During the 20th century, at least 4 state legislatures
passed election laws to give the Democratic Party a
competitive edge over the Republican Party.  But I'm
not aware of any state legislatures that gave legal
advantages to the Republican Party during the 20th
century.  If Republicans were more aware of this
history, they might be more sympathetic to judicial
activism to keep elections fair.

The instances that I know about are:

1. In early 1916, the Louisiana legislature re-defined
"political party" from a group that had polled 5% in
the last election, to a group that had polled 10%. 
That had the effect of immediately removing the
Republican Party from the ballot.  A state court ruled
that the law violated due process, and put the party
back on the ballot.

2. In 1955 the Florida legislature passed a law that
if a party had voter registration of at least 12.5% of
the state total, all the filing fees paid by its
candidates should be rebated back to that political
party.  Florida has long had very high fees.  At the
time Republicans had voter registration of only 9% of
the state total.  This bill, in effect, provided a
massive subsidy from the government to only one
political party, the Democratic Party.

3. In 1974 the Oklahoma legislature passed a law that
the Democratic Party (which was named in the law)
should always have the best position on the general
election ballot.  This was held unconstitutional in
1996.

4. In 1943 the Georgia legislature passed a ballot
access law that made it very difficult for the
Republican Party to place nominees on the November
ballot.  The law said if a party had not polled as
much as 5% of the vote for a particular office in the
previous election, it could not appear on the November
ballot for the next election, unless the nominee
submitted a petition signed by 5% of the number of
registered voters.  This law kept all Republican Party
candidates for Congress (both houses) off the ballot
in the period 1944-1952, and all Republican nominees
for statewide office other than president off the
ballot for the period 1944-1962.  The law was amended
in 1964 so that Republicans no longer needed to submit
such petitions, if they held a primary at party expense.

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