Smith v. Alwright (1944).
Smith v. Allwright, 64 S.Ct 757, (1944) was argued by Thurgood
Marshall and
was the last of the four so
called White Texas Primary cases all of which went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
People may be surprised to learn that in 1927 then again in 1932,
a black doctor from El Paso, Texas won the first two White Texas Primary
cases against the all white Democratic Party in Texas which had first
enacted a statute, Nixon vs Herndon (1927) then
adopted a party rule, Nixon v. Condon (1932) which prohibited Blacks
from voting in their primary. In Smith v. Allwright
which Thurgood Marshall
reminiscing in his retirement called his greatest civil rights case, even
greater than Brown v. Board of Education,
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
political parties are not private, voluntary associations but rather are
extensions of the state and thus may not adopt party rules, membership
requirements or candidacy requirements which are contrary to the U.S.
Constitution.
Yet since 1985 the Florida Democratic Party has had a party loyalty oath
in place (the Republican Party of Florida would afterwards follow with a
similar loyalty oath) which
requires that all of their candidates swear that they will not financially
or verbally support the opponent of any Democratic nominee or oppose any
Democratic nominee in a general election other than judicial races. Thus
whether you agree with his politics or not, U.S. Senator Zell Miller, a
Democrat from Georgia, would not have been allowed to give his speech at
the 2004 Republican National Convention praising our Republican president
and critizing his party's foreign policy if he was a senator from Florida.
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