A provision of the constitution of the United Steelworkers of America International Union limited eligibility to run for a local union office to members who have attended at least one-half of the local's regular meetings for three years previous to the election of officers. The Secretary of Labor brought an action to invalidate the 1970 election of officers of Local 3489, contending that the provision limiting eligibility violated Section 401(e) of the LMRDA. Section 401(e) provides that every union member in good standing shall be eligible to be a candidate and to hold office, subject to "reasonable qualifications."

At the time of the challenged election, 96.5 percent of the members of Local 3489 were ineligible to hold office because of the eligibility rule. The district court dismissed the complaint, finding no violation. The court of appeals reversed, and the union appealed to the Supreme Court.] BRENNAN, J.... The LMRDA does not render unions powerless to restrict candidacies for union office. The injunction in Section 401(e) that "every member in good standing shall be eligible to be a candidate and to hold office" is made expressly "subject to ... reasonable qualifications uniformly imposed."

But "Congress plainly did not intend that the authorization ... of ‘reasonable qualifications ...' should be given a broad reach. The contrary is implicit in the legislative history of the section and its wording...." Wirtz v. Hotel Employees, 391 U.S. 492, at 499. The basic objective of Title IV of LMRDA is to guarantee "free and democratic" union elections modeled on "political elections in this country" where "the assumption is that voters will exercise common sense and judgment in casting their ballots." Thus, Title IV is not designed merely to protect the right of a union member to run for a particular office in a particular election. "... Congress emphatically asserted a vital public interest in assuring free and democratic union elections that transcends the narrower interest of the complaining union member...."

The goal was to "protect the rights of rank-and-file members to participate fully in the operation of their union through processes of democratic self-government, and, through the election process, to keep the union leadership responsive to the membership." Whether a particular qualification is "reasonable" within the meaning of Section 401(e) must therefore "be measured in terms of its consistency with the Act's command to unions to conduct ‘free and democratic' union elections." Wirtz v. Hotel Employees, supra, 391 U.S., at 499. Congress was not concerned only with corrupt union leadership.

Congress chose the goal of "free and democratic" union elections as a preventive measure "to curb the possibility of abuse by benevolent as well as malevolent entrenched leadership." Hotel Employees expressly held that the check was seriously impaired by candidacy qualifications which substantially deplete the ranks of those who might run in opposition to incumbents, and therefore held invalid the candidacy limitation there involved that restricted candidacies for certain positions to members who had previously held union office. "Plainly, given the objective of Title IV, a candidacy limitation which renders 93% of union members ineligible for office can hardly be a ‘reasonable qualification.'" ... Petitioners ...

argue that the rule is reasonable within Section 401(e) because it encourages attendance at union meetings, and assures more qualified officers by limiting election to those who have demonstrated an interest in union affairs, and are familiar with union problems. But the rule has plainly not served these goals. It has obviously done little to encourage attendance at meetings, which continue to attract only a handful of members. Even as to the more limited goal of encouraging the attendance of potential dissident candidates, very few members, as we have said, are likely to see themselves as such sufficiently far in advance of the election to be spurred to attendance by the rule.

As for assuring the election of knowledgeable and dedicated leaders, the election provisions of LMRDA express a congressional determination that the best means to this end is to leave the choice of leaders to the membership in open democratic elections, unfettered by arbitrary exclusions. Pursuing this goal by excluding the bulk of the membership from eligibility for office, and thus limiting the possibility of dissident candidacies, runs directly counter to the basic premise of the statute. We therefore conclude that Congress in guaranteeing every union member the opportunity to hold office, subject only to "reasonable qualifications," disabled unions from establishing eligibility qualifications as sharply restrictive of the openness of the union political process as is petitioners' attendance rule. Judgment affirmed.

Case Questions

1. What is the basic objective of Title IV of the LMRDA?

2. What does the Court focus on in finding the meeting attendance rule invalid?

3. How does the union defend the rule?