United States V. Congress of Industrial Organizations - Holding

Holding

Justice Stanley Forman Reed delivered the opinion for the court. Reed refused to reach the constitutional question before the court, arguing instead that the use of funds to publish the statement did not constitute an "expenditure" under Section 313 as amended.

Reed concluded that the term "expenditure" was not a term of art and had no defined meaning.

"The purpose of Congress is a dominant factor in determining meaning," Reed wrote. "There is no better key to a difficult problem of statutory construction than the law from which the challenged statute emerged."

Reed reviewed the enactment of the Federal Corrupt Practices Act in 1910 as well as its 1911 and 1925 amendments, the court's ruling in Newberry v. United States, and the limitations imposed on unions' political expenditures by the War Labor Disputes Act of 1943.

Quoting extensively from Congressional debates over Section 304 of the Taft-Hartley Act, Reed concluded that Congress clearly did not intend for the act to cover union newspapers supported by advertising or member subscriptions. Reed acknowledged that some members of Congress contemplated a different reading of Section 304. But those contradictory statements could be dismissed as not indicative of the sense of Congress, Reed said, because "the language itself, coupled with the dangers of unconstitutionality, supports the interpretation which we have placed upon it."

It would require explicit words in an act to convince us that Congress intended to bar a trade journal, a house organ or a newspaper, published by a corporation, from expressing views on candidates or political proposals in the regular course of its publication. It is unduly stretching language to say that the members or stockholders are unwilling participants in such normal organizational activities, including the advocacy thereby of governmental policies affecting their interests, and the support thereby of candidates thought to be favorable to their interests.