Katz v. Fitzgerald

HENSHAW, J.

These cases both represent attacks upon the constitutionality of the primary election law and may be considered and disposed of together.

The propositions advanced against the law are: Secrecy in voting is not preserved; the law arbitrarily classifies voters and discriminates between the classes so made; it destroys the right of self-preservation of political parties, and impairs the right of citizens to assemble together and to instruct their representatives; and invests state officers with judicial functions. These objections, for the most part, were advanced and answered in the case of

Schostag

v.

Cator,

151 Cal. 600, [91 Pac. 502], and

Rebstock

v.

Superior Court,

146 Cal. 308, [80 Pac. 65], decided by this court in Bank since the appeals in the present eases were taken and the briefs therein filed. In the Schostag ease it is said that the evils sought to be remedied by the adoption of section

2V2

of article II of our constitution were the corrupt practices by which, in the absence of proper public control, primary elections were made to defeat instead of to express the will of political parties. It is further pointed out that the state has a general interest in guarding the purity of primary elections since primary elections have become an essential feature of our system of choosing public officers, and at the same time each political party has a special interest in reserving to its own members' the control of its own affairs. In none of these respects does it appear that the legislative enactments violate the spirit or intent of section

2y2

of article II of the constitution. While primary elections are now conducted under the law, and, are to that extent, a part of the- elective system of the state, it is the secrecy of the ballot which the law protects, and not secrecy as to the political party with which the voter desires to act. The primary law does not prevent him from voting secretly.

[435]