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18 U.S.C. 610 prohibits any corporation or labor organization from making "a contribution or expenditure in connection with" any election for federal office. An indictment of appellee, a labor organization, under this section charged appellee with having used union dues to sponsor commercial television broadcasts designed to influence the electorate to select certain candidates for Congress in connection with the 1954 elections. The District Court dismissed the indictment as not alleging a statutory offense. On appeal to this Court under the Criminal Appeals Act, held: The judgment of dismissal is reversed. Pp. 568-593.
Solicitor General Rankin argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Assistant Attorney General Olney, Beatrice Rosenberg and Carl H. Imlay.
Joseph L. Rauh, Jr. argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Harold A. Cranefield, John Silard, Norma Zarky, Kurt Hanslowe and Redmond H. Roche, Jr.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issues tendered in this case are the construction and, ultimately, the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. 610, an Act of Congress that prohibits corporations and labor organizations from making "a contribution or expenditure in connection with" any election for federal office. This is a direct appeal by the Government from a judgment of the District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan dismissing a four-count indictment that charged appellee, a labor organization, with having made expenditures in violation of that law. Appellee had moved to dismiss the indictment on the grounds (1) that it failed to state an offense under the statute and (2) that the provisions of the statute "on their face and as construed and applied" are unconstitutional. The district judge held that the indictment did not allege a statutory offense and that he was therefore not required to rule upon the constitutional questions presented. 138 F. Supp. 53. The case came here, 351 U.S. 904 , under the Criminal Appeals Act of 1907, as amended, 18 U.S.C. 3731.
It is desirable at the outset to quote the statute in its entirety:
The concentration of wealth consequent upon the industrial expansion in the post-Civil War era had profound implications for American life. The impact of the abuses resulting from this concentration gradually made itself felt by a rising tide of reform protest in the last decade of the nineteenth century. The Sherman Law was a response to the felt threat to economic freedom created by enormous industrial combines. The income tax law of 1894 reflected congressional concern over the growing disparity of income between the many and the few.
No less lively, although slower to evoke federal action, was popular feeling that aggregated capital unduly influenced politics, an influence not stopping short of corruption. The matter is not exaggerated by two leading historians:
This Act of 1907 was merely the first concrete manifestation of a continuing congressional concern for elections "free from the power of money." (See statement of Samuel Gompers, supra.) The 1909 Congress witnessed unsuccessful attempts to amend the Act to proscribe the contribution of anything of value and to extend its application to the election of state legislatures. The Congress of 1910 translated popular demand for further curbs upon the political power of wealth into a publicity law that required committees operating to influence the results of congressional elections in two or more States to report all contributions and disbursements and to identify contributors and recipients of substantial sums. That law also required persons who spent more than $50 annually [352 U.S. 567, 576] for the purpose of influencing congressional elections in more than one State to report those expenditures if they were not made through a political committee. 36 Stat. 822. At the next session that Act was extended to require all candidates for the Senate and the House of Representatives to make detailed reports with respect to both nominating and election campaigns. The amendment also placed maximum limits on the amounts that congressional candidates could spend in seeking nomination and election, and forbade them from promising employment for the purpose of obtaining support. 37 Stat. 25. And in 1918 Congress made it unlawful either to offer or to solicit anything of value to influence voting. 40 Stat. 1013.
