Negro Wins Appeal Against Congress

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32017, 18 June 1969, Page 17

Negro Wins Appeal Against Congress

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

WASHINGTON, June 17.

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that Congress violated the Constitutional rights of the controversial Negro Congressman, Mr Adam Clayton Powell, by excluding him from the House of Representatives.

Congressman Powell, who is 59, was excluded from Congress for nearly two years on the ground that he was alleged to have misused more than SUS4O.OOO of public funds.

Mr Powell, who was seated as a member of the new Congress on January 3, filed a suit with the Supreme Court, challenging what he called “this unlawful and unconstitutional” action. He said the Court should return his Con-

gressional seniority and award him back pay covering his exclusion period. Mr Powell was excluded from the House of Representatives in March, 1967, after an investigating committee had decided that his conduct had-reflected discredit on the House. The committee reached its conclusion on the basis of Mr Powell’s refusal to satisfy a libel judgment against him, and on charges that he had kept his wife, who did no work, on the payroll of the House of Representatives’ Education and Labour Committee, of which he was then chairman. He was re-elected for New York’s Harlem district in April, 1967, but did not take his seat He won an election again last November, and was seated after the House had fined him 5U525,000. The Supreme Court, in a seven-toone ruling, has ruled that Congress, in judging the qualifications of its members, was limited to qualifications prescribed in the Constitution, and could not consider other factors, such as personal conduct.

In addition to agreeing to the $U525,000 fine when he took his seat in January, Mr Powell was stripped of 22 years of Congressional seniority and his committee chairmanship, and lost 5U555.000 in back pay.

The Supreme Court has sent back to lower Federal courts his claim for the salary he would have earned if he had not been excluded from the House in 1967. It did not rule on the 5U525.000 fine and seniority loss.