Franklin D. Roosevelt

Statement Against a Rider Prohibiting Federal Employment of Three Individuals.

September 14, 1943

To the Congress:

On July 12 I reluctantly signed H. R. 2714, the urgent Deficiency Appropriation Act, 1943. I felt obliged to approve it because it appropriates funds which were essential to carry on the activities of almost every agency of Government during the recess of the Congress.

If it had been possible to veto the objectionable rider, which has been attached to this urgent Deficiency Appropriation Act, but which has no relevancy to it, without delaying essential war appropriations, I should unhesitatingly have done so.

This rider prohibited any Government department or agency from employing at any time in the future, after November 15, three named individuals who are now employed by different Government agencies, unless they are appointed to office by the President and confirmed by the Senate prior to that date.

There is no suggestion that the three named individuals have not loyally and competently performed the duties for which they have been employed. They are sought to be disqualified for Federal employment because of political opinions attributed to them.

The provision aimed at these men does not define the offices they hold and does not seek to make appointment to those offices subject to Senate approval. As a matter of fact, the clause permitting them to remain in Government employment after November 15 subject to Presidential appointment and Senate approval was inserted only after the Senate had refused to accept a provision requiring their immediate removal from Government employment and their permanent disqualification for the Federal service. The Senate rejected the compromise as incorporated in this bill once, and agreed to it only after the House conferees had refused to agree to any bill without a provision aimed at the removal of these three named individuals.

The Senate yielded, as I have been forced to yield, to avoid delaying our conduct of the war.

But I cannot so yield without placing on record my view that this provision is not only unwise and discriminatory, but unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court has defined a bill of attainder as "a legislative act which inflicts punishment without judicial trial." The rider in this bill operates perpetually to disqualify three named individuals from holding office in their Government unless they are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate before November 15. It is directed at named individuals and not at specified statutory offices. No judicial trials have been held. No impeachment proceedings have been instituted. This rider is an unwarranted encroachment upon the authority of both the executive and the judicial branches under our Constitution. It is not, in my judgment, binding upon them.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Statement Against a Rider Prohibiting Federal Employment of Three Individuals. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/210916

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