This Court's decision in Newberry v. United States, 256 U.S. 232 , invalidating federal regulation of Senate primary elections, led to the Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925, 43 Stat. 1070, a comprehensive revision of existing legislation. The debates preceding that Act's passage reveal an attitude important to an understanding of the course of this legislation. Thus, Senator Robinson, one of the leaders of the Senate, said:
When, in 1940, Congress moved to extend the Hatch Act, 53 Stat. 1147, which was designed to free the political process of the abuses deemed to accompany the operation of a vast civil administration, its reforming zeal also led Congress to place further restrictions upon the political potentialities of wealth. Section 20 of the law amending the Hatch Act made it unlawful for any "political committee," as defined in the Act of 1925, to receive contributions of more than $3,000,000 or to make expenditures of more than that amount in any calendar year. And 13 made it unlawful "for any person, directly or indirectly, to make contributions in an aggregate amount in excess of $5,000, during any calendar year, or in connection with any campaign for nomination or election, to or on behalf of any candidate for an elective Federal office" or any committee supporting such a candidate. The term "person" was defined to include any committee, association, organization or other group of persons. 54 Stat. 767. In offering 13 from the Senate floor Senator Bankhead said:
The 1945 Report of the House Special Committee to Investigate Campaign Expenditures expressed concern over the vast amounts that some labor organizations were devoting to politics:
Shortly thereafter, Congress again acted to protect the political process from what it deemed to be the corroding effect of money employed in elections by aggregated power. Section 304 of the labor bill introduced into the House by Representative Hartley in 1947, like the Ellender bill, embodied the changes recommended in the reports of the Senate and House Committees on Campaign Expenditures. It sought to amend 313 of the Corrupt Practices Act to proscribe any "expenditure" as well [352 U.S. 567, 583] as "any contribution," to make permanent 313's application to labor organizations and to extend its coverage to federal primaries and nominating conventions. The Report of the House Committee on Education and Labor, which considered and approved the Hartley bill, merely summarized 304, H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 46, and this section gave rise to little debate in the House. See 93 Cong. Rec. 3428, 3522. Because no similar measure was in the labor bill introduced by Senator Taft, the Senate as a whole did not consider the provisions of 304 until they had been adopted by the Conference Committee. In explaining 304 to his colleagues, Senator Taft, who was one of the conferees, said:
On review under the Criminal Appeals Act of a district court judgment dismissing an indictment on the basis of statutory interpretation, this Court must take the indictment as it was construed by the district judge. United States v. Borden Co., 308 U.S. 188 . The court below summarized the allegations of the indictment at the outset of its opinion:
To deny that such activity, either on the part of a corporation or a labor organization, constituted an "expenditure in connection with any [federal] election" is to deny the long series of congressional efforts calculated to avoid the deleterious influences on federal elections resulting from the use of money by those who exercise control over large aggregations of capital. More particularly, this Court would have to ignore the history of the statute from the time it was first made applicable to labor organizations. As indicated by the reports of the Congressional Committees that investigated campaign expenditures, it was to embrace precisely the kind of indirect contribution alleged in the indictment that Congress amended 313 to proscribe "expenditures." It is open to the Government to prove under this indictment activity by appellee that, except for an irrelevant difference in the medium of communication employed, is virtually indistinguishable from the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen's purchase of radio time to sponsor candidates or the Ohio C. I. O.'s general distribution of pamphlets to oppose Senator Taft. Because such conduct was claimed to be merely "an expenditure [by the union] of its own funds to state its position to the world," the Senate and House Committees recommended and Congress enacted, as we have seen, the prohibition of "expenditures" as well as "contributions" to "plug the existing loophole."
Although not entitled to the same weight as these carefully considered committee reports, the Senate debate preceding the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act confirms [352 U.S. 567, 586] what these reports demonstrate. A colloquy between Senator Taft and Senator Pepper dealt with the problem confronting us:
United States v. C. I. O., 335 U.S. 106 , presented a different situation. The decision in that case rested on the Court's reading of an indictment that charged defendants [352 U.S. 567, 589] with having distributed only to union members or purchasers an issue, Vol. 10, No. 28, of "The CIO News," a weekly newspaper owned and published by the C. I. O. That issue contained a statement by the C. I. O. president urging all members of the C. I. O. to vote for a certain candidate. Thus, unlike the union-sponsored political broadcast alleged in this case, the communication for which the defendants were indicted in C. I. O. was neither directed nor delivered to the public at large. The organization merely distributed its house organ to its own people. The evil at which Congress has struck in 313 is the use of corporation or union funds to influence the public at large to vote for a particular candidate or a particular party.
Our holding that the District Court committed error when it dismissed the indictment for having failed to state an offense under the statute implies no disrespect for "the cardinal rule of construction, that where the language of an act will bear two interpretations, equally obvious, that one which is clearly in accordance with the provisions of the constitution is to be preferred." Knights Templars' Indemnity Co. v. Jarman, 187 U.S. 197, 205 . The case before us does not call for its application. Here only one interpretation may be fairly derived from the relevant materials. The rule of construction to be invoked when constitutional problems lurk in an ambiguous statute does not permit disregard of what Congress commands.
Appellee urges that if, as we hold, 18 U.S.C. 610 embraces the activity alleged in the indictment, it offends several rights guaranteed by the Constitution. 2 The Government [352 U.S. 567, 590] replies that the actual restraint upon union political activity imposed by the statute is so narrowly limited that Congress did not exceed its powers to protect the political process from undue influence of large aggregations of capital and to promote individual responsibility for democratic government. Once more we are confronted with the duty of being mindful of the conditions under which we may enter upon the delicate process of constitutional adjudication.
The impressive lesson of history confirms the wisdom of the repeated enunciation, the variously expressed admonition, of self-imposed inhibition against passing on the validity of an Act of Congress "unless absolutely necessary to a decision of the case." Burton v. United States, 196 U.S. 283, 295 . 3 Observance of this principle makes for the minimum tension within our democratic political system where "Scarcely any question arises. . . which does not become, sooner or later, a subject of judicial debate." 1 De Tocqueville, Democracy in America (4th Am. ed. 1843), 306.
The wisdom of refraining from avoidable constitutional pronouncements has been most vividly demonstrated on the rare occasions when the Court, forgetting "the fallibility of the human judgment," 4 has departed from its own practice. The Court's failure in Dred Scott [352 U.S. 567, 591] v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, "to take the smooth handle for the sake of repose" by disposing of the case solely upon "the outside issue" and the effects of its attempt "to settle the agitation" are familiar history. 5 Dred Scott does not stand alone. These exceptions have rightly been characterized as among the Court's notable "self-inflicted wounds." Charles Evans Hughes, The Supreme Court of the United States, 50.
Clearly in this case it is not "absolutely necessary to a decision," Burton v. United States, supra, to canvass the constitutional issues. The case came here under the Criminal Appeals Act because the District Court blocked the prosecution on the ground that the indictment failed to state an offense within 313 of the Corrupt Practices Act. Our reversal of the district judge's erroneous construction clears the way for the prosecution to proceed.
Refusal to anticipate constitutional questions is peculiarly appropriate in the circumstances of this case. First of all, these questions come to us unillumined by the consideration of a single judge - we are asked to decide them in the first instance. Again, only an adjudication on the merits can provide the concrete factual setting that sharpens the deliberative process especially demanded for constitutional decision. Finally, by remanding the case [352 U.S. 567, 592] for trial it may well be that the Court will not be called upon to pass on the questions now raised. Compare United States v. Petrillo, 332 U.S. 1, 9 et seq., with the subsequent adjudication on the merits in United States v. Petrillo, 75 F. Supp. 176.
Counsel are prone to shape litigation, so far as it is within their control, in order to secure comprehensive rulings. This is true both of counsel for defendants and for the Government. Such desire on their part is not difficult to appreciate. But the Court has its responsibility. Matter now buried under abstract constitutional issues may, by the elucidation of a trial, be brought to the surface, and in the outcome constitutional questions may disappear. Allegations of the indictment hypothetically framed to elicit a ruling from this Court or based upon misunderstanding of the facts may not survive the test of proof. For example, was the broadcast paid for out of the general dues of the union membership or may the funds be fairly said to have been obtained on a voluntary basis? Did the broadcast reach the public at large or only those affiliated with appellee? Did it constitute active electioneering or simply state the record of particular candidates on economic issues? Did the union sponsor the broadcast with the intent to affect the results of the election? As Senator Taft repeatedly recognized in the debate on 304, prosecutions under the Act may present difficult questions of fact. See supra, pp. 585-587, n. 1. We suggest the possibility of such questions, not to imply answers to problems of statutory construction, but merely to indicate the covert issues that may be involved in this case.
Enough has been said to justify withholding determination of the more or less abstract issues of constitutional law. Because the District Court's erroneous interpretation of the statute led it to stop the prosecution prematurely, [352 U.S. 567, 593] its judgment must be reversed and the case must be remanded to it for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
[ Footnote 2 ] ". . . if such an expenditure is prohibited by 18 U.S.C. 610, the statute violates the provisions of the Constitution of the United States in that the statute (i) abridges freedom of speech and of the press and the right peaceably to assemble and to petition; (ii) abridges the right to choose senators and representatives guaranteed by Article I, 2 and the Seventeenth Amendment; (iii) creates an arbitrary and unlawful classification and discriminates against labor [352 U.S. 567, 590] organizations in violation of the Fifth Amendment, and (iv) is vague and indefinite and fails to provide a reasonably ascertainable standard of guilt in violation of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments." Brief for appellee, pp. 2-3.
[ Footnote 3 ] Cases are collected in the opinion of Mr. Justice Brandeis in Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 345 et seq.
[ Footnote 4 ] "It must be evident to any one that the power to declare a legislative enactment void is one which the judge, conscious of the fallibility of the human judgment, will shrink from exercising in any case where he can conscientiously and with due regard to duty and official oath decline the responsibility." 1 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed.), 332.
[ Footnote 5 ] A letter written by Mr. Justice Catron to President Buchanan shortly before the decision was handed down reveals an attitude happily exceptional:
We deal here with a problem that is fundamental to the electoral process and to the operation of our democratic society. It is whether a union can express its views on the issues of an election and on the merits of the candidates, unrestrained and unfettered by the Congress. The principle at stake is not peculiar to unions. It is applicable as well to associations of manufacturers, retail and wholesale trade groups, consumers' leagues, farmers' unions, religious groups and every other association representing a segment of American life and taking an active part in our political campaigns and discussions. It is as important an issue as has come before the Court, for it reaches the very vitals of our system of government.
Under our Constitution it is We The People who are sovereign. The people have the final say. The legislators are their spokesmen. The people determine through their votes the destiny of the nation. It is therefore important - vitally important - that all channels of communication be open to them during every election, that no point of view be restrained or barred, and that the people have access to the views of every group in the community.
In United States v. C. I. O., 335 U.S. 106, 144 , Mr. Justice Rutledge spoke of the importance of the First Amendment rights - freedom of expression and freedom of assembly - to the integrity of our elections. "The most complete exercise of those rights," he said, "is essential to the full, fair and untrammeled operation of the electoral process. To the extent they are curtailed the [352 U.S. 567, 594] electorate is deprived of information, knowledge and opinion vital to its function."
What the Court does today greatly impairs those rights. It sustains an indictment charging no more than the use of union funds for broadcasting television programs that urge and endorse the selection of certain candidates for the Congress of the United States. The opinion of the Court places that advocacy in the setting of corrupt practices. The opinion generates an environment of evil-doing and points to the oppressions and misdeeds that have haunted elections in this country.
Making a speech endorsing a candidate for office does not, however, deserve to be identified with antisocial conduct. Until today political speech has never been considered a crime. The making of a political speech up to now has always been one of the preferred rights protected by the First Amendment. It usually costs money to communicate an idea to a large audience. But no one would seriously contend that the expenditure of money to print a newspaper deprives the publisher of freedom of the press. Nor can the fact that it costs money to make a speech - whether it be hiring a hall or purchasing time on the air - make the speech any the less an exercise of First Amendment rights. Yet this statute, as construed and applied in this indictment, makes criminal any "expenditure" by a union for the purpose of expressing its views on the issues of an election and the candidates. It would make no difference under this construction of the Act whether the union spokesman made his address from the platform of a hall, used a sound truck in the streets, or bought time on radio or television. In each case the mere "expenditure" of money to make the speech is an indictable offense. The principle applied today would make equally criminal the use by a union of its funds to print pamphlets for general distribution or to distribute political literature at large. [352 U.S. 567, 595]
Can an Act so construed be constitutional in view of the command of the First Amendment that Congress shall make no law that abridges free speech or freedom of assembly?
The Court says that the answer on the constitutional issue must await the development of the facts at the trial.
It asks, "Did the broadcast reach the public at large or only those affiliated with appellee?" But the size of the audience has heretofore been deemed wholly irrelevant to First Amendment issues. One has a right to freedom of speech whether he talks to one person or to one thousand. One has a right to freedom of speech not only when he talks to his friends but also when he talks to the public. It is starting to learn that a union spokesman or the spokesman for a corporate interest has fewer constitutional rights when he talks to the public than when he talks to members of his group.
The Court asks whether the broadcast constituted "active electioneering" or simply stated "the record of particular candidates on economic issues." What possible difference can it make under the First Amendment whether it was one or the other? The First Amendment covers the entire spectrum. It protects the impassioned plea of the orator as much as the quiet publication of the tabulations of the statistician or economist. If there is an innuendo that "active electioneering" by union spokesmen is not covered by the First Amendment, the opinion makes a sharp break with our political and constitutional heritage.
