## Facts

- Congress enacted § 304 of the Urgent Deficiency Appropriation Act of 1943, providing that after November 15, 1943, no salary could be paid to Robert Morss Lovett, Goodwin B. Watson, and William E. Dodd, Jr., unless reappointed by the President with Senate advice and consent.
- The provision followed congressional committee activity labeling certain federal employees “subversive” based on alleged political beliefs and associations, and it identified Lovett, Watson, and Dodd by name.
- The Senate initially resisted similar versions of the rider but ultimately accepted it to secure passage of an urgent appropriations bill; the President signed the bill while stating the rider was unconstitutional.
- Lovett, Watson, and Dodd continued performing their federal duties after November 15, 1943, but were not paid.
- They sued the United States in the Court of Claims for back pay for services performed after the cutoff date.
- The Court of Claims awarded back pay; the United States sought review in the Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether the constitutionality of § 304 presented a nonjusticiable political question because it was enacted through Congress’s appropriations power.
2. Whether § 304 was an unconstitutional bill of attainder by singling out named individuals for legislative punishment without a judicial trial, in violation of Article I, § 9, cl. 3.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgments awarding back pay.
- The Court held the challenge was justiciable; Congress’s use of an appropriations rider did not bar judicial review of constitutional limits.
- The Court held § 304 unconstitutional as a bill of attainder because it imposed legislative punishment on named individuals without a judicial trial by cutting off pay and barring them from federal service based on Congress’s assessment of their beliefs and loyalty.
- A separate concurrence agreed with affirmance but declined to rest the result on the bill-of-attainder analysis.

## Legal Principles

- Constitutional challenges to statutes are justiciable even when the statute is framed as an exercise of the appropriations power.
- A bill of attainder includes legislative acts that apply to named individuals (or an ascertainable group) and inflict punishment without a judicial trial.
- Denial of compensation and professional disqualification imposed by statute on specific individuals, based on legislative findings of disloyalty, can constitute “punishment” for bill-of-attainder purposes.
- Congress may not accomplish targeted punitive sanctions against particular persons through appropriations restrictions when the Constitution forbids legislative punishment without trial.

## Conclusion

The Court held that § 304’s targeted cutoff of salary and effective exclusion from federal employment for three named employees, based on Congress’s judgment about their alleged disloyalty, was reviewable in court and amounted to an unconstitutional bill of attainder, entitling them to recover back pay for services rendered.


United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303 (1946)