Downs v. Pharis’s Empirical Analysis
1960
Citation profile
24 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 24 later decisions — most recently October 2002
24 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Reid v. Brunot · Lewis v. Democratic Executive Committee · State ex rel. Vullo v. Plaquemines Parish Police Jury · Waguespack v. Richard · Downs v. Pharis
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"It is a universal rule in this country that the validity of an election contest as well as the machinery controlling such elections presents political rather than judicial questions, in the absence of an express constitutional or statutory provision granting to the courts jurisdiction over the controversy. In conformity with the mandate of the Constitution of this State the Legislature adopted its Act 46 of 1940, the provisions of which were incorporated substantially in their original form in the Revised Statutes of 1950 as R.S. 18:281 et seq., and the procedures therein contained are sui generis. . ." (Emphasis added.)”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““ * * * Plowever, if for any reason any contest filed in court is not finally decided in the district court in time to print the name of the nominee of the party upon the ballot before the election, the political party committee shall certify the name of the contestee in the suit filed, which name shall be printed upon the ballot as the nominee of the party. No court has jurisdiction to enjoin such action.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““In the case at bar, it appears that Downs secured a temporary order from the Nineteenth Judicial District Court for the Parish of East Baton Rouge restraining the Secretary of State from printing the official ballots for the general election to be held in Rapides Parish on November 8th. This order was properly issued originally, at a time more than 30 days before the general election, if the contestant had cause to believe that the ballots would be printed and sent to the clerk of court. But obviously, in view of R.S. 18:362, R.S. 18:1072 and the jurisprudence to which we have referred, the judge who issued the restraining order was without power or authority to extend that injunction against the Secretary of State to any date beyond the time (30 days) when the Secretary of State was required by law to furnish the clerk of the district court with the printed ballots, save possibly in an exceptional matter showing fraud, or gross wrongdoing, which does not appear in this case.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.