Smiley v. Holm’s Empirical Analysis
285 U.S. 355 · 1932
Citation profile
120 federal appellate · 42 district · 100 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 479 later decisions (75 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2024 · most notably Baker v. Carr (1962), Buckley v. Valeo (1976)
120 federal appellate · 42 district · 100 state decisions — followed in 26 states
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 Myers v. United States · 'The Ku-Klux Cases' Yarbrough · Ex parte Siebold · Lewis v. Reynolds · McPherson v. Blacker
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 479 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“notices, registration, supervision of voting, protection of voters, prevention of fraud and corrupt practices, counting of votes, duties of inspectors and canvassers, and making and publication of election returns”
27 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Colegrove v. Green · Agre v. Wolf“As the authority is conferred for the purpose of making laws for the state, it follows, in the absence of an indication of a contrary intent, that the exercise of the authority must be in accordance with the method which the state has prescribed for legislative enactments. We find no suggestion in the federal constitutional provision of an attempt to endow the Legislature of the state with power to enact laws in any manner other than that in which the Constitution of the state has provided that laws shall be enacted. Whether the Governor of the state, through the veto power, shall have a part in the making of state laws, is a matter of state polity. [The Elections Clause] neither requires nor excludes such participation. And provision for it, as a check in the legislative process, cannot be regarded as repugnant to the grant of legislative authority.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.