Throughout its consideration of the LMRDA, Congress clearly intended to lodge exclusive responsibility for postelection suits challenging the validity of a union election with the Secretary of Labor. The legislative history of Title IV consistently echoes this theme. For example, the election provisions contained in the Committee bill as originally reported to the full Senate gave the Secretary exclusive authority to enforce Title IV and to supervise whatever new elections might be needed because of violations of its provisions. S. 1555, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., §§ 302-303 (1959). As the Report of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare explained: "[S]ince the bill provides an effective and expeditious remedy for overthrowing an improperly held election and holding a new election, the Federal remedy is made the sole remedy and private litigation would be precluded." S. Rep. No. 187, at 21.19 The bill that was finally passed by the Senate retained these procedures for violations of Title IV.

19 A major reason for creating federal standards to govern union elections, and for lodging primary responsibility for enforcement of those standards with the Secretary of Labor, was the inadequacy of state-court remedies. Professor Archibald Cox, testifying before the Senate Subcommittee on Labor, explained in detail the inherent inability of courts to supervise elections:

"A court is also a clumsy instrument for supervising an election. The judicial process may be suitable for determining the validity of an election which has already been held; but if it is found invalid, or if no election has been held, judges have few facilities for providing an effective remedy. Merely to order an election might turn the authority to conduct the balloting over to the very same officers whose misconduct gave rise to the litigation. The court has no tellers, watchers, or similar officials. It would become mired in the details of the electoral process. To appoint a master to supervise the election would delegate the responsibility, but the master would face many of the same problems as the judge. Probably it is the consciousness of these weaknesses that has made judges so reluctant to interfere with union elections, though apparently a few court-conducted elections have been held." Labor-Management Reform Legislation: Hearings on S. 505 et al. before the Subcommittee on Labor of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 133-134 (1959) (hereinafter Hearings).

In the House, three separate bills were introduced, with all three containing substantially similar enforcement procedures for violations of Title IV. Unlike the Senate bill, the House bills permitted an aggrieved union member to file suit in federal district court to enforce his Title IV rights. See, e. g., H. R. 8400, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., §402 (1959) (Landrum-Griffin bill). Significantly, however, even these bills provided that the Secretary of Labor would supervise any new elections ordered by the court. See, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 741, supra, at 17 (if district court finds relevant statutory violation, the court should "declare the election, if any, to be void, and direct the conduct of a new election under the supervision of the Secretary of Labor”). Thus, even before the Conference Committee adopted the Title IV enforcement procedures included in the Senate bill, see H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 1147, at 35, both Houses of Congress had consistently indicated their intent to have the Secretary of Labor supervise any new union elections necessitated by the Act.20

Moreover, nothing in the flurry of activity that surrounded enactment of Title I, see supra, at 537-538, and n. 12, indicates that Congress intended that Title to reverse this consistent opposition to court supervision of union elections. Although the enactment of Title I offered additional protection to union members, including the establishment of various statutory safeguards effective during the course of a union election, there is no direct evidence to suggest that Congress believed that enforcement of Title I would either require or allow courts to pre-empt the expertise of the Secretary and

20 This view is confirmed by the elaborate procedures eventually included in Title IV to ensure that the Secretary supervises any new elections and to minimize any other outside interference in union elections. See, e. g., 29 U. S. C. § 482(a) (requiring exhaustion of internal remedies before member may file complaint with the Secretary; also providing that challenged elections shall be presumed valid pending final decision on Title IV violation); § 482(c) (requiring that any new elections be conducted under the Secretary's supervision).

supervise their own elections. In the absence of such legislative history, and given the clear congressional preference expressed in Title IV for supervision of new elections by the Secretary of Labor, we are compelled to conclude that Congress did not consider court supervision of union elections to be an "appropriate" remedy for a Title I suit filed during the course of a union election. §102, 29 U. S. C. § 412.

