MacDOUGALL ET AL. v. GREEN, GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS, ET AL. (335 U.S. 281)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided October 21, 1948 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 335 U.S. 281 · 69 S. Ct. 1
- Docket
- No. 348
- Argued
- October 18, 1948
- Decided
- October 21, 1948
- Term
- October Term 1948
- Vote
- 6–3
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Vinson, Justice Burton, Justice R. H. Jackson, Justice Frankfurter, Justice Reed
- Concurring in the judgment
- Justice Rutledge (wrote)
- Dissenting
- Justice Douglas (wrote), Justice Black, Justice Murphy
Opinion excerpt
PeR Curiam. This action was brought before a three-judge court convened in the Northern District of Illinois under 28 U. S. C. § 2281 and § 2284. The object of the action is an injunction against the enforcement of a provision which, in 1935, was added to a statute of Illinois and which requires that a petition to form and to nominate candidates for a new political party be signed by at least 25,000 qualified voters, “Provided, that included in the aggregate total of twenty-five thousand (25,000) signatures are the signatures of two hundred (200) qualified voters from each of at least fifty (50) counties within the State.” Ill. Rev. Stat. c. 46, § 10 — 2 (1947). Appellants are the “Progressive Party,” its nominees for United States Senator, Presidential Electors, and State offices, and several Illinois voters. Appellees are the Governor, the Auditor of Public Accounts, and the Secretary of State of Illinois, members of the Boards of Election Commissioners of various cities, and the County Clerks of various counties. The District Court found want of jurisdiction and denied the injunction. 80 F. Supp. 725. Appellants invoke the jurisdiction of this Court under 28 U. S. C. § 1253. The action arises from the finding of the State Officers Electoral Board that appellants had not obtained the requisite number of signatures from the requisite number of counties and its consequent…
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