Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. v. John W. McCormack Speaker of the House of Representatives

*579BURGER, Circuit Judge.

This case presents for the first time the question whether courts can consider claims that a Member-elect has been improperly excluded from his seat in the United States House of Representatives. On the basis of findings by that body that Member-elect Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., had been guilty of misconduct as a Member of a prior Congress and of contumacious conduct toward the courts of the State of New York, the House voted to exclude him from the seat in the 90th Congress to which he had been elected in 1966 by the voters of the 18th Congressional District of New York.1

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