## Facts

- White citizens in Fort Bend County, Texas, organized the Jaybird Democratic Association, a private political organization.
- The Jaybirds conducted a whites-only “pre-primary” election to select candidates for county offices.
- Jaybird-preferred candidates almost invariably won the subsequent official Democratic primary and the general election.
- As a result, the Jaybird pre-primary functioned as the decisive stage of candidate selection, while the official elections—formally open to Black voters—largely ratified Jaybird choices.
- Black voters sued in federal court to enjoin the Jaybirds from excluding them from the pre-primary, alleging a Fifteenth Amendment violation.
- The district court found the Jaybird pre-primary was the “only effective part” of the local elective process and that Black voters were intentionally excluded, but denied relief on the ground that the Jaybirds were a private group not engaged in state action.
- The court of appeals affirmed; the Supreme Court granted review.

## Issues

1. Whether a privately run, whites-only “pre-primary” that effectively determines the winners of public elections constitutes state action or action attributable to the State for Fifteenth Amendment purposes.
2. Whether excluding Black voters from such a decisive stage of the electoral process denies or abridges the right to vote on account of race in violation of the Fifteenth Amendment.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed and held that excluding Black voters from the Jaybird pre-primary violated the Fifteenth Amendment.
- A majority of Justices agreed the Jaybird pre-primary, given its decisive role in selecting officeholders, operated as an integral part of the county’s elective process.
- Although the Court issued fractured opinions without a single majority rationale, the controlling result treated the Jaybird scheme as constitutionally impermissible racial exclusion from an effective election.
- The dissent would have treated the Jaybird election as private political activity outside the Fifteenth Amendment because official elections remained formally open to all qualified voters.

## Legal Principles

- The Fifteenth Amendment bars racial exclusion not only from formal elections but also from any decisive stage of the public electoral process where the meaningful choice of officeholders is made.
- A State may not avoid constitutional limits by permitting a private organization to control access to public office through a racially exclusive selection procedure that, in practice, determines election outcomes.
- State action analysis in voting-rights cases turns on practical operation and effect, not solely on formal labels such as “private” versus “official.”
- When a privately conducted election becomes a necessary or decisive step in selecting public officials, racial discrimination in that process is attributable to the State and is unconstitutional.

## Conclusion

The Court held that a whites-only, privately administered pre-primary that effectively decided who would hold county office was part of the electoral process for Fifteenth Amendment purposes, and that excluding Black voters from that decisive stage unconstitutionally denied or abridged the right to vote on account of race.


Terry v. Adams, 345 U.S. 461 (1953)