Representative Vito Marcantonio of New York

On this date, the House Campaign Expenditures Investigating Committee refrained from challenging New York Representative Vito Marcantonio’s right to take his seat in the 80th Congress (1947–1949). First winning election to his polyglot, East Harlem district in 1934, Marcantonio built his career on a radical political agenda. Running on the American Labor Party (ALP) ticket—a New York City-based, left-wing political party—for most of his career, he was a firm supporter of the protection of civil liberties and organized labor. He was also known for his Soviet sympathies. Anti-communist sentiment and a desire to return to pre-war normalcy permeated the 1946 election; the GOP adopted the slogan “It’s Time for a Change,” vowing to “replace [war time] controls, confusion, corruption, and communism.” Marcantonio’s re-election in the face of increased opposition to his left wing politics was further complicated when GOP party employee Joseph Scottoriggio was fatally beaten en route to his job as an election observer in East Harlem. Having won their first majority in nearly 20 years, emboldened congressional Republicans charged that the attack on Scottoriggio was an attempt to intimidate voters and sought to bar Marcantonio—who had defeated his GOP opponent with 54 percent of the vote—from taking his seat. Four of the five members of the investigating committee in the lame duck session of the 79th Congress (1945–1947), however, opted to hold off their final decision until the conclusion of an ongoing investigation into Scottoriggio’s murder. The case went unsolved and Marcantonio took his seat without incident. However, his continued adherence to his left-wing agenda, coupled with his isolation as the only ALP Member in an increasingly anti-communist Congress, eventually forced an end to Marcantonio’s political career in 1950.