These days politics and political debate all seem to be so divisive I thought it might be nice to have a look at the lighter side of things. I am a student of elections and election history. As you might imagine there are plenty of interesting, amusing and sometimes surprising stories.
I am going to try and post on a semi-regular basis relating these stories.
Today we look at the 1946 special election for the US Senate in the state of Alabama.
To fully understand the story you need to consider the political environment of the time. Like much of the deep south in that era, Alabama was almost literally a one party state. Today we talk of one party states but even int he most partisan there are victories for the other party. Not so for the old Solid South.
To give perspective, between the year 1900 and the year 1944 the Republican party did not win a single statewide race in Alabama for any office. Not one. They also did not win a single race for the House or Senate. In many cases they didn’t even bother running candidates and when they did getting 25% was considered a real accomplishment.
The only exception to this rule came in Winston County, located in the northwestern party of the state. During the Civil War the area had been pro union and after it was the sole bastion of GOP support. On a side note this is also the county mentioned in To Kill A Mockingbird as the home of the new schoolteacher.
But otherwise the state was 99.99% Democratic and as a result the primaries became the real elections. Because of this some special rules developed in many southern states. One was a requirement for a majority vote to win a primary, or absent that a runoff between the top two candidates in the first primary.
But in general once you were elected to office you tended to win the primary and were safe in office. This was seemingly true in 1946 with 8 of the 9 incumbent House members winning renomination along with most of the state legislature and there was no scheduled US Senate race.
The only real excitement was in the race for Governor because the law at the time did not allow incumbents to run for re-election so every 4 years was an open race. Even then there was a clear leader from the beginning.
So it appeared a quiet year was in store for the voters.
But then in early June incumbent Senator John Bankhead II died of complications from a stroke. The Bankheads were a prominent family in Alabama (his father had been a US Senator, his brother Speaker of the US House and his niece was the actress Tallulah).
Bankhead’s term ran until 1948 so they needed to find a replacement and Alabama law had some strict rules. First, while a temporary senator could be appointed they could not seek re-election. Second, they had to fill the seat at the next election (or fall 1946).
Things moved more quickly in those days so they scheduled a special primary for the end of July with a runoff (if needed) in August. The election would follow in November. The GOP did not field a candidate so the race was up to the Democrats.
Several members of the US House entered the race seeing it as a free chance (either win and become a Senator or lose and keep your House seat). The leading contender was a man named John Sparkman, a house member since 1937 and House Democratic Whip (which theoretically put him in like to eventually become Speaker).
As it happened Sparkman won a majority in the first primary and thus became a Senator-in-Waiting. All he needed to do was relax until the “election” in November and then take his US Senate Seat.
But there was a problem. Under Alabama law he could not be drop out of the House race and have a new candidate named. The only way this could happen is if the candidate died. So if he dropped out the Democrats would be left without a candidate and the GOP (who happened to field a candidate against Sparkman) would win by default.
After considering their options the party decided the simplest solution was to do nothing.
Under the law you could not *serve* in the House and Senate at the same time but you could *run* for both offices at the same time.
So that is what Sparkman did. He won the Senate race with 100% of the vote and the House race with 92.4%.
Making him the only person in US history to win election to both the House and Senate on the same day.
Sparkman took his Senate seat on November 6, 1946 and never took the House seat. In another bit of political efficiency the state was able to schedule a special election for late January 1947. Democrats met and agreed on one candidate, the GOP didn’t bother filing and so in less than a month they filled the vacancy.
Anyway this is the first in what I hope will be a series of posts on the interesting history of elections.