Title: The White Primary Rulings: A Case Study in the Consequences of Supreme Court Decisionmaking
Abstract: Political scientists and legal scholars have written a good deal in recent years on the consequences of Supreme Court decisions. Much of this scholarship has been skeptical of the capacity of courts to produce significant social change. Most notably, Professor Gerald Rosenberg has declared the notion that courts can reform society a "hollow hope." While much of my own scholarship has reached conclusions broadly similar to those of Professor Rosenberg, it is a mistake to conclude that Supreme Court decisions in the civil rights context never made much difference. The Court's most important white primary decision, Smith v. Allwright, inaugurated a political revolution in the urban South. This Article considers both the circumstances that enabled Smith to accomplish what it did and the limitations of that accomplishment. My goal is to shed light on the conditions that enable and disable Supreme Court decisions from effectuating significant social change.