The State ex rel. Yates v. Crittenden
| Decision Date | 29 June 1901 |
| Citation | 64 S.W. 162,164 Mo. 237 |
| Parties | THE STATE ex rel. YATES et al. v. CRITTENDEN, County Clerk |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Writ denied.
Johnson & Lucas, E. Silver, J. C. Williams and W. O. Thomas for relators.
E. L Scarritt, Elijah Robinson, I. H. Kinley and W. M. Williams for respondent.
(1) The State committee is not invested with plenary power to go into a county and set aside, of its own volition, a nomination made under the auspices of the regular party authorities of such county. This case is very different from the O'Malley case. Here there was no dispute that there was a regular county committee. The party was not disorganized. If the State committee could interfere here, then it may set aside a nomination in any county at will. We insist that the State committee has no such plenary power to annul and vacate nominations in that manner. (2) If, however it be conceded that the State committee had jurisdiction to divest the nominees of the convention called by the county committee of the rights acquired by such nomination, yet, this could not be done until after notice to them and an opportunity to be heard. Ex parte Sanders, 31 S.E. 290. The record of the State committee shows that it refused to hear any evidence. Out of the thirty-five or forty candidates, only nine were before the committee, and these nine were permitted to withdraw their names from the agreement to abide the action of the State committee after the other side refused to sign it, and they had no notice or opportunity to further appear in the matter. Some of the candidates were from the country districts in which there were no contests and about whose nominations no question could possibly have existed. Yet their nominations were passed upon without notice to them.
In Banc: GANTT, J. Burgess, C. J., Brace and Valliant, JJ. concur. Separate Opinion: ROBINSON, J. Sherwood and Marshall JJ., concur.
OPINIONIn Banc
Mandamus.
On the seventeenth day of October, 1900, the relators filed in this court their petition for a writ of mandamus directed to Thomas T. Crittenden, county clerk of Jackson county, Missouri, and commanding him to rescind his decision and ruling wherein he recognized certain parties other than relators as the regular nominees of the Democratic party of Jackson county, Missouri, for legislative and county offices to be filled at the general election thereafter to be held on the sixth day of November, 1900, and to recognize the nominations for said legislative and county offices certified to him in an amended certificate of nominations signed and acknowledged by Robert E. Ball, as chairman, and Chris J. Carroll, as secretary, of date October 16, 1900, and to cause said nominations as therein set forth to be published as the only legal and regular nominations of the Democratic party in Jackson county for the various offices set forth in said certificate.
The respondent Crittenden at the same time waived the writ and treated the petition as such writ and made his return thereto. To this return the relators filed a reply reasserting the power of the State Central Committee to assume jurisdiction without the consent of the candidates to be affected by its action, and to order and conduct another primary election for delegates to a convention called by it to nominate candidates for the various county offices of Jackson county, and for representatives and senators from said county to the General Assembly of this State.
The relators in their petition stated that the Democratic party is a political party duly organized as such in the State of Missouri, and did cast in Jackson county in said State at the last general election held therein more than three per centum of the entire vote cast in said Jackson county; that on or about August 1, 1900, the Democratic committee of Jackson county, by its order to that effect duly made, did call a convention of delegates (consisting of 419 members) to meet at Independence on August 25, 1900, for the purpose of nominating Democratic candidates for various county offices (including representatives in the General Assembly, members of the State Senate and township and district constables) to be voted for at the general election to be held on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November next thereafter. That said committee did also at the same time apportion the number of delegates to said convention for each ward in Kansas City and for each voting precinct in Jackson county outside of said Kansas City and did also appoint Thursday, August 23, 1900, as the time for the election of delegates to said convention in the various wards and voting precincts by the Democratic voters therein; that at the election of said delegates to said convention, so called as aforesaid, there were two rival factions or competing sections of the Democratic party, one sometimes known as the "Reed" faction, and the other as the "Shannon" faction; that the Reed faction elected the majority of the delegates, said majority consisting of about sixty votes or thereabouts; that prior to the assembling of the convention, the county committee, a majority of whom were adherents of the Shannon faction, without authority proceeded to hear evidence and pretended contests as to the right of a great number of Reed delegates to seats in said convention, and made up a roll of persons purporting to be elected to said convention, and did place on said roll the names of many persons of the Shannon faction who were defeated on the face of the poll by the voters at said election, and thereby gave the Shannon faction a majority of forty delegates in said convention; that the persons claiming to be the delegates and representing both of the aforesaid factions assembled at the place and time for the meeting of said county convention, as designated in the call of the county committee aforesaid; that after the convention had been called to order by the chairman of the county committee, and before the nomination of any candidates for office, and before the transaction of any of the regular and ordinary business of the convention, the persons present and purporting to be delegates, divided into two rival conventions; that each section, claiming to be in regular or lawful convention, organized by the election of a president and secretary; that the "Shannon" convention, elected James Black, Esq., as its chairman, and Albert M. Ott as its secretary, and the "Reed" convention elected James C. Williams as its president and E. S. Villmire as its secretary; that each section appointed its committees on resolutions, credentials and order of business; that each of said conventions thereupon nominated a full county ticket, thus placing before the voters of Jackson county two rival Democratic tickets, for the then ensuing election. That thereafter on September 19, 1900, the Democratic State Central Committee, having been duly convoked at Kansas City, Missouri, and having (after notice to the parties in interest and their appearance before said committee in person or by their representative) considered and investigated the party dissentions and troubles hereinbefore referred to, and for the purpose of adjusting the same, and with a view of effecting the nomination of one county, district and township ticket in the support of which all the Democratic voters at the ensuing election could unite, did call a new Democratic convention to be held at the city of Independence on October 11, 1900, to nominate a Democratic county, district and township ticket, in place of the two hereinbefore mentioned, and said State Central Committee did also at the same time fix Tuesday, October 9, 1900, as the date for and did order on that date the election of delegates (in the various wards of Kansas City, and voting precincts of Jackson county outside of said city) to said convention so to be held at Independence on said October 11, hereinbefore mentioned. That said Democratic State Central Committee (at its said meeting so held at Kansas City aforesaid on September 19, 1900) did authorize the Hon. James M. Seibert, its chairman, to appoint a special committee of said State Committee to supervise said election of delegates to said convention; to select the judges and clerks for the different voting places in said Jackson county, and to take other necessary steps for having a fair and impartial selection of delegates under the direct control and supervision of said Democratic State Central Committee; it being further expressly provided by a resolution of said committee "that all matters of detail, such as the number of delegates, the places of holding the primaries, and all other matters pertaining to said primaries and said county convention" should be left to the judgment of the special committee hereinbefore mentioned. That the Democratic State Central Committee consists of thirty-one members duly selected at the last Democratic State convention held at Kansas City, Missouri, on July 14, 1900, for the nomination of a general State ticket, and for the selection of a State committee. The said State Central Committee after its selection as aforesaid, duly organized by the election of Hon. James M. Seibert as chairman, and J. H. Edwards, Esq., as its secretary, and as such Democratic State Central Committee, it has general superintending and supervisory power and control of the interests of said Democratic party, and of the conduct of its present political campaign in the various counties of the State. That by virtue of its superintending and supervisory power and control, said State committee had full jurisdiction and authority to call the convention to be held at Independence on October 11, next, to direct the election of delegates thereto, and to take the...
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