They brought an action in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota seeking a declaration that the Communist Control Act of 1954 (50 USC 841-842) was constitutionally invalid, and praying for a temporary restraining order and permanent injunction requiring the Secretary of State of Minnesota to include the names of the plaintiff candidates on the November 1968 ballot.

Without deciding the merits of the claims, the three- judge District Court granted the injunction, ordering that the names of the plaintiff candidates be placed on the November 1968 ballot (290 F Supp 642).

After the election, the Federal District Court, finding no present case or controversy, denied appellants' request for a declaratory judgment striking down the Communist Control Act, on which the state authorities had relied in refusing ballot placement: Appellants brought a direct appeal to this Court under 28 U. S. C. § 1253, which permits an "appeal to the Supreme Court from an order granting or denying .

It was held that the court lacked jurisdiction under 28 USC 1253, which provides for direct appeal to the Supreme Court from a three-judge Federal District Court order granting or denying "an interlocutory or permanent injunction," because the order appealed from did not grant or deny an injunction, but did no more than deny the plaintiffs a declaratory judgment striking down the Communist Control Act.

Douglas, dissenting, stated that the refusal of a declaratory judgment might be as definitive an adjudication as the refusal of an injunction, and that a properly convened three-judge Federal District Court's order granting or denying an injunction "or its equivalent" was appealable under 1253.