"2. Amend the bill by providing for a percentage of votes before nomination by direct vote of the people, as follows: If the highest candidate for any county or local office receive less than 25 per cent of the vote of his party, and if the highest candidate for a State office receive less than 40 per cent of the vote of his party, that the nomination shall be referred to a convention of delegates elected at the same time that candidates are voted on by direct vote."
"3. Amend the bill by providing that the convention aforesaid shall prepare the platform of the party and perfect party organization."
[40] The vote in full was as follows:
Against the McCartney amendment and in effect for the bill agreed upon
by the anti-machine Senators: Anthony, Bell, Birdsall, Black, Boynton,
Burnett, Caminetti, Campbell, Cartwright, Curtin, Cutten, Estudillo,
Holohan, Hurd, Lewis, Martinelli, Miller, Price, Roseberry, Rush,
Sanford, Stetson, Strobridge, Thompson, Walker, Welch, Wright - 27.
For the McCartney amendment and in effect against the bill agreed upon by the anti-machine Senators: Bates, Bills, Finn, Hare, Hartman, Kennedy, Leavitt, McCartney, Reily, Savage, Weed, Willis, Wolfe - 13.
[41] Cutten showed that Section 13, Article XX of the State Constitution provides that "a plurality of the votes given at any election shall constitute a choice where not otherwise directed in this Constitution."
Senator Cutten then proceeded to demonstrate that a primary election is
an election within the meaning of the terms used. The Supreme Court of
Indiana has so declared, and, coming nearer home, Cutten showed that the
California Supreme Court has so held also.
In The People vs. Cavanaugh, 112 California, the Supreme Court held that any primary election that should become mandatory becomes an election and only those primaries that may be optional with a party as to whether or not they should be held, are not elections.
The Wright-Stanton bill and the Direct Primary amendment to the Constitution make the direct primaries mandatory, nor is there anything in the State Constitution providing that anything other than a plurality vote shall be required to nominate. For the Legislature to have yielded to the machine's demand that a majority or high plurality vote be required to nominate and inserted such a provision in the Direct Primary bill, would have been to render that measure unconstitutional, for under the plain provisions of the Constitution only a plurality vote can be required to nominate.
Were a majority or even high percentage plurality vote required to nominate, the Direct Primary law would have been made unconstitutional, because: