''Nixon v. Condon'', 286 U.S. 73 (1932), was a voting rights case decided by the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

Supreme Court, which found the all-white Democratic Party primary in Texas unconstitutional. This was one of four cases brought to challenge the Texas all-white Democratic Party primary. All challenges were supported by the

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...

(NAACP). Jim Crow Supreme Court Cases: Texas
accessed 21 March 2008 With ''

Smith v. Allwright ''Smith v. Allwright'', 321 U.S. 649 (1944), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court with regard to voting rights and, by extension, racial desegregation. It overturned the Texas state law that authorized parties to set thei ...

'' (1944) the Supreme Court decisively prohibited the white primary.

Background

In '' Nixon v. Herndon'' (1927), the Court had struck down a

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

statute that prohibited blacks from participating in the Texas Democratic primary election. Very shortly after that decision, the

Texas Legislature The Texas Legislature is the state legislature of the US state of Texas. It is a bicameral body composed of a 31-member Senate and a 150-member House of Representatives. The state legislature meets at the Capitol in Austin. It is a powerful ar ...

repealed the invalidated statute, declared that the effect of the ''Nixon'' decision was to create an emergency requiring immediate action, and replaced the old statute with a new one. The new law provided that every political party would henceforth "in its own way determine who shall be qualified to vote or otherwise participate in such political party". Under the authority of this law, the executive committee of the Texas Democratic Party adopted a resolution stating that "all white democrats who are qualified under the constitution and laws of Texas" would be allowed to vote. In the 1928 Democratic primary, Dr. L. A. Nixon of El Paso again tried to vote. He was again denied, on the ground that the resolution allowed only whites to vote (Nixon was black). Nixon sued the judges of elections in federal court.

Issue

The defendants argued that there was no state action and therefore no

equal protection The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "''nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal ...

violation, because the Democratic Party was "merely a voluntary association" that had the power to choose its own membership.

Decision

The Court, however, in a five to four ruling, reasoned that because the Texas statute gave the party's executive committee the authority to exclude would-be members of the party – an authority, the Court said, that the executive committee hitherto had not possessed – the executive committee was acting under a state grant of power. Because there was state action, the case was controlled by '' Nixon v. Herndon'' (1927), which prohibited state officials from "discharg ngtheir official functions in such a way as to discriminate invidiously between white citizens and black".

Aftermath

The Court's decision affected all-white primaries in other Southern states. The Democratic Party in Texas responded by barring blacks from participation in the party nominating conventions, and thus effectively continuing the white primary. '' Grovey v. Townsend'' (1935) and ''

'' (1944) were additional cases brought by African Americans to challenge Texas white primaries. With the latter, the Supreme Court decisively prohibited white primaries.

Citations

External links

* * {{US14thAmendment United States equal protection case law 1932 in United States case law Civil rights movement case law United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Hughes Court History of voting rights in the United States African-American segregation in the United States Texas elections Texas Democratic Party Primary elections in the United States History of El Paso, Texas United States elections case law Democratic Party (United States) litigation United States racial discrimination case law