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Tightening the Direct Primary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Harold M. Dorr
Harold M. Dorr
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Extract

In his study, “Government and Society,” Professor Charles E. Merriam makes an interesting observation which may be interpreted by enthusiastic students of government as evidence of progress in the movement to reform the complex and obsolete electoral system prevailing in a majority of the states. “The number of elective officers,” he writes, “estimated at more than 750,000 in the United States, has decreased somewhat in states, counties, and cities under the influence of the short ballot movement. The number of elective offices in 202 cities decreased from 3,118 to 2,343 in the period from 1915 to 1929.” These observations are unquestionably indicative of the tendency to shorten the ballot and, if accepted without qualification or modification, the decrease noted is sufficient evidence of progress to offer encouragement to the supporters of the short-ballot movement.

Type
American Government and Politics
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , June 1936 , pp. 512 - 522
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1936

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References

1 Recent Social Trends (1933), p. 1508Google Scholar.

2 Public Act No. 306, Public Acts, 1929.

3 Public Act No. 200, Public Acts, 1931.

4 Candidates for the office of governor, lieutenant-governor, and United States senator are the only ones nominated in primary elections. Candidates for all other offices filled through state-wide election are nominated in party conventions.

5 Charter of the City of Detroit, Title II, Chap. 2, secs. 1–2 (as amended Apr. 6, 1925).

6 See Table I, state representatives and circuit judges; Table II, council members and constables.

7 See Table I, democratic candidates in the primary of 1932, and thereafter. In the primaries of 1926 and 1928, the names of only 79 and 83 candidates, respectively, appeared upon the ballot; while in 1930 there was no real party contest, and only a few scattered democratic candidates went to the trouble of filing petitions.

8 Journal of the Senate, 1931, pp. 241–242Google Scholar. Members of the commission were: Claude H. Stevens, lawyer and senator from Wayne county; Vernon J. Brown, publisher and veteran member of the house; James K. Pollock, professor of political science, University of Michigan; James T. Caswell, professor of political science, Michigan State College; Oakley E. Distin, chief supervisor of elections, Detroit; Clarke W. Brown, deputy secretary of state; and Dorothy L. Judd, president of the League of Women Voters.

9 Ibid., p. 243.

10 Senate Bill No. 96, 56th Legislature, regular session of 1931.

11 Ibid., pp. 14–15. The italicized words in brackets represent the amendments recommended by the commission. The old law made no provision for a filing fee and required only the filing of a petition signed “by not less than five hundred (500) registered and qualified voters residing in such district.” Public Act No. 306, Public Acts, 1929.

12 Public Act No. 200, Public Acts, 1931. Cf. previous act, cited in footnote 1 above.

13 Charter of the City of Detroit, Title II, Chap. 2, sec. 3 (as amended April 6, 1931).

14 Ibid.

15 The state law was approved by the governor on May 28, 1931, but did not become effective until near the middle of the following September.

16 Seventeen members of the house of representatives are elected at large from the city of Detroit. Thus each party is entitled to nominate that number of candidates.

17 House Bill No. 192, introduced by Mr.Fitzgerald, , of Wayne. Journal of the House, 1935, p. 244Google Scholar.

18 Approved May 17, 1935.

19 Public Act No. 60, Public Acts, 1935.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid. In the same session, a second law pertaining to the primary was enacted. “Any candidate filing petitions for any county, state, or national office in any primary election shall appear in person, within fifteen days after the filing of said petition, before the officer with whom said petitions were filed, and shall file with said officer a certified affidavit that he or she is the person filing petitions for any such office, giving his or her name, address, number of years of residence in the state and/or county, as the case may be, and such other information as shall be required to satisfy said officer as to the identity of any such candidate.” In case any candidate fails to comply, his name is not to appear upon the ballot. The act is applicable only in counties having a population of 500,000 or more. Public Act. No. 249, Public Acts, 1935.

22 Resolution adopted, Feb. 26; approved, Apr. 1; effective, Apr. 15.

23 Charter of the City of Detroit, Title II, Chap. 2, sec. 3 (as amended April 1, 1935).

24 Ibid.

25 See Tables I and II, supra.

26 In a recent primary in one of the more populous up-state counties, well over 100 candidates sought nomination to the office of sheriff.

27 See Tables I and II, supra.

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