The Court asks, "Did the union sponsor the broadcast with the intent to affect the results of the election?" The purpose of speech is not only to inform but to incite to action. As Mr. Justice Holmes said in his dissent in Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652, 673 , "Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself for belief and if believed it [352 U.S. 567, 596] is acted on unless some other belief outweighs it or some failure of energy stifles the movement at its birth." To draw a constitutional line between informing the people and inciting or persuading them and to suggest that one is protected and the other not by the First Amendment is to give constitutional dignity to an irrelevance. Any political speaker worth his salt intends to sway voters. His purpose to do so cannot possibly rob him of his First Amendment rights, unless we are to reduce that great guarantee of freedom to the protection of meaningless mouthings of ineffective speakers.
Finally, the Court asks whether the broadcast was "paid for out of the general dues of the union membership or may the funds be fairly said to have been obtained on a voluntary basis." Behind this question is the idea that there may be a minority of union members who are of a different political school than their leaders and who object to the use of their union dues to espouse one political view. This is a question that concerns the internal management of union affairs. To date, unions have operated under a rule of the majority. Perhaps minority rights need protection. But this way of doing it is, indeed, burning down the house to roast the pig. All union expenditures for political discourse are banned because a minority might object.
When the exercise of First Amendment rights is tangled with conduct which government may regulate, we refuse to allow the First Amendment rights to be sacrificed merely because some evil may result. Our insistence is that the regulatory measure be "narrowly drawn" to meet the evil that the government can control. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 311 . Or as the Court said in De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 364 -365, when speaking of First Amendment rights, ". . . the legislative intervention can find constitutional justification only by dealing [352 U.S. 567, 597] with the abuse. The rights themselves must not be curtailed."
If minorities need protection against the use of union funds for political speech-making, there are ways of reaching that end without denying the majority their First Amendment rights. 1
First Amendment rights are not merely curtailed by the construction of the Act which the Court adopts. Today's ruling abolishes First Amendment rights on a wholesale basis. Protection of minority groups, if any, can be no excuse. The Act is not "narrowly drawn" to meet that abuse.
Some may think that one group or another should not express its views in an election because it is too powerful, because it advocates unpopular ideas, or because it has a record of lawless action. But these are not justifications for withholding First Amendment rights from any group - labor or corporate. Cf. United States v. Rumely, 345 U.S. 41 . First Amendment rights are part of the heritage of all persons and groups in this country. They are not to be dispensed or withheld merely because we or the Congress thinks the person or group is worthy or unworthy.
These constitutional questions are so grave that the least we should do is to construe this Act, as we have in comparable situations (United States v. C. I. O., supra; [352 U.S. 567, 598] United States v. Rumely, 345 U.S. 41 ; United States v. Harriss, 347 U.S. 612 ), to limit the word "expenditure" to activity that does not involve First Amendment rights. 2
The Act, as construed and applied, is a broadside assault on the freedom of political expression guaranteed by the First Amendment. It cannot possibly be saved by any of the facts conjured up by the Court. The answers to the questions reserved are quite irrelevant to the constitutional questions tendered under the First Amendment.
I would affirm the judgment dismissing the indictment.
[ Footnote 1 ] There are alternative measures appropriate to cure this evil which Congress has seen in the expenditure of union funds for political purposes. The protection of union members from the use of their funds in supporting a cause with which they do not sympathize may be cured by permitting the minority to withdraw their funds from that activity. The English have long required labor unions to permit a dissenting union member to refuse to contribute funds for political purposes. Trade Union Act, 1913, 2 & 3 Geo. V, c. 30; Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act, 1927, 17 & 18 Geo. V, c. 22; Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act, 1946, 9 & 10 Geo. VI, c. 52.
[ Footnote 2 ] If Congress is of the opinion that large contributions by labor unions to candidates for office and to political parties have had an undue influence upon the conduct of elections, it can prohibit such contributions. And, in expressing their views on the issues and candidates, labor unions can be required to acknowledge their authorship and support of those expressions. Undue influence, however, cannot constitutionally form the basis for making it unlawful for any segment of our society to express its views on the issues of a political campaign. [352 U.S. 567, 599]
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Citation: 352 U.S. 567
Docket No: No. 44
Decided: March 11, 1957
Court: United States Supreme Court
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