page_title: American Communications Ass'n v. Douds
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: American Communications Ass'n v. Douds / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Associate Justice William O Douglas
context_page_description: American Communications Association v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382, is a 5-to-1 ruling by the United States Supreme Court which held that the Taft–Hartley Act's imposition of an anti-communist oath on labor union leaders does not violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, is not an ex post facto law or bill of attainder in violation of Article One, Section 10 of the United States Constitution, and is not a "test oath" in violation of Article Six of the Constitution.
context_section_description: The American Communications Association (ACA) was founded in 1931 as the American Radio Telegraphists Association (ARTA) by Mervyn Rathbone. The union represented telegraphists and radio operators (on land and at sea) in the United States. The union had previously been involved in a Supreme Court case regarding the use of strikebreakers in strikes (NLRB v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co., 304 U.S. 333 (1938)), which it had lost. In 1937, the union changed its name to the American Communications Association and affiliated with the newly formed Congress of Industrial Organizations. A majority of the union's members were strongly left-wing, and most the union's leaders were members of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA)—with the union effectively under the control of the CPUSA.
  The United States Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) on June 27, 1935, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed it into law on July 5. In 1947, Congress amended the NLRA by enacting the Labor–Management Relations Act (better known as the Taft-Hartley Act) on June 23, 1947, overriding President Harry S. Truman's veto. Section 9(h) of the Taft-Hartley Act required leaders of labor unions to file an affidavit with the National Labor Relations Board affirming that they were not members of the Communist Party USA and did not advocate the violent overthrow of the United States federal government. If a union had an elected leader who did not file such an affidavit, that union would lose the protection of the NLRA.
  ACA leaders categorically refused to sign the anti-communist affidavits on the grounds that the oaths violated their First Amendment rights.  On October 29, 1947, Charles T. Douds, regional director of the National Labor Relations Board in New York City, barred the American Communications Association from appearing on an NLRB-supervised union organizing election (its very first action under the new Taft-Hartley anti-communist oath provisions). The ACA sued to have the provision declared unconstitutional as a violation of its leaders' First Amendment rights.
  On June 29, 1948, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held, in a 2-to-1 decision written by Judge Thomas Walter Swan, that Section 9(h) did not impermissibly impose on union members' First Amendment rights. Attorney Victor Rabinowitz appealed the case to the Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari on November 8, 1949. Although the Court was due to hear oral argument on January 13, 1949, it delayed this in order to take on another case (United Steelworkers of America v. National Labor Relations Board) with almost identical issues. Argument was rescheduled for February 28, 1949, but did not occur until October 11 so that both cases could be heard together.
  Three of the Court's most liberal justices did not participate in the decision. Justice William O. Douglas did not participate because he had nearly been killed in a horseback-riding accident earlier in the year, and was still convalescing at his home in Arizona. Associate Justice Tom Clark had been President Truman's Attorney General, and had overseen the prosecution of the ACA. Although he joined the Court on August 24, 1949, Clark had recused himself to his prior involvement in the case.  Associate Justice Wiley Blount Rutledge, a staunch liberal and strong advocate for civil rights, had died unexpectedly of a stroke on September 10, 1949, at the age of 55. His successor, 59-year-old Sherman Minton, a former Democratic Senator from Indiana and a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, was nominated as his replacement on September 16, 1949, but was not sworn in until October 12. His arrival on the Court came two days after oral argument, and he was not able to participate in the decision.
caption: Justice Douglas did not participate in the case after being severely injured in a horse-riding accident.
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