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Tightening the Direct Primary in Michigan; First Applications of the Filing Fee

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

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

Taking note of the constantly increasing number of persons who were seeking nomination to public office in Wayne county, Michigan, a special election laws commission (1930) recommended a change in the laws governing the primary. The recommendation, accompanied by a draft of a bill, proposed to make it somewhat more difficult in that county for candidates to qualify for a place upon the primary ballots. The legislative response to this recommendation was an innocuous amendment providing for the deposit of a small filing fee as an alternative to the nominating petition. However, primary abuses during the depression years convinced the legislature that more drastic action was necessary, and in 1935 the election laws, as applied to Wayne county, were again amended abolishing the nominating petition and substituting the filing fee for “candidates for county office or office in the state legislature.” A similar provision was imposed by charter amendment for municipal offices in the city of Detroit.

Type
American Government and Politics
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , February 1937 , pp. 56 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1937

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References

1 Public Act No. 60, Public Acts, 1935. See “Tightening the Direct Primary,” in this Review, Vol. 30, pp. 512–522 (June, 1936)Google Scholar.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 Certain discrepancies will appear if the figures presented here are compared with those in the tables accompanying the note on this subject in the June issue of this Review. These discrepancies arise from slight changes in classifications, which will be noted from the offices listed in the tables, and the exclusion from consideration here of all county offices which are not regularly filled at two-year intervals.

5 In the election of November, 1930, the Republican party elected a United States senator, made a clean sweep of all state offices, elected Michigan's 13 congressmen, and claimed 31 of the 32 seats in the state senate and 98 of the 100 seats in the house.

6 Personal letter from Oakey E. Distin, chief supervisor, City Election Commission, Detroit.

7 The length of the ballots varied somewhat from district to district depending upon the numbers seeking nomination to Congress and the two houses of the state legislature. In a district picked at random in the city of Detroit, the ballots carried the names of 122 and 187 Republican and Democratic candidates, respectively. In addition to the list of county offices to which nominations are made regularly each two years, the 1936 ballots carried the names of 59 candidates—each party to nominate six—seeking nomination as circuit court commissioners. For discrepancies in total numbers, see footnote 5 and explanatory note following Table I.

The ballots in the November election carried, on an average, 235 names arranged in vertical columns under the emblems of 12 different parties. Four additional parties qualified for a place on the ballot by filing vignettes with the secretary of state but for one reason or another did not certify a slate of candidates.

8 Personal letter from W. P. Lovett, executive secretary, Detroit Citizens' League.

9 The Michigan constitution provides: “When any township or city shall contain a population which entitles it to more than one representative, then such township or city shall elect by general ticket the number of representatives to which it is entitled.” Art. V, sec. 3.

10 Charter of the City of Detroit, Title II, Chap. 2, sec. 3 (as amended April 1, 1835). Italics in quotation are mine.

11 Candidates for city office in the municipal primary of 1935 deposited a total of $10,950, of which $9,550 was returned by the city.

12 The Conference for the Protection of Civil Rights was outspoken in its opposition to the deposit requirement. However, its criticism was not relevant in that its objections centered around the right of the minor parties to a place upon the ballot and the Michigan law does not require such parties to hold primaries.

13 An election commission, created to study existing laws and report recommendations to the 1937 session of the legislature, passed over the act hurriedly and, to date, has formulated no recommendation concerning the filing fee.

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