De Veau v. Braisted
Encyclopedia
De Veau v. Braisted, 363 U.S. 144 (1960) is a 5-to-3 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States
that an interstate compact restricting convicted felons from holding union office is not preempted by the National Labor Relations Act
or the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act
, does not violate the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment
, and is not an ex post facto law or bill of attainder
in violation of Article One, Section 10 of the Constitution.
s entering a port
must be loaded and unloaded quickly, because delay can ruin perishable cargo and/or lead to heavy financial losses. Prior to the development of container ship
s, this work was done largely by hand by longshoremen
. A single longhshoreman can refuse to unload cargo, but can easily be replaced by another worker. However, when longshoremen are unionized
, the longshoremen's union can obtain great leverage over shippers. Labor racketeers
can essentially extort wages, benefits, and featherbed jobs
from employers; engage in extensive cargo theft; solicit and receive bribes
; and extort payments from longshoremen in order to obtain union jobs.
In 1937, Genovese crime family
mobster
Anthony "Tough Tony" Anastasio
gained control of all six of the International Longshoremen's Association
's local unions at the Port of New York and New Jersey
. Extensive corruption and widespread violence followed. After a 1951 wildcat strike
and the 1950-1951 revelations of the United States Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce, which exposed extensive organized crime influence throughout the U.S., New York Governor
Thomas E. Dewey announced on March 28, 1951, that he was establishing the New York State Crime Commission to report on the extent of organized crime in the Port of New York and New Jersey, and to make recommendations on combating the menace. The commission held public and private hearings for more than a year before issuing a report in May 1953. As a direct result of the Crime Commission's report, the states of New York and New Jersey
both enacted legislation (known as the "New York Waterfront Commission Act of 1953") establishing a New York Waterfront Commission whose main task was to rid the Port of New York and New Jersey.
However, in 1935, Congress had passed and President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
had signed into law the National Labor Relations Act
, a federal law which governed labor relations in the United States. Article VI, Section 1, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution
(better known as the Supremacy Clause
) and subsequent Supreme Court rulings establish that states are barred from acting in an area of law where the federal government has already asserted jurisdiction through the passage of law. Additionally, Article One, Section 10, Clause 3 of the Constitution (often called the "Compact Clause") bars states from entering into compacts or agreements with one another without the express approval of the United States federal government. Thus, for the New York/New Jeersey legislation to survive constitutional scrutiny, the federal government would also need to approve it. Congress did exactly that, and on August 12, 1953 (just two and a half months after Governor Dewey first proposed the legislation), President Dwight Eisenhower signed federal legislation giving federal sanction to the New York Waterfront Commission Act of 1953.
Section 8 of the New York Waterfront Commission Act of 1953, in essence, bars from union office any person convicted of a felony
who has not either been pardon
ed or received a certificate of good conduct from the New York or New Jersey parole board.
George De Veau, Secretary-Treasurer of Local 1346 of the International Longshoremen's Association
(ILA), had been convicted of grand larency
and received a suspended sentence. In 1956, John Braisted, Jr., District Attorney of Richmond County, New York, informed De Veau and the ILA that since De Veau had never been pardoned or received a certificate of good conduct, he could no longer serve as Secretary-Treasurer of Local 1346. The ILA suspended De Veau. De Veau sued for a court injunction
which would return him to office, claiming that the New York Waterfront Commission Act of 1953 ("the Act") violated the Supremacy Clause, violated the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment
, and was an ex post facto law and bill of attainder
which violated Article One, Section 10 of the Constitution.
The New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
(the lowest civil court in the state of New York) denied De Veau relief. De Veau appealed, but the Court of Appeals of New York (the highest court in New York state) denied him relief in 1959. De Veau appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which granted certiorari
.
wrote the majority decision for the Court, joined by Associate Justices Tom C. Clark
, Charles Evans Whittaker
, and Potter Stewart
.
