attached to the first is residence territory, wherein are situated many residences, boarding and rooming houses, a nurses' home, and a hotel, in which there are, and for many years last part have been, residing more than 50 legal voters who are members of the Republican party; that, after the primary election to be held on April 13, 1926, the persons on that date elected as successors of Spencer and Sterling as Republican precinct committeemen of the...