Nancy Jewell Cross v. John A. Bruning, County Clerk of San Mateo County, California

The plaintiff on October 4, 1967, brought this suit in the United States District Court requesting that Court to issue a decree enjoining the defendants from enforcing nineteen sections of the California Elections Code. She asserted in her complaint that those provisions of the California statutes were in conflict with certain provision of the Constitution of the United States and of Amendments to the Constitution.

The United States District Court on November 24, 1967, pursuant to a motion of the defendants that the complaint be dismissed “for Lack of Jurisdiction over Subject Matter and for Failure to State Claim upon which Relief Can Be Granted”, upon which motion a hearing was held, granted the defendants’ motion and dismissed the plaintiffs’ action. The instant appeal is from that action of the United States District Court.

There has been prior litigation between the same parties involving the same legal problems involved in this appeal. On March 18, 1964, the plaintiff Cross, and another person whose presence and participation in the earlier litigation hereinafter discussed will be disregarded, filed a petition in the Supreme Court of California, pursuant to California…