Justice Frankfurter noted that the Court had jurisdiction as a constitutional issue had been raised. He next reviewed the extensive problems with organized crime which had given rise to the Act, the investigations by the U.S. Senate committee and the state of New York, the structure of the Act, and supplementary enacting legislation passed by both New York and New Jersey. Section 8 of the New York supplementary legislation was at issue. Frankfurter noted that the compact expressly provided for congressional pre-approval of supplementary legislation, that Sec. 8 had been enacted after the compact had been submitted to Congress but before Congress had approved the original compact, and that Sec. 8 was not bi-state in nature (even though New York and New Jersey had enacted substantively identical legislation).
De Veau had argued that the Supreme Court's decision in Hill v. Florida, 325 U.S. 538 (1945), in which a Florida
labor relations law similarly barred from union office any person convicted of a felony. But the bi-state compact, Frankfurter held, was not like the Florida law. The bi-state compact did not impede the federal legislation, and the two were not prevented from functioning side-by-side. In a major restatement of the doctrine of preemption, Frankfurter wrote:
Congress had not intended to bar all state restrictions on union officials, Frankfurter asserted. Indeed, the purely local problem faced by New York and New Jersey had prompted a purely local solution, one which Congress had "unambiguously" supported, he said. Indeed, Sec. 8 had already been enacted by both states prior to Congressional approval of the compact, and Sec. 8 had clearly been brought to the attention of Congress during debate over the original compact. Furthermore, Congress had expressly approved of supplementary legislation in its enabling bill, and neither the extensive federal and state acknowledgement of corruptionnor the congressional debate over pre-approval of supplementary legislation had occurred in the Florida case.
De Veau had further argued that the passage in 1959 of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act
(LMRDA) also preempted the interstate compact. Title V of the LMRDA specifically imposed restrictions on union officers, clearly preempting any state action in this area, De Veau said. The majority disagreed. Passage of Title V of the LMRDA, Frankfurter wrote, shows just the opposite—that Congress did not find state restrictions on the right to hold union office incompatible with pre-1959 federal labor policies. Furthermore, Frunkfurter interpreted Section 504(a) and Section 603(a) of the LMRDA as specifically disclaiming of preemption of state laws regulating union officials (which only a few, limited, express exceptions).
Frankfurter next turned the majority's attention to De Veau's due process claim. Applying a reasonability test to the bi-state compact, Frankfurter concluded that the extensive record of the federal and state investigations had shown that corruption on the waterfront was so extensive and so intertwined with those who were ex-felons that a felony bar was eminently reasonable. He went on to note that federal law often employed this remedy, and that the Court had previously approved state laws which had done so.
As for De Veau's final challenge, Frankfurter noted that, under United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303 (1946), the critical factor was whether legislative determination of guilt had been substituted for judicial judgment. Since a court of competent jurisdiction (not the legislature) had already convicted De Veau, Sec. 8 was clearly not a bill of attainder. Under Hawker v. New York, the majority said, the critical factor was whether "unpleasant consequences are brought to bear upon an individual for prior conduct is whether the legislative aim was to punish that individual for past activity, or whether the restriction of the individual comes about as a relevant incident to a regulation of a present situation, such as the proper qualifications for a profession." The intent of the states of New York and New Jersey was clearly not to punish ex-felons, Frankfurter wrote, but rather to rid the waterfront of corruption. Subsequently, Sec. 8 was not an ex post facto law, either.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals of New York was affirmed.
wrote an opinion concurring in the majority opinion. His 109-word concurrence agrees with the majority that Sec. 8 was a reasonable restriction, was not preempted by federal law, and did not deny due process.
wrote a dissent, in which Chief Justice
Earl Warren
and Associate Justice Hugo Black
joined.
Justice Douglas argued that the majority's ruling simply could not be squared with the Court's decision in Hill v. Florida. Citing Hill v. Florida, 325 U. S. 538 at 541, Douglas noted that the Hill court had Sec. 7 of the NLRA to provide for absolutely no state restrictions whatsoever on the qualifications for union office. Douglas also concluded that the court's reading of the legislative history of the Act was incorrect. The plain text of Article 15, Section 1 of the compact, he said, clearly provided for no additional state restrictions on union officers. Similarly, Douglas held that Section 2(a) of the LMRDA unmistakably reserved to Congress the right to place restrictions on an individual's qualifications for union office. The majority, Douglas said, fundamentally misconstrued Sec. 504(a) of the LMRDA, which only refers to enforcement of criminal (not civil) laws against union officers.
