HIGH COURT DEALS 7-2 BLOW AGAINST SEIU

Brietbart ^ | 6/21/2012 | Breitbart News

[KansasGirl]

Press release from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (AP story below): Washington, DC (June 21, 2012) - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 today, siding with nonmember California state employees challenging a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) political fee charged to them without notice and opportunity to opt out.   The case concludes a prolonged legal challenge affecting some 36,000 California government employees initiated by eight California civil servants who filed a class-action lawsuit with free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.   In 2005, SEIU officials imposed a “special assessment” to raise money from all state employees forced to accept union representation as a job condition for a union political fund, regardless of their membership status. The fund was used to defeat four ballot proposals, including one that would have revoked public employee unions’ special privilege of using forced fees for politics unless an employee consents. Employees who refrained from union membership were given no chance to opt out of paying the SEIU’s political assessment.  

[KansasGirl]

Breyer and Kagan dissented.

[Upstate NY Guy]

Excellent.

[shibumi]

Well, it’s not the Healthcare ruling we were looking for, but it’s surely a good ruling and important in it’s own right.

I’m sure Andy Stern and his Thug Brigade are taken aback, not only by the ruling, but the margin. This means that Sotomayor and Ginsberg voted with the conservatives.

A brief moment of clarity in two otherwise addled minds.

[ILS21R]

Breyer and Kagan dissented.

They must be the smart ones. ; )

[Uncle Miltie]

Breyer and Kagan are Pro-Theft!

[tcrlaf]

The biggest story you are going to hear ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT on the Evening News Shows.

This has HUGE implications for the Union funding of Democrat political Campaigns, and everybody knows it. Which is why the Big Media is going to go COMPLETELY SILENT about it.

[Moonman62]

Great news, but why weren’t these types of lawsuits done many years ago?

[Sir Napsalot]

Don’t worry over much about their minds.

Their next opinions on the more important rulings WILL blow your (our) minds.

It is all a set up job.

[SamAdams76]

Imagine working a job, knowing that money was being deducted from your paycheck in order to fund the Obama for president campaign or the Elizabeth Warren for senate campaign.

I wouldn't be able to do it.

Glad to see that the union workers can now opt out of this political extortion scheme.

[Impala64ssa]

At the USPS membership in the APWU and the Mailhandlers unions are optional. Considering every fall they tell us to shut upo and vote for dems, and the pres of the NPMHU is one of Mumia Jamal’s lovers, this option is a no-brainer for me.

[DeaconBenjamin]

Fox led with this story an hour ago, NPR ignored it.

[DeaconBenjamin]

They’ve been litigating them for decades, and the unions keep violating the laws.

[concerned about politics]

BLOW AGAINST SEIU

ALL unions.
Before this ruling, union members were forced to pay additional fees for democrat campaigns. Many union members weren't democrat, but were forced to fund their campaigns anyway. This does away with that.

Because union members are no longer forced to financially support democrats, their union funding is going to go way down. The dem politicians must be freaking out right now. Union members are free to tell the democrats to stuff it!

[Scotswife]

so Kagan is even nuttier than Ginsburg.

wow.

[MinuteGal]

WHOO HOO !!!

Leni

[sportutegrl]

So will the unions be forced to give the money back?

[Flavious_Maximus]

Breyer and Kagan are the stupid ones. They wanted to continue the status quo, which was to force members to pay the fee.

Ginsburg and Sottomayer are the honest (less stupid) liberals.

[nutmeg]

Great news! Thanks, KansasGirl...

[oh8eleven]

This means that Sotomayor and Ginsberg voted with the conservatives. A brief moment of clarity in two otherwise addled minds.
I guarantee there was no "clarity" from these two commies. Not even for a millisecond.
It was accidental - they pushed the wrong button.

[PapaNew]

Any word on health care decisions? http://www.scotusblog.com/cover-it-live/ is still on 6/18 posts.

[Ramius]

Even a blind squirrel...

[MarineBrat]

Many years ago I worked for a school district maintenance division in California, where there was a strong union. I had no political leanings at the time. I was young and didn’t care about politics at all. But when it was time to join the union, and I saw that they would deduct money from my paycheck, I asked if it was lawful for me to *not join. When they begrudgingly said that I couldn’t legally be required to join, I declined the membership. They insinuated that my co-workers would dislike me for not joining, and that I wasn’t pulling my weight. Even as a political child, I knew that I would never voluntarily give money to a union.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

This is a nice little ruling but the single most critical battle in the GOP war for California is to be fought this fall.

The Union Goons will pull out the stops to defeat this because we are seeking to drain their lifeblood — massive amounts of guarnteed Union membership money in election after election, ad infinitum.

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California_%22Paycheck_Protection%22_Initiative_(2012)

The Union Thugs are already ramping up in a major way to defeat this prop that will kneecap them, and calling it “Paycheck Deception”.

It is critical that the California voters pass “Paycheck Protection”. This is a severe uphill fight because the California employees union will still have access to the full war chest in order to defeat this proposition.

Also, the stakes are as large for the California unions facing a lost of union dues for politicas, as it was for the Wisconsin Unions to face Scott Walkers reforms.

Se are going to need a repeat of Wisconsin in California.

I am on my knees begging all Freepers of any means to donate to the Paycheck Protection proposition. It doesn’t yet have a number but once we have a proposition number and a PAC, you wonderful, generous Conservatives are going to be sorely needed to help fund the campaign to pass this CRUCIAL proