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.

[2] Labor racketeers can essentially extort wages, benefits, and featherbed jobs from employers;[3] engage in extensive cargo theft; solicit and receive bribes; and extort payments from longshoremen in order to obtain union jobs.

[2] 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.

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.

George De Veau, secretary-treasurer of Local 1346 of the International Longshoremen's Association, had been convicted of grand larceny and received a suspended sentence.

Frankfurter noted that the compact expressly provided for congressional pre-approval of supplementary legislation, that Sec.

[18] 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.

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.

[22] 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.

"[23] The intent of the states of New York and New Jersey was clearly not to punish felons, Frankfurter wrote, but rather to rid the waterfront of corruption.

Justice Douglas argued that the majority's ruling simply could not be squared with the Court's decision in Hill v.

The plain text of Article 15, Section 1 of the compact, he said, clearly provided for no additional state restrictions on union officers.

[27] 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.

[30] Although only a plurality opinion, De Veau v. Braisted was embraced by a majority of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Hotel and Restaurant Employees, 468 U.S. 491 (1984).