third party supports or promotes a litigant's suit to prolong litigation when the parties would otherwise have brought an end to litigation or settled the suit. The bills were specifically aimed at curbing the NAACP, which many segregationists believed was "stirring up" integration lawsuits against the Commonwealth. By 1956, the NAACP had filed fifteen desegregation petitions with local school boards. The new laws also collectively required annual filing of financial reports and membership lists for any group that promotes or opposes state legislation aimed at (1) any race, (2) any organization attempting to influence public opinion on behalf of any race, or (3) any group raising funds to employ legal counsel in connection with racial litigation. Virginia's legislature also established two new legislative committees composed of lawyer members of both houses, which investigated NAACP practices both in light of and using the new statutes. One chaired by John B. Boatwright became known as the "Boatwright Committee"; another chaired by Byrd's son-in-law James M. Thomson became known as the "Thomson Committee". This was similar to the approach taken by several other southern states, decided as Sheldon v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479 (1958) (overturning Arkansas laws requiring public schoolteachers to disclose every organization to which they belonged or made donations to during the previous five years; and prohibiting NAACP members from holding any state job), NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449 (1958)(overturning an Alabama attorney general Patterson's attempt to enjoin all NAACP activities in the state) and Louisiana ex rel. Gremillion v. NAACP, 366 U.S. 293 (1961) (overturning Louisiana's attempt to prevent NAACP from doing business in the state). The Virginia NAACP soon filed suit in federal court in 1956 against the five new legal ethics laws, and also supported Quaker printer David Scull when he was subjected to aggressive testimony by the Thomson Committee. Both cases reached the U.S. Supreme Court around the same time, and were argued after January 19, 1959 (Robert E. Lee's birthday, a holiday in Virginia), when both a three-judge federal panel in James v. Almond and the Virginia Supreme Court in Harrison v. Day invalidated many other provisions of the Stanley Plan. Then on May 4, 1959, the Supreme Court unanimously threw out the contempt conviction the Thomson Committee had obtained in Scull v. Virginia ex rel. Committee on Law Reform and Racial Activities. The case that ultimately became this one had been