That is not to say that a court has no jurisdiction over otherwise proper Title I claims that are filed during the course of a lengthy union election. The important congressional policies underlying enactment of Title I, see supra, at 536-537, likewise compel us to conclude that appropriate relief under Title I may be awarded by a court while an election is being conducted. Individual union members may properly allege violations of Title I that are easily remediable under that Title without substantially delaying or invalidating an ongoing election. For example, union members might claim that they did not receive election ballots distributed by the union because of their opposition to the incumbent officers running for reelection. Assuming that such union members prove a statutory violation under Title I, a court might appropriately order the union to forward ballots to the claimants before completion of the election. To foreclose a court from ordering such Title I remedies during an election would not only be inefficient, but would also frustrate the purposes that Congress sought to serve by including Title I in the LMRDA. Indeed, eliminating all Title I relief in this context might preclude aggrieved union members from ever obtaining relief for statutory violations, since the more drastic remedies under Title IV are ultimately dependent upon a showing that a violation "may have affected the outcome" of the election, § 402(c), 29 U. S. C. § 482(c).21

21 Again, Professor Cox' testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Labor suggested a similar analysis. Although he was speaking before Title I was added to the Senate bill, Professor Cox objected to a broad exclusivity provision, see S. 505, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., § 303 (1959) (“The

Our conclusion that appropriate Title I relief during the course of a union election does not include the invalidation of

duties imposed and the rights and remedies provided by this title shall be exclusive”), that would have pre-empted all state law concerning union elections:

"[T]he provision exclude[s] suits in the State courts challenging the validity of union elections. An election is an integer. Its validity should be adjudicated once and for all in one forum. To permit State court actions would open the way to unnecessary harassment of the union on one side and to friendly suits aimed at foreclosing the Secretary's action on the other.

"I still believe that these purposes deserve to be accomplished but I have been persuaded that the language used in [S. 505] to accomplish them [is] much too broad. In a few States, actions have been successfully maintained in advance of a union election to compel the officers to comply with provisions of the constitution and bylaws such as putting a candidate's name on the ballot, permitting a classification of members to vote, or giving adequate notice of the elections. These remedies are often more effective than a challenge to the validity of an election after it has been held. They present the evil before it is accomplished. It is not impossible that other State courts will find it possible to give similar relief enforcing the union constitution and bylaws in advance of the election. Such proceedings would not interfere with the Federal policy because they do no more than compel the union officers to comply with the rules voluntarily adopted by the members.

"It may also become necessary for an individual member to resort to the courts to secure redress against his expulsion from the union or against other discipline imposed upon him because he dared to assert his rights in connection with an election. To enact that the provisions of the ... bill should exclude all other rights and remedies might interfere with the bringing of such an action even though the Federal law gave no relief.

"I am not contending that [the exclusivity provision] would be held to exclude the last two forms of State intervention. I would hope that the Supreme Court would confine [the] section. . . to substantive State regulation and Federal or State actions challenging the validity of an election already conducted." Hearings, at 135.

In light of these suggestions, Professor Cox proposed amending the exclusivity provision so that it would not affect "the right of any member of a labor union to maintain an action to compel the observance of the constitution and bylaws of a labor organization in a forthcoming election of

an ongoing election or court supervision of a new election finds further support in our prior cases interpreting the LMRDA, and in the underlying policies of the Act that have controlled those decisions. In Calhoon v. Harvey, 379 U. S. 134 (1964), for example, we were faced with a pre-election challenge to several union rules that controlled eligibility to run and nominate others for union office. The claimants in that case asked the court to enjoin the union from preparing for or conducting any election until the rules were revised. We first concluded that in substance the claims alleged violations of Title IV rather than Title I, because the latter only protects union members against the discriminatory application of union rules. Then, given that "Congress. . . decided not to permit individuals to block or delay union elections by filing federal-court suits for violations of Title IV," id., at 140; see supra, at 540, we held that the District Court could not invoke its jurisdiction under Title I to hear Title IV claims. We relied for our conclusion in part on Congress' intent "to allow unions great latitude in resolving their own internal controversies, and, where that fails, to utilize the agencies of Government most familiar with union problems to aid in bringing about a settlement through discussion before resort to the courts." 379 U. S., at 140. See also ibid. ("It is apparent that Congress decided to utilize the special knowledge and discretion of the Secretary of Labor in order best to serve the public interest").

In several subsequent decisions, we also relied on the important role played by the Secretary in enforcing Title IV

officers, to challenge his expulsion or the imposition of other discipline, or to assert any right of individual membership other than to challenge the validity of an election." Id., at 136 (emphasis added). Although Professor Cox apparently assumed that union elections would occur during a discrete period of time, we believe that his analysis is consistent with the approach to Title I remedies available during a union election that we adopt today. Indeed, the broad exclusivity provision to which he was objecting was removed by the Senate Subcommittee and replaced with the language that now appears in § 403, 29 U. S. C. § 483.