Communist Party vs. Subversive Activities Control Board

This paper anlyzes a landmark case involving Communist Party vs. Subversive Activities Control Board. Although the Court did not rule against the McCarran Act in this first test of its constitutionality, as more cases challenging various penalties associated with noncompliance with the act came before the Court, the Court struck them down one after another until the act was gutted.

In 1950, over a veto cast by President Harry Truman, Congress passed the Internal Security Act, popularly known as the McCarran Act. Passed at the heightof the Cold War, when national paranoia about Communist infiltration and subversion was at fever pitch, the act was intended to root out the Communist Party in the United States (caselaw.lp.findlaw.com). Convinced that secrecy was one of the party's greatest weapons, Congress required in the McCarran Act that all Communist organizations register with the attorney general. The Subversive Activities Control Board (SACB) was created to oversee the registration procedure, which also required that registered organizations disclose the names of their officers andthe sources of their funds. The SACB promptly ordered the Communist Party ofAmerica to register, which it declined to do (caselaw.lp.findlaw.com).

The party, arguing that the registration requirement was unconstitutional, fought the SACB for nearly 11 years, ultimately appealing the registration order to the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, where the appeal was rejected. The party finally turned to the Supreme Court.

The party's primary arguments were that the registration requirement was either unconstitutional as a bill of attainder or a violation of the First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and association. Article I of the Constitution outlaws bills of attainder at both the state and federal levels (caselaw.lp.findlaw.com). This prohibition against government-imposed penalties without benefit of trial was of clear importance to the drafters of the nation's foundation document, who wanted there to be both a clear distinction between legislative and judicial functions in government and a government of laws, not men (law.jrank.org). The party's other argument against the registration requirement was that it violated guarantees established in the First Amendment, arguably the most fundamental guarantee embodied in the Bill of Rights.

Nonetheless, the Supreme Court upheld the registration requirement. The opinion of the Court, written by Justice Frankfurter, stated that since the only issue properly before the Court was the constitutionality of the registrationrequirement, which in itself included no provisions as to regulation or penalties, the SACB ...