themarketswork

a common sense approach to a liberal world

(Still Not) Tired of Winning

by

Given events of the past two days, this tweet by @almostjingo sums things up rather nicely:

Following the Supreme Court’s upholding of President Trump’s Travel Ban – with Justice Thomas’ crucial Concurring Opinion detailing Nationwide Injunctions – we were gifted two major events today:

  1. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees that State and Public-Sector Unions may no longer extract agency fees from non-consenting employees.
  2. Justice Kennedy announced his retirement.

Both were expected. Both were wonderful.

Compulsory Union Dues by State & Public Sector Unions were ruled to be a violation of the First Amendment.

Note: Public Sector union membership is now greater than Private Sector union membership.

From the Supreme Court Ruling (abbreviated):

The State’s extraction of agency fees from non-consenting public-sector employees violates the First Amendment.

Forcing free and independent individuals to endorse ideas they find objectionable raises serious First Amendment concerns. That includes compelling a person to subsidize the speech of other private speakers.

First, agency fees cannot be upheld on the ground that they promote an interest in “labor peace.” Exclusive representation of all the employees in a unit and the exaction of agency fees are not inextricably linked. To the contrary, in the Federal Government and the 28 States with laws prohibiting agency fees, millions of public employees are represented by unions that effectively serve as the exclusive representatives of all the employees.

Avoiding “the risk of ‘free riders,’ is not a compelling state interest. Free-rider “arguments are generally insufficient to overcome First Amendment objections.” As is evident in non-agency-fee jurisdictions, unions are quite willing to represent nonmembers in the absence of agency fees.

Neither founding-era evidence nor dictum in Connick v. Myers, supports the view that the First Amendment was originally understood to allow States to force public employees to subsidize a private third party. If anything, the opposite is true.

Union speech covers critically important and public matters such as the State’s budget crisis, taxes, and collective bargaining issues related to education, child welfare, healthcare, and minority rights. The government’s proffered interests must therefore justify the heavy burden of agency fees on nonmembers’ First Amendment interests. They do not.

For these reasons, States and public-sector unions may no longer extract agency fees from non-consenting employees. The First Amendment is violated when money is taken from non-consenting employees for a public-sector union; employees must choose to support the union before anything is taken from them.

Accordingly, neither an agency fee nor any other form of payment to a public-sector union may be deducted from an employee, nor may any other attempt be made to collect such a payment, unless the employee affirmatively consents to pay.

Public Sector Unions have long been a significant source of funding for the DNC – even if their members held opposing political views.

How significant? A thread by @The_War_Economy spells things out:

Service Employees International Union = $220 million to Dems.

National Education Association = $93 million to Dems.

United Foods and Commercial Workers Union = $63 million to Dems.

@_ImperatorRex_ decided to do some digging on the total amount:

$1.7 BILLION donated by Unions in the 2016 Election. And as the study notes – it’s almost certainly a low-end estimate. There’s a reason why the Left is so distraught by this ruling.

The impact on State & Public Sector Unions will be swift. And severe:

As noted by @drawandstrike:

Democrats and Progressives set up a system in which people who did not support Democrat and Progressive political policy were FORCED to pay for Democrat and Progressive political activity. And they were allowed to get away with this for far too long.

This tweet distills the Supreme Court Ruling to its essence:

As for Justice Kenedy’s announcement, I have several reactions.

Measured:

And honestly elated:

Perhaps this sums it up best:

As to those making Merrick Garland arguments:

See also:

Note everyone seemed as jubilant as myself:

But comfort and support was provided to those in need:

And let’s not forget last night’s Primary elections:

I’ll close with this:

It’s been a great 24 hours. It’s good to be back.

newer post  Rosenstein’s Telling House Testimony

older post  The Supreme Court’s Travel Ban Ruling & Justice Thomas on Nationwide Injunctions