Source: https://www.thefire.org/first-amendment-library/justice/john-harlan-2/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 18:13:09+00:00

Document:
Once more the Court is required to resolve the conflicting constitutional claims of congressional power and of an individual's right to resist its exercise. The congressional power in question concerns the internal process of Congress in moving within its legislative domain; it involves the utilization of its committees to secure "testimony needed to enable it efficiently to exercise a legislative function belonging to it under the Constitution." McGrain v. Daugherty, 273 U. S. 135, 160. The power of inquiry has been employed by Congress throughout our history, over the whole range of the national interests concerning which Congress might legislate or decide upon due investigation not to legislate; it has similarly been utilized in determining what to appropriate from the national purse, or whether to appropriate. The scope of the power of inquiry, in short, is as penetrating and far-reaching as the potential power to enact and appropriate under the Constitution.
Petitioner asks this Court to set aside his 1955 jury conviction under 18 U. S. C. § 1001 for having falsely and fraudulently denied affiliation with the Communist Party in an affidavit he had filed with the National Labor Relations Board, pursuant to § 9 (h) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended by the Taft-Hartley Act. This collateral proceeding was *66 brought in the District Court for the Northern District of California in 1967, some 10 years after his original conviction was upheld over a variety of challenges on direct review. The District Court distinguished Dennis v. United States, 384 U. S. 855 (1966), and decided that § 9 (h), which had been upheld in American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382 (1950), could no longer be thought constitutionally valid, particularly in light of United States v. Brown, 381 U. S. 437 (1965). Having concluded that the Government had no right to ask the questions which petitioner answered falsely in his affidavit, the District Court ruled that petitioner's conviction under § 1001 should be "without effect." It therefore set aside petitioner's conviction and discharged his parole (unreported opinion).
These cases, coming to us from two different Circuits, present identical issues, and may appropriately be dealt with together in one opinion. The issues involve the interpretation and validity of Treas. Reg. 111, § 29.23 (o)-1 and § 29.23 (q)-1 as applied by the courts below to deny deduction as "ordinary and necessary" business expenses under § 23 (a) (1) (A) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939 to sums expended by the respective taxpayer petitioners in furtherance of publicity programs designed to help secure the defeat of initiative measures then pending before the voters of the States of Washington and Arkansas.
From a decision of the District Court for the District of Columbia holding § 202 (n) of the Social Security Act (68 Stat. 1083, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 402 (n)) unconstitutional, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare takes this direct appeal pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1252. The challenged section, set forth in full in the margin, provides for the termination of old-age, survivor, *605 and disability insurance benefits payable to, or in certain cases in respect of, an alien individual who, after September 1, 1954 (the date of enactment of the section), is deported under § 241 (a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U. S. C. § 1251 (a)) on any one of certain grounds specified in § 202 (n).
This case, involving California's second rejection of petitioner's application for admission to the state bar, is a sequel to Konigsberg v. State Bar, 353 U. S. 252, in which this Court reversed the State's initial refusal of his application.
This case, like No. 1, Scales v. United States, ante, p. 203, was brought here to test the validity of a conviction under the membership clause of the Smith Act. 361 U. S. 813. The case comes to us from the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit which affirmed petitioner's conviction in the District Court for the Western District of New York, after a jury trial. 262 F. 2d 501.
The Government seeks to appeal to this Court a decision by a District Court in Massachusetts holding that appellee Sisson could not be criminally convicted for refusing induction into the Armed Forces. The District Court's opinion was bottomed on what that court understood *270 to be Sisson's rights of conscience as a nonreligious objector to the Vietnam war, but not wars in general, under the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The District Court's primary conclusion, reached after a full trial, was that the Constitution prohibited "the application of the 1967 draft act to Sisson to require him to render combat service in Vietnam" because as a "sincerely conscientious man," Sisson's interest in not killing in the Vietnam conflict outweighed "the country's present need for him to be so employed," 297 F. Supp. 902, 910 (1969).
This case concerns the legality of petitioner's discharge as an employee of the Department of the Interior. Vitarelli, an educator holding a doctor's degree from Columbia University, was appointed in 1952 by the Department of the Interior as an Education and Training Specialist in the Education Department of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, at Koror in the Palau District, a mandated area for which this country has responsibility.

References: v. 
 § 1001
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 § 1001
 § 29
 § 29
 § 23
 § 202
 § 402
 § 1252
 § 241
 § 1251
 § 202
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