Since Sec. 8 is not valid under the Supremacy Clause, Douglas said, he would overturn the judgment of the Court of Appeals of New York. He would rule narrowly on those grounds, and not decide the remaining questions.
, 468 U.S. 491 (1984). De Veau is sometimes cited as a key case in which the Supreme Court relied heavily on congressional debate and authorizing legislation to determine congressional intent.
The Supreme Court has used several tests of the decades to decide whether a law is an ex post facto one or not. De Veau v. Braisted is generally considered the first modern restatement of these tests, although others have since been used.
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
that an interstate compact restricting convicted felons from holding union office is not preempted by the National Labor Relations Act
National Labor Relations Act
The National Labor Relations Act or Wagner Act , is a 1935 United States federal law that limits the means with which employers may react to workers in the private sector who create labor unions , engage in collective bargaining, and take part in strikes and other forms of concerted activity in...
or the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act
Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act
The Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 , is a United States labor law that regulates labor unions' internal affairs and their officials' relationships with employers.-Background:...
, does not violate the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
, and is not an ex post facto law or bill of attainder
Bill of attainder
A bill of attainder is an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without benefit of a judicial trial.-English law:...
in violation of Article One, Section 10 of the Constitution.
Background
Cargo shipCargo ship
A cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship or vessel that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year; they handle the bulk of international trade...
s entering a port
Port
A port is a location on a coast or shore containing one or more harbors where ships can dock and transfer people or cargo to or from land....
must be loaded and unloaded quickly, because delay can ruin perishable cargo and/or lead to heavy financial losses. Prior to the development of container ship
Container ship
Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport.-History:...
s, this work was done largely by hand by longshoremen
Stevedore
Stevedore, dockworker, docker, dock labourer, wharfie and longshoreman can have various waterfront-related meanings concerning loading and unloading ships, according to place and country....
. A single longhshoreman can refuse to unload cargo, but can easily be replaced by another worker. However, when longshoremen are unionized
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
, the longshoremen's union can obtain great leverage over shippers. Labor racketeers
Racket (crime)
A racket is an illegal business, usually run as part of organized crime. Engaging in a racket is called racketeering.Several forms of racket exist. The best-known is the protection racket, in which criminals demand money from businesses in exchange for the service of "protection" against crimes...
can essentially extort wages, benefits, and featherbed jobs
Featherbedding
Featherbedding is the practice of hiring more workers than are needed to perform a given job, or to adopt work procedures which appear pointless, complex and time-consuming merely to employ additional workers. The term "make-work" is sometimes used as a synonym for featherbedding.The term...
from employers; engage in extensive cargo theft; solicit and receive bribes
Bribery
Bribery, a form of corruption, is an act implying money or gift giving that alters the behavior of the recipient. Bribery constitutes a crime and is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or...
; and extort payments from longshoremen in order to obtain union jobs.
In 1937, Genovese crime family
Genovese crime family
The Genovese crime family , is one of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia . The Genovese crime family has been nicknamed the "Ivy League" and "Rolls Royce" of organized crime...
mobster
Gangster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Some gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster....
Anthony "Tough Tony" Anastasio
Anthony Anastasio
Anthony "Tough Tony" Anastasio was a New York City mobster and labor racketeer for the Gambino crime family who controlled the Brooklyn dockyards for over thirty years...
gained control of all six of the International Longshoremen's Association
International Longshoremen's Association
The International Longshoremen's Association is a labor union representing longshore workers along the East Coast of the United States and Canada, the Gulf Coast, the Great Lakes, Puerto Rico, and inland waterways...
's local unions at the Port of New York and New Jersey
Port of New York and New Jersey
The Port of New York and New Jersey comprises the waterways in the estuary of the New York-Newark metropolitan area with a port district encompassing an approximate area within a radius of the Statue of Liberty National Monument...
