United States v. Harriss
United States Supreme Court
347 U.S. 612 (1954)
Tom Linder (Georgia's agriculture commissioner), Ralph Moore (a commodities trader), and Robert Harriss (a commodity broker) (defendants) were officers of the National Farm Committee (NFC), also a defendant. All were indicted under the Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act (FRLA) for failing to register or disclose money spent or solicited to influence legislation. The trial court dismissed the indictments, ruling the FRLA unconstitutionally vague, and the government appealed directly to the Supreme Court.
Whether a lobbying-disclosure statute is unconstitutionally vague, failing to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice of forbidden conduct, when it can instead be construed to apply only to persons engaged in direct communication with Congress about proposed legislation.