State v. Howell

• Decision Date: 16 October 1918
• Docket Number: 14933.
• Citation: 104 Wash. 99,175 P. 569
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE ex rel. CHANDLER v. HOWELL, Secretary of State, et al.

175 P. 569

104 Wash. 99

STATE ex rel. CHANDLER v. HOWELL, Secretary of State, et al.

No. 14933.

Supreme Court of Washington

October 16, 1918

Department 2. Prohibition by the State, on the relation of George Chandler, against I. M. Howell, as Secretary of State of the State of Washington, and J. Stanley Webster. Petition denied.

See also, 174 P. 1183.

Wm. A Monten, of Spokane, and W. W. Black, of Everett, for relator.

W. V Tanner, of Olympia, and John A. Homer, of Seattle, for respondents.

MACKINTOSH J.

The term of Judge J. Stanley Webster, as a justice of the Supreme Court of this state, would expire in January, 1921. In May, 1918, he resigned his position on the bench and became a candidate for the office of representative in Congress for one of the congressional districts of this state, and filed with the secretary of state his declaration of candidacy. The relator seeks to enjoin the printing of Judge Webster's name on the ballot for the primary election, contending that he is rendered ineligible to hold the office of representative in Congress by article 4, section 15, of the state Constitution, which provides that judges of the Supreme Court and of the superior court shall be ineligible to any other office or employment during the term for which they shall have been elected.

In deciding this case but one question arises for determination: Can a state in its Constitution change the qualifications fixed by the federal Constitution for members of either house of Congress? Article 1, § 2, of the federal Constitution, provides:

'No person shall be a representative who has not attained to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen.'

Section 5 of the same article provides that each house of Congress shall be the sole judge of the qualifications of its own members. The office of a member of Congress is created by the federal Constitution, and that instrument is the only one which attempts in terms to specify the qualifications necessary to be possessed by an occupant of the office. To allow the several states to add to or vary the qualifications set forth in the federal Constitution would be to allow the several states to determine the qualifications of the members of Congress, which power, by the federal Constitution, is expressly delegated to the respective houses of Congress. So long as a candidate for membership in Congress meets the requirements set forth in the Constitution which created the office, no state has the right or authority to prevent his candidacy either by provisions in its Constitution or in its statutes. The state courts may be authorized to determine the eligibility of a candidate, and may prevent the certification of an ineligible candidate; but the test of eligibility must be that laid down in the federal Constitution.

The relator lays stress upon the fact that the election from which he is seeking to have the candidacy of Judge Webster eliminated is a primary and not a general election, and that the nomination of candidates for Congress is a matter of state regulation, citing the case of State ex rel. Zent v. Nichols, 50 Wash. 508, 97 P. 728, and United States v. Gradwell, 243 U.S. 476, 37 S.Ct. 407, 61 L.Ed. 857, and that, Congress having passed no act providing for the machinery for the nominations of its members, the matter of nominations is within the control of the state ( United States v. O'Toole [D. C.] 236 F. 993). All of this we concede, but the fact that the state, in the absence of federal legislation on the subject, has the authority to provide the manner and means of primary elections, does not give the state the authority to determine the qualifications of those seeking nomination for membership in Congress at such elections. When the state of Washington attempted in its Constitution to prevent members of its courts from becoming candidates for any office other than a judicial one during the terms for which they were elected, it came in conflict with the federal Constitution, in so far as it thus attempted to impose additional qualifications for membership in Congress, and in so far that provision is inoperative and void. For offices created by the state, the state by its Constitution and statutes may provide such qualifications and restrictions as it deems proper; but for offices created under other authority we must look to the creating authority for all qualifications and restrictions.

Some reliance has been placed upon language used by this court in the case of State ex rel. Reynolds v. Howell, 70 Wash. 467, 126 P. 954, 41 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1119, as sustaining the contention the a judge, upon assuming his office, agrees to the constitutional provisions. But it must be remembered that the oath which the judge takes is not only one of allegiance to the Constitution of the state, but the federal Constitution as well, and where those Constitutions are in conflict the first duty is to the superior authority. It is true that in the case just referred to language broader than was...