Revolution By Judicial Action in Georgia

Abstract

strated the truth of Louis D. Brandeis' maxim, resistance to evolution invites revolution. The Constitution of the United States was used as a fiery sword of freedom to rid the state of an archaic political structure and to introduce a new era in politics. Readers of this journal are familiar with the county unit system of election under which the governor and other state officers of Georgia were elected under the old regime.? Stated briefly, it was a winner take all system applied to county votes, similar to the system used in the electoral college for state votes in electing the President of the United States. The system itself had some merits, debatable at least; but failure to modify it to give added voting strength to metropolitan areas as they grew up caused the system to become ridiculous. For example, Fulton County where Atlanta is located had 14.11 per cent of Georgia's population in 1960, but it had only 1.46 per cent of the county unit votes; whereas Echols County with .05 per cent of the state's population had .48 per cent of the total unit votes. An effort to modify the county unit system, sponsored vigorously for three decades, failed to produce tangible results. The system rested on custom and the Neill Primary Act of 1917. As a safeguard against any modification, in 1950 the General Assembly, dominated by rural areas, proposed an amendment to the constitution which would have written the unit system in its archaic form into the state's fundamental law. The amendment was defeated by a popular vote of 164,377 to 134,290. A similar constitutional amendment passed the General Assembly in 1952. It was defeated by a popular vote of 309,170 to 278,882. Both of the proposed amendments would have passed had their ratification depended on a county unit vote. Advocates of abolishing or modifying the county unit system were happy to see the proposals to write the system into the constitution defeated, but this victory was an empty one for the moment. All candidates for governor continued to be avowed supporters of the unit system, and the most moderate proposals for revision went unheeded by the political leaders. Efforts to secure relief through the federal courts had not been lacking. The leader in this regard was Dr. Cullen B. Gosnell, professor of political science at Emory University. In 1946 a petition was filed to enjoin use of the county unit system in determining the Democratic nominee for Congress in the Fifth Congressional District which includes Fulton, DeKalb, and Rockdale counties. Under the unit system, Fulton and DeKalb counties each had six unit votes, and Rockdale, next to the smallest of Georgia's 159 counties, had two unit votes. Rockdale's vote usually controlled the election, as it did in 1946, although the candidate carrying Fulton