Cousins v. Wigoda
The Supreme Court ruled that Illinois could not use its state election code to block a national political party's own decision about which delegates to seat at its presidential nominating convention.
The Illinois courts had enjoined a rival group of delegates from taking convention seats after the state's chosen delegates were unseated by the party's Credentials Committee, but the Court held that this injunction unconstitutionally interfered with the delegates' and the party's freedom of political association, because a single state's interest cannot override the national party's control over its own convention.
“Illinois’ interest in protecting the integrity of its electoral process cannot be deemed compelling in the context of the selection of delegates to the National Party Convention.”
The Court explains why the state's interest did not justify blocking the rival delegates.
How it got here: An Illinois trial court enjoined the rival delegates; the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed and the state supreme court denied review; the rival delegates asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Chicago Democratic voters elected one slate of delegates (the Wigoda delegates) to the 1972 Democratic National Convention. A rival slate (the Cousins delegates), chosen at private caucuses, challenged that election before the party's Credentials Committee, which found the state selection process violated party rules and voted to seat the rival slate instead. Illinois courts then tried to block the rival delegates from serving, citing state election law.
The question before the Court
When the Democratic National Convention decided to replace Illinois delegates chosen under state election law with a rival slate, could Illinois courts step in and force the original delegates to keep their seats?
Why it matters
National political parties, not individual states, retain the final say over who sits as a delegate at their presidential nominating conventions, even when a state's own election laws point to a different slate. This protects parties from having fifty different states impose fifty different sets of delegate rules, preserving the parties' ability to run a unified national nominating process.
What changes now
The reversal means the Illinois injunctions cannot stand, undercutting related criminal contempt proceedings against the delegates that had been paused pending this decision. This is a final merits ruling, not a temporary order, but the Court expressly left open broader questions — such as whether party convention actions count as government action — for future cases to resolve.
What this does not decide
The Court explicitly declined to decide whether a national party's delegate-selection decisions count as government action, whether parties must follow one-person-one-vote style rules, or whether only Congress may regulate national conventions — those questions were left open for later cases.
Concurrences and dissents
How the Justices voted
Majority (1). Justice Brennan (author).
Separate writings (2). Justice Rehtstquist (author of a concurrence).
Concurrence — Justice Rehnquist
Rehnquist, joined by the Chief Justice and Stewart, agreed the injunction violated freedom of association but thought the majority used unnecessarily broad language and seemed to hint at answers to questions it claimed to leave open. He would have rested the decision narrowly on associational rights without discussing the national interest in conventions or the states' constitutional role in choosing electors.
Dissent in part — Justice Powell
“The State of Illinois, on the other hand, has a legitimate interest in protecting its citizens from being represented by delegates who have been rejected by these citizens in a democratic election.”Powell's argument for partially upholding the state injunction on district representation grounds.
Powell agreed the convention could not be forced to seat the original delegates, but he would have upheld the Illinois injunction to the extent it barred the rival delegates from claiming to represent the specific Chicago districts that had actually elected the other slate. He argued Illinois has a legitimate interest in ensuring its citizens are not represented by delegates the voters rejected.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court first rejected a jurisdictional challenge, holding that its earlier stay of a federal appellate injunction had completely suspended that judgment, leaving the Illinois state court free to issue its own injunction, and that a related res judicata defense had not been properly raised under Illinois procedure, which independently barred review of that issue.
- Turning to the merits, the Court recognized that political party members and the party itself hold a constitutionally protected freedom of political association under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, meaning interference with a party's internal choices is also interference with its members' rights.
- Because the injunction significantly burdened that associational freedom, the Court applied the compelling-interest test — requiring the government to show an unusually strong and narrowly tailored justification before it may restrict a fundamental right.
- The Court found Illinois's asserted interest in protecting primary votes was not compelling here, because delegates to a national convention perform a national function — nominating candidates for President and Vice President — that no single state's interest can control.
- Since the convention itself, not a state court, is the proper body to resolve which delegates should be seated in a dispute between rival party slates, the state's interest could not justify barring the rival delegates from serving.