A mere contest over a state office dependent for its solution
exclusively upon the application of the constitution of the state
or upon a mere construction of a provision of a state law involves
no federal question.
Taylor v. Beckham, 178 U.
S. 548.
The fact that a state court has considered a federal question
may serve to elucidate whether a federal issue properly arises, but
that doctrine has no application where the controversy is
inherently not federal, and is incapable of presenting a federal
question.
Writ of error to review 86 P. 250 dismissed.
This was a proceeding in the nature of
quo warranto
brought in a district (state) court of Colorado to test, as between
conflicting claimants (Charles W. Badgley and Charles S. Elder),
the title to the office of County Treasurer of the City and County
of Denver. The relator (Badgley) relied upon a general election
held pursuant to the general statutes of Colorado on November 8,
1904, while the defendant (Elder) claimed to be the legal incumbent
of the office by virtue of his election to the office of treasurer
of the City and County of Denver in May, 1904, under authority of
the Charter of said City and County of Denver. The question
presented for decision was whether the election held in May, 1904,
under the charter, of officers to perform
Page 204 U. S. 86
the duties required of county officers in the City and County of
Denver, was lawful, or whether such officers should have been voted
for under the general statutes of the state at the election held in
November, 1904. A determination of this question made necessary a
consideration of certain provisions of Article 20 of the state
constitution, providing for the creation, from the old County of
Arapahoe and the old City of Denver and other municipalities, of a
new entity to be known as the City and County of Denver, and
conferring authority to provide in the charter for the appointment
or election of officers of such city and county. In particular, a
construction was required of a clause providing that
"every charter shall designate the officers who shall
respectively perform the acts and duties required of county
officers to be done by the constitution or the general laws, as far
as applicable."
The district court sustained a demurrer to the complaint and
entered judgment for the defendant. This judgment was reversed by
the supreme court of the state, upon the authority of
People ex
Rel. Miller v. Johnson, 86 P. 233, and judgment was entered in
that court in favor of the relator, 86 P. 250, deciding in effect
that the charter provision under which defendant claimed was
repugnant to the Constitution of Colorado. The case was then
brought here.
Page 204 U. S. 87
MR. JUSTICE WHITE, after making the foregoing statement,
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The assignments of error are twenty-one in number. All of them
rest upon the assumption that the Supreme Court of Colorado held
that Article XX of the state constitution, particularly Sections 2
and 3, were repugnant to the provision of the Constitution of the
United States guaranteeing to every state a republican form of
government and to the act of Congress known as the Colorado
Enabling Act, and that, by such ruling, rights possessed by the
people of the State of Colorado and rights vested in the people of
the City and County of Denver were invaded. And upon the assumption
that such rulings were made, all the federal questions relied on
are based.
On behalf of the defendant in error, it is insisted that the
Supreme Court of Colorado did not decide any question under the
Constitution of the United States, but merely disposed of the case
before it upon its construction of the meaning of the provision of
the state constitution which was involved and upon the authority of
a previous decision rendered by the Colorado court. It is not
denied that, in the course of the opinion of the Supreme Court of
Colorado, it was said that, if the article of the state
constitution in question was susceptible of a contrary
Page 204 U. S. 88
construction to that affixed to it by the court, it would be
repugnant to the guaranty of a republican form of government, etc.
This, it is said, was mere
obiter, as the court considered
and held the provision valid.
If we were to indulge in the hypothesis that the assumptions
upon which the assignments of error rest were sustained by the
record, and were besides to assume that, at the proper time and in
the proper manner, it had been asserted that to hold Article XX
invalid would be repugnant to the Constitution of the United
States, the case would yet not be within the purview of § 709,
Revised Statutes. Under this section, the power to review the
judgment of a state court exists only in the following classes of
cases:
a where is drawn in question the validity of a
treaty or statute of, or an authority exercised under, the United
States, and the decision is against their validity;
b
where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of, or an
authority exercised under, any state, on the ground of their being
repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United
States, and the decision is in favor of their validity;
c
"where any title, right, privilege, or immunity is claimed under
the Constitution, or any treaty or statute of, or commission held
or authority exercised under, the United States."
It is plain that the case is not embraced within subdivision
a. Nor can it be said to be embraced within subdivision
b, for if we consider that the court below, instead of
construing and upholding the constitutional provision in question,
actually held it to be invalid because repugnant to the
Constitution of the United States, such decision was against, and
not in favor of, the validity of the article. Nor is the case
embraced within subdivision
c, for nowhere in the record
does it appear that the plaintiff in error specially or otherwise
set up or claimed in the courts of Colorado any title, right,
privilege, or immunity under the Constitution of the United
States.
Indeed, under the circumstances disclosed, if there had been an
assertion of a right, title, privilege, or immunity under the
Constitution of the United States, it would have been so
frivolous
Page 204 U. S. 89
as not to afford a basis of jurisdiction, since it is foreclosed
that a mere contest over a state office, dependent for its solution
exclusively upon the application of the Constitution of a state or
upon a mere construction of a provision of a state law, involves no
possible federal question.
Taylor v. Beckham, 178 U.
S. 548. Whilst, when a state court has considered a
federal question, that fact may serve to elucidate whether a
federal issue properly arises for consideration by this Court, that
doctrine has no application to a case where the controversy
presented is inherently not federal, and incapable of presenting a
federal question for decision.
Writ of error dismissed.
