1. Woods v. Miller Co., (1948)
2. Facts: The Housing and Rent Act of 1947 was passed under the authority of the war power to regulate the rents of houses in post-WWII America. As the soldiers came back from the war, they were met with a housing shortage due to the reduction in residential construction. The reduction was caused by allocation of building materials to military projects.
3. Procedural Posture: The District Court held that the authority of Congress to regulate rents by virtue of the war power ended with the President’s New-Year’s Eve 1946 proclamation of peace. Also, Congress did not state that they were acting under the war power when they passed the Housing and Rent Act. The government appealed directly to the Supreme Court.
4. Issue: Whether the Housing and Rent Act is a constitutional exercise of the war power by Congress.
5. Holding: Yes.
6. Majority Reasoning: [Douglas] Citing to both Hamilton and Ruppert, the court stated that the war power includes the power “to remedy the evils which have arisen from its rise and progress” and continues for the duration of that emergency. It does not end with the cessation of hostilities. The Presidential proclamation recognized that the state of war still existed, and the war effort was what contributed most heavily to the present housing shortage. Thus, Congress had the power, even after the cessation of hostilities, to regulate a shortage of housing caused primarily by the war. The necessary and proper clause requires that the war power be held over to treat the effects of war. Although this holding, read broadly, would authorize the war power to used during peace to regulate long-term effects of war and swallow up the Ninth and Tenth amendments, we must assume that Congress will act responsibly and take into account its constitutional limits when exercising the war power.
7. Concurrence Reasoning: [Jackson] felt that the result in this case was clear, but was worried about the potential abuse of the war power because it tended to bexercised during periods of hasty patriotism. The war power cannot last as long as the effects and consequences of war because many are permanent.
