Court Opinion

ID: 9450175
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:37:43.262573+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:11.111228
License: Public Domain

BARNES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I concur with Judge Chambers, both in his agreement with Judge Merrill’s opinion, and in his dissent therefrom, as well as his dissent with Judge Hamley on the jury question. I believe that the delicate “balance struck by Congress comports with the dictates of the Constitution.” The “wide scope of congressional power to keep from the channels of commerce that which would hinder and obstruct such commerce” is not, to me, violative of § 504 here considered.
While a police officer, or a congressional employee, under investigation, has a “right” to invoke the Fifth Amendment —he has no rjght to hold a particular job thereafter. ^ Appellant herein had a right to be a certain kind of member in the Communist Party, but has no “right” to hold office in labor unions, which office directs the labor union’s policy, once Congress has seen fit to refuse him such office holding. The congressional right to protect the full flow of interstate commerce must itself be protected ; not at all odds, but when reasonably exercised, as I feel it here was. In this I disagree with the majority.