Smith v. Allwright

Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944), argued 10 and 12 Nov. 1943, reargued 12 Jan. 1944, decided 3 Apr. 1944 by vote of 8 to 1; Reed for the Court, Roberts in dissent. The history of the “white primary” was a game of constitutional chess waged against blacks and the Supreme Court by whites and the Texas legislature. After Reconstruction, a Democratic primary victory assured success in the general election in Texas and throughout the one‐party South. Therefore, exclusion of African‐Americans from primary participation had the practical effect of disenfranchisement.

Initially, in Newberry v. United States (1921), the Court concluded that party primary elections were unknown to the framers and therefore were beyond the reach of the Constitution. Two years later, the Texas legislature enacted a statute expressly barring African‐Americans from voting in a Democratic primary. The Court in Nixon v. Herndon (1927) held this measure invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Texas legislature then enacted another statute that authorized the state party executive committee to determine membership qualifications, including race, and again the Court held the statute invalid in Nixon v. Condon (1932). Next the Texas legislature repealed all state primary election statutes, anticipating that the Democratic state convention would exclude African‐Americans, which the Court upheld, in Grovey v. Townsend (1935), as “private” discrimination beyond the Constitution.

African‐American voters were checked until the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) saw an opening in United States v. Classic (1941), which held that Congress could regulate primary as well as general elections for federal office. The NAACP sponsored Smith, who brought suit against Texas Democratic party election officials in a direct challenge on the Grovey holding, alleging that he had been unconstitutionally denied a primary ballot because of his race.

Justice Stanley *Reed applied the Classic reasoning to overrule Grovey, and the white primary was checkmated. Since the primary system was an integral part of the state's election procedures, citizens had the right under the Fifteenth Amendment to vote in party primaries free of racial discrimination. The discrimination was not merely “private.” First, since state law authorized primary elections and regulated the party's procedures, the party in convention acted as an agent of the state in excluding African‐Americans. Second, conducting elections was a state function; therefore, the state was responsible for allowing the private racial discrimination.

Justice Owen J. Roberts, who had written for a unanimous Court only nine years before in Grovey, dissented on the grounds that the overruling promoted disrespect for the Court and instability in the law. Justice Reed replied that the Court's decision only corrected the earlier misapplication of settled principles. Neither opinion noted that seven of the justices had been appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in that interim.

Constitutional scholars cite Allwright as one of the seminal cases in the development of the “public function” concept. Certain activities traditionally and exclusively performed by the government—such as elections—are deemed to be state action under the Constitution even when performed by private actors. This doctrine was extended in Terry v. Adams (1953) in which the Court invalidated an unofficial primary held by a private, all‐white “club” despite the lack of state regulation of the club.

After Allwright, the available methods for reducing African‐American participation in elections were limited to those directed at individuals rather than groups, such as literacy tests and poll taxes. These methods proved less effective with time. The federal legislative response came in the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964, followed by the Twenty‐fourth Amendment, which banned poll taxes in federal elections, and especially in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 with subsequent amendments.

The broader significance of this decision lies in the Court's focus on substance over form in determining voting rights. This approach became the conceptual foundation for later landmark civil rights cases involving such matters as racially restrictive covenants, school segregation, and political reapportionment.

See also Race and Racism; Reapportionment Cases; White Primary.

Bibliography

Ward E. Y. Elliot , The Rise of Guardian Democracy: The Supreme Court's Role in Voting Rights Disputes, 1845–1969 (1974).
Darlene Clark Hine , Black Victory: The Rise and Fall of the White Primary in Texas (1979).

Thomas E. Baker