The charge is that respondent, a state officer, in refusing to furnish petitioner a ballot, obeyed the law of Texas, and the consequent denial of petitioner's right to vote in the primary election because of his race and color was state action forbidden by the Federal Constitution; and it is claimed that former decisions require us so to hold. The cited cases are, however, not in point. In Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S. 536, a statute which enacted that “in no event shall a negro be eligible to participate in a Democratic party primary election held in the State of Texas," was pronounced offensive to the Fourteenth Amendment. In Nixon v. Condon, 286 U. S. 73, a statute was drawn in question which provided that " every political party in this State through its State Executive Committee shall have the power to prescribe the qualifications of its own members and shall in its own way determine who shall be qualified to vote or otherwise participate in such political party." We held this was a delegation of state power to the state executive committee and made its determination conclusive irrespective of any expression of the party's will by its convention, and therefore the committee's action barring negroes from the party primaries was state action prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment. Here the qualifications of citizens to participate in party counsels and to vote at party primaries have been declared by the representatives of the party in convention assembled, and this action upon its face is not state action. The question whether under the constitution and laws of Texas such a declaration as to party membership amounts to state action was expressly reserved in Nixon v. Condon, supra, pp. 84-85. Petitioner insists that for various reasons the resolution of the state convention limiting membership in the Democratic party in Texas to white voters does not relieve the exclusion of negroes from participation in Democratic primary elections of its true nature as the act of the state.

First. An argument pressed upon us in Nixon v. Condon, supra, which we found it unnecessary to consider, is again presented. It is that the primary election was held under statutory compulsion; is wholly statutory in origin and incidents; those charged with its management have been deprived by statute and judicial decision of all power to establish qualifications for participation therein inconsistent with those laid down by the laws of the state, save only that the managers of such elections have been given the power to deny negroes the vote. It is further urged that while the election is designated that of the Democratic party, the statutes not only require this method of selecting party nominees, but define the powers and duties of the party's representatives, and of those who are to conduct the election, so completely, and make them so thoroughly officers of the state, that any action taken by them in connection with the qualifications of members of the party is in fact state action and not party action.

In support of this view petitioner refers to Title 50 of the Revised Civil Statutes of Texas of 1925, which by Article 3101 requires that any party whose members cast more than one hundred thousand ballots at the previous election, shall nominate candidates through primaries, and fixes the date at which they are to be held; by Article 2939 requires primary election officials to be qualified voters; by Article 2955 declares the same qualifications for voting in such an election as in the general elections; by Article 2956 permits absentee voting as in a general election; by Article 2978 requires that only an official ballot shall be used, as in a general election; by Articles 2980-2981 specifies the form of ballot and how it shall be marked, as other sections do for general elections; by Article 2984 fixes the number of ballots to be provided, as another article does

'Vernon's Annotated Revised Civil and Criminal Stautes, Vol. 9, p. 3ff; id., January 1935 Cumulative Supplement, pp. 117, 118.

for general elections; by Articles 2986, 2987 and 2990 permits the use of voting booths. guard rails, and ballot boxes which by other statutes are provided for general elections; by Articles 2998 and 3104 requires the officials of primary elections to take the same oath as officials at the general elections; by Article 3002 defines the powers of judges at primary elections; by Articles 3003-3025 provides elaborately for the purity of the ballot box; by Article 3028 commands that the sealed ballot boxes be delivered to the county clerk after the election, as is provided by another article for the general election; and by Article 3041 confers jurisdiction of election contests upon district courts. as is done by another article with respect to general elections. A perusal of these provisions, so it is said, will convince that the state has prescribed and regulated party primaries as fully as general elections, and has made those who manage the primaries state officers subject to state direction and control.

While it is true that Texas has by its laws elaborately provided for the expression of party preference as to nominees, has required that preference to be expressed in a certain form of voting, and has attempted in minute detail to protect the suffrage of the members of the organization against fraud, it is equally true that the primary is a party primary; the expenses of it are not borne by the state, but by members of the party seeking nomination (Arts. 3108; 3116); the ballots are furnished not by the state, but by the agencies of the party (Arts. 3109; 3119); the votes are counted and the returns made by instrumentalities created by the party (Arts. 3123; 3124-5; 3127); and the state recognizes the state convention as the organ of the party for the declaration of principles and the formulation of policies (Arts. 3136; 3139).

We are told that in Love v. Wilcox, 119 Tex. 256; 28 S. W. (2d) 515, the Supreme Court of Texas held the state was within its province in prohibiting a party from

establishing past party affiliations or membership in nonpolitical organizations as qualifications or tests for participation in primary elections, and in consequence issued its writ of mandamus against the members of the state executive committee of the Democratic party on the ground that they were public functionaries fulfilling duties imposed on them by law. But in that case it was said (p. 272):

"We are not called upon to determine whether a political party has power. beyond statutory control, to prescribe what persons shall participate as voters or candidates in its conventions or primaries. We have no such state of facts before us."

After referring to Article 3107. which limits the power of the state executive committee of a party to determine who shall be qualified to vote at primary elections, the court said:

The Committee's discretionary power is further restricted by the statute directing that a single, uniform pledge be required of the primary participants. The effect of the statutes is to decline to give recognition to the lodgment of power in a State Executive Committee, to be exercised at its discretion."

Although it did not pass upon the constitutionality of 3107, as we did in Viron v. Condon, supra, the Court thus recognized the fact upon which our decision turned, that the effort was to vest in the state executive committee the power to bind the party by its decision as to who might be admitted to membership.

In Bell v. Hill, 74 S. W. (2d) 113, the same court, in a mandamus proceeding instituted after the adoption by the state convention of the resolution of May 24, 1932, restricting eligibility for membership in the Democratic party to white persons, held the resolution valid and effective. After a full consideration of the nature of political parties in the United States, the court concluded that

such parties in the state of Texas arise from the exercise of the free will and liberty of the citizens composing them; that they are voluntary associations for political action, and are not the creatures of the state; and further decided that §§ 2 and 27 of Article 1 of the State Constitution guaranteed to citizens the liberty of forming political associations, and the only limitation upon this right to be found in that instrument is the clause which requires the maintenance of a republican form of government. The statutes regulating the nomination of candidates by primaries were related by the court to the police power, but were held not to extend to the denial of the right of citizens to form a political party and to determine who might associate with them as members thereof. The court declared that a proper view of the election laws of Texas, and their history, required the conclusion that the Democratic party in that state is a voluntary political association and, by its representatives assembled in convention, has the power to determine who shall be eligible for membership and, as such, eligible to participate in the party's primaries.

We cannot, as petitioner urges, give weight to earlier expressions of the state courts said to be inconsistent with this declaration of the law. The Supreme Court of the state has decided, in a case definitely involving the point, that the legislature of Texas has not essayed to interfere, and indeed may not interfere, with the constitutional liberty of citizens to organize a party and to determine the qualifications of its members. If in the past the legislature has attempted to infringe that right and such infringement has not been gainsaid by the courts, the fact constitutes no reason for our disregarding the considered decision of the state's highest court. The legislative assembly of the state, so far as we are advised, has never attempted to prescribe or to limit the membership of a