. Extensive corruption and widespread violence followed. After a 1951 wildcat strike
Wildcat strike action
A wildcat strike action, often referred to as a wildcat strike, is a strike action taken by workers without the authorization of their trade union officials. This is sometimes termed unofficial industrial action...
and the 1950-1951 revelations of the United States Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce, which exposed extensive organized crime influence throughout the U.S., New York Governor
Governor of New York
The Governor of the State of New York is the chief executive of the State of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military and naval forces. The officeholder is afforded the courtesy title of His/Her...
Thomas E. Dewey announced on March 28, 1951, that he was establishing the New York State Crime Commission to report on the extent of organized crime in the Port of New York and New Jersey, and to make recommendations on combating the menace. The commission held public and private hearings for more than a year before issuing a report in May 1953. As a direct result of the Crime Commission's report, the states of New York and New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
both enacted legislation (known as the "New York Waterfront Commission Act of 1953") establishing a New York Waterfront Commission whose main task was to rid the Port of New York and New Jersey.
However, in 1935, Congress had passed and President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
had signed into law the National Labor Relations Act
National Labor Relations Act
The National Labor Relations Act or Wagner Act , is a 1935 United States federal law that limits the means with which employers may react to workers in the private sector who create labor unions , engage in collective bargaining, and take part in strikes and other forms of concerted activity in...
, a federal law which governed labor relations in the United States. Article VI, Section 1, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
(better known as the Supremacy Clause
Supremacy Clause
Article VI, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, known as the Supremacy Clause, establishes the U.S. Constitution, U.S. Treaties, and Federal Statutes as "the supreme law of the land." The text decrees these to be the highest form of law in the U.S...
) and subsequent Supreme Court rulings establish that states are barred from acting in an area of law where the federal government has already asserted jurisdiction through the passage of law. Additionally, Article One, Section 10, Clause 3 of the Constitution (often called the "Compact Clause") bars states from entering into compacts or agreements with one another without the express approval of the United States federal government. Thus, for the New York/New Jeersey legislation to survive constitutional scrutiny, the federal government would also need to approve it. Congress did exactly that, and on August 12, 1953 (just two and a half months after Governor Dewey first proposed the legislation), President Dwight Eisenhower signed federal legislation giving federal sanction to the New York Waterfront Commission Act of 1953.
Section 8 of the New York Waterfront Commission Act of 1953, in essence, bars from union office any person convicted of a felony
Felony
A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...
who has not either been pardon
Pardon
Clemency means the forgiveness of a crime or the cancellation of the penalty associated with it. It is a general concept that encompasses several related procedures: pardoning, commutation, remission and reprieves...
ed or received a certificate of good conduct from the New York or New Jersey parole board.
George De Veau, Secretary-Treasurer of Local 1346 of the International Longshoremen's Association
International Longshoremen's Association
The International Longshoremen's Association is a labor union representing longshore workers along the East Coast of the United States and Canada, the Gulf Coast, the Great Lakes, Puerto Rico, and inland waterways...
(ILA), had been convicted of grand larency
Larceny
Larceny is a crime involving the wrongful acquisition of the personal property of another person. It was an offence under the common law of England and became an offence in jurisdictions which incorporated the common law of England into their own law. It has been abolished in England and Wales,...
and received a suspended sentence. In 1956, John Braisted, Jr., District Attorney of Richmond County, New York, informed De Veau and the ILA that since De Veau had never been pardoned or received a certificate of good conduct, he could no longer serve as Secretary-Treasurer of Local 1346. The ILA suspended De Veau. De Veau sued for a court injunction
Injunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...
which would return him to office, claiming that the New York Waterfront Commission Act of 1953 ("the Act") violated the Supremacy Clause, violated the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
, and was an ex post facto law and bill of attainder
Bill of attainder
A bill of attainder is an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without benefit of a judicial trial.-English law:...
which violated Article One, Section 10 of the Constitution.
The New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
The Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division is the intermediate appellate court in New York State. The Appellate Division is composed of four departments .*The First Department covers the Bronx The Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division is the intermediate...
