Whitney v. Bolin’s Empirical Analysis
1958
Citation profile
40 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 41 later decisions — most recently March 2024 · most notably Holley v. Adams (1970), Labor's Educational & Political Club-Independent v. Danforth (1978)
40 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 Adams v. Bolin · Roberts v. Spray · People ex rel. Hoyne v. McCormick · Giss v. Jordan · Boughton v. Price
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 41 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It is our opinion that the constitutional specifications are exclusive and the legislature has no power to add new or different ones. The qualifications fixed in the Constitution are not exclusive for the reason that if it were not intended by the framers thereof to fix all the qualifications, then it must have been intended to fix only a part and leave it to the legislature to fix others. Such a view is inconsistent with accepted constitutional construction that the enumeration of certain specified things in a constitution will usually be construed to exclude all other things not so enumerated. Positive directions in a constitution contain an implication against anything contrary to them. Indeed, were the framers to intend otherwise, they would have created the office with directions that the legislature could or should fix other qualifications.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“It would seem but fair reasoning upon the plainest principles of interpretation, that when the Constitution established certain qualifications as necessary for office, it meant to exclude all others as prerequisite. From the very nature of such a provision the affirmation of these qualifications would seem to imply a negative of all others * * *. A power to add new qualifications is certainly equivalent to the power to vary them. 1 Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 625. The Legislature can not add to the constitutional qualifications of an officer. 1 Cooley on Constitutional Limitations, 140.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““The qualifications for Governor are specifically detailed in the Constitution, and the Legislature is therefore powerless to add to or detract from the qualifications prescribed. No citation of authority is necessary here.””
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.