The Supreme Court said Tuesday that it will consider next term whether the rights of government workers are violated when they are compelled to pay fees to unions they do not want to join.
The justices will consider a case from a group of California teachers who say paying fees violates their free speech rights when they disagree with the positions the unions take.
The Supreme Court nearly 40 years ago said that states may allow unions to collect fees from non-members to pay for collective bargaining costs, but not for the political spending the unions do.
But conservatives on the court have expressed doubt about the precedent, and came a vote short last year of overturning it. Instead, the court decided a case from Illinois on narrower grounds.
[Supreme Court says home health-care workers can’t be required to pay union fees]
The case is Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association.
The court also will return to the issue of reapportionment in Arizona, just a day after validating an independent commission to which the state’s voters delegated redistricting powers. The court accepted a case that says the supposedly nonpartisan independent commission was too partisan in its redistricting decisions.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote about the case extensively in his dissent to the court’s 5-to-4 ruling that Arizona voters had the right to cut the legislature out of redistricting decisions.
A district court panel ruled that partisanship played some role in the development of the commission’s plan but did not rise to the level of constitutional violation.
“A finding that the partisanship in the redistricting plan did not violate the Constitution hardly proves that the commission is operating free of partisan influence — and certainly not that it complies with the Elections Clause,” Roberts wrote.
The case is Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...f30-11e5-aeb9-a411a84c9d55_story.html?hpid=z1
The justices will consider a case from a group of California teachers who say paying fees violates their free speech rights when they disagree with the positions the unions take.
The Supreme Court nearly 40 years ago said that states may allow unions to collect fees from non-members to pay for collective bargaining costs, but not for the political spending the unions do.
But conservatives on the court have expressed doubt about the precedent, and came a vote short last year of overturning it. Instead, the court decided a case from Illinois on narrower grounds.
[Supreme Court says home health-care workers can’t be required to pay union fees]
The case is Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association.
The court also will return to the issue of reapportionment in Arizona, just a day after validating an independent commission to which the state’s voters delegated redistricting powers. The court accepted a case that says the supposedly nonpartisan independent commission was too partisan in its redistricting decisions.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote about the case extensively in his dissent to the court’s 5-to-4 ruling that Arizona voters had the right to cut the legislature out of redistricting decisions.
A district court panel ruled that partisanship played some role in the development of the commission’s plan but did not rise to the level of constitutional violation.
“A finding that the partisanship in the redistricting plan did not violate the Constitution hardly proves that the commission is operating free of partisan influence — and certainly not that it complies with the Elections Clause,” Roberts wrote.
The case is Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...f30-11e5-aeb9-a411a84c9d55_story.html?hpid=z1