(the lowest civil court in the state of New York) denied De Veau relief. De Veau appealed, but the Court of Appeals of New York (the highest court in New York state) denied him relief in 1959. De Veau appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which granted certiorari
Certiorari
Certiorari is a type of writ seeking judicial review, recognized in U.S., Roman, English, Philippine, and other law. Certiorari is the present passive infinitive of the Latin certiorare...
.
Majority decision
Associate Justice Felix FrankfurterFelix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurter was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.-Early life:Frankfurter was born into a Jewish family on November 15, 1882, in Vienna, Austria, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Europe. He was the third of six children of Leopold and Emma Frankfurter...
wrote the majority decision for the Court, joined by Associate Justices Tom C. Clark
Tom C. Clark
Thomas Campbell Clark was United States Attorney General from 1945 to 1949 and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States .- Early life and career :...
, Charles Evans Whittaker
Charles Evans Whittaker
Charles Evans Whittaker was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1957 to 1962.-Early years:...
, and Potter Stewart
Potter Stewart
Potter Stewart was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. During his tenure, he made, among other areas, major contributions to criminal justice reform, civil rights, access to the courts, and Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.-Education:Stewart was born in Jackson, Michigan,...
.
Justice Frankfurter noted that the Court had jurisdiction as a constitutional issue had been raised. He next reviewed the extensive problems with organized crime which had given rise to the Act, the investigations by the U.S. Senate committee and the state of New York, the structure of the Act, and supplementary enacting legislation passed by both New York and New Jersey. Section 8 of the New York supplementary legislation was at issue. Frankfurter noted that the compact expressly provided for congressional pre-approval of supplementary legislation, that Sec. 8 had been enacted after the compact had been submitted to Congress but before Congress had approved the original compact, and that Sec. 8 was not bi-state in nature (even though New York and New Jersey had enacted substantively identical legislation).
De Veau had argued that the Supreme Court's decision in Hill v. Florida, 325 U.S. 538 (1945), in which a Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
labor relations law similarly barred from union office any person convicted of a felony. But the bi-state compact, Frankfurter held, was not like the Florida law. The bi-state compact did not impede the federal legislation, and the two were not prevented from functioning side-by-side. In a major restatement of the doctrine of preemption, Frankfurter wrote:
- The fact that there is some restriction due to the operation of state law does not settle the issue of preemption. The doctrine of preemption does not present a problem in physics, but one of adjustment because of the interdependence of federal and state interests and of the interaction of federal and state powers. Obviously, the National Labor Relations Act does not exclude every state policy that may, in fact, restrict the complete freedom of a group of employees to designate "representatives of their own choosing."
Congress had not intended to bar all state restrictions on union officials, Frankfurter asserted. Indeed, the purely local problem faced by New York and New Jersey had prompted a purely local solution, one which Congress had "unambiguously" supported, he said. Indeed, Sec. 8 had already been enacted by both states prior to Congressional approval of the compact, and Sec. 8 had clearly been brought to the attention of Congress during debate over the original compact. Furthermore, Congress had expressly approved of supplementary legislation in its enabling bill, and neither the extensive federal and state acknowledgement of corruptionnor the congressional debate over pre-approval of supplementary legislation had occurred in the Florida case.
De Veau had further argued that the passage in 1959 of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act
Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act
The Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 , is a United States labor law that regulates labor unions' internal affairs and their officials' relationships with employers.-Background:...
(LMRDA) also preempted the interstate compact. Title V of the LMRDA specifically imposed restrictions on union officers, clearly preempting any state action in this area, De Veau said. The majority disagreed. Passage of Title V of the LMRDA, Frankfurter wrote, shows just the opposite—that Congress did not find state restrictions on the right to hold union office incompatible with pre-1959 federal labor policies. Furthermore, Frunkfurter interpreted Section 504(a) and Section 603(a) of the LMRDA as specifically disclaiming of preemption of state laws regulating union officials (which only a few, limited, express exceptions).
Frankfurter next turned the majority's attention to De Veau's due process claim. Applying a reasonability test to the bi-state compact, Frankfurter concluded that the extensive record of the federal and state investigations had shown that corruption on the waterfront was so extensive and so intertwined with those who were ex-felons that a felony bar was eminently reasonable. He went on to note that federal law often employed this remedy, and that the Court had previously approved state laws which had done so.
As for De Veau's final challenge, Frankfurter noted that, under United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303 (1946), the critical factor was whether legislative determination of guilt had been substituted for judicial judgment. Since a court of competent jurisdiction (not the legislature) had already convicted De Veau, Sec. 8 was clearly not a bill of attainder. Under Hawker v. New York, the majority said, the critical factor was whether "unpleasant consequences are brought to bear upon an individual for prior conduct is whether the legislative aim was to punish that individual for past activity, or whether the restriction of the individual comes about as a relevant incident to a regulation of a present situation, such as the proper qualifications for a profession." The intent of the states of New York and New Jersey was clearly not to punish ex-felons, Frankfurter wrote, but rather to rid the waterfront of corruption. Subsequently, Sec. 8 was not an ex post facto law, either.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals of New York was affirmed.
Concurrence by Justice Brennan
Associate Justice William J. Brennan, Jr.William J. Brennan, Jr.
William Joseph Brennan, Jr. was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1956 to 1990...
wrote an opinion concurring in the majority opinion. His 109-word concurrence agrees with the majority that Sec. 8 was a reasonable restriction, was not preempted by federal law, and did not deny due process.
Dissent
Associate Justice William O. DouglasWilliam O. Douglas
William Orville Douglas was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. With a term lasting 36 years and 209 days, he is the longest-serving justice in the history of the Supreme Court...
wrote a dissent, in which Chief Justice
Chief Justice of the United States
The Chief Justice of the United States is the head of the United States federal court system and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Chief Justice is one of nine Supreme Court justices; the other eight are the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States...
Earl Warren
Earl Warren
Earl Warren was the 14th Chief Justice of the United States.He is known for the sweeping decisions of the Warren Court, which ended school segregation and transformed many areas of American law, especially regarding the rights of the accused, ending public-school-sponsored prayer, and requiring...
and Associate Justice Hugo Black
Hugo Black
Hugo Lafayette Black was an American politician and jurist. A member of the Democratic Party, Black represented Alabama in the United States Senate from 1927 to 1937, and served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1937 to 1971. Black was nominated to the Supreme...
joined.
Justice Douglas argued that the majority's ruling simply could not be squared with the Court's decision in Hill v. Florida. Citing Hill v. Florida, 325 U. S. 538 at 541, Douglas noted that the Hill court had Sec. 7 of the NLRA to provide for absolutely no state restrictions whatsoever on the qualifications for union office. Douglas also concluded that the court's reading of the legislative history of the Act was incorrect. The plain text of Article 15, Section 1 of the compact, he said, clearly provided for no additional state restrictions on union officers. Similarly, Douglas held that Section 2(a) of the LMRDA unmistakably reserved to Congress the right to place restrictions on an individual's qualifications for union office. The majority, Douglas said, fundamentally misconstrued Sec. 504(a) of the LMRDA, which only refers to enforcement of criminal (not civil) laws against union officers.
Since Sec. 8 is not valid under the Supremacy Clause, Douglas said, he would overturn the judgment of the Court of Appeals of New York. He would rule narrowly on those grounds, and not decide the remaining questions.
Assessment
Although only a plurality opinion, De Veau v. Braisted was embraced by a majority of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Hotel and Restaurant EmployeesBrown v. Hotel and Restaurant Employees
Brown v. Hotel and Restaurant Employees, 468 U.S. 491 , is a 4-to-3 ruling by the United States Supreme Court which held that a New Jersey state gaming law requiring union leaders to be of good moral character was not preempted by the National Labor Relations Act .-Background:In 1976, New Jersey...
, 468 U.S. 491 (1984). De Veau is sometimes cited as a key case in which the Supreme Court relied heavily on congressional debate and authorizing legislation to determine congressional intent.
The Supreme Court has used several tests of the decades to decide whether a law is an ex post facto one or not. De Veau v. Braisted is generally considered the first modern restatement of these tests, although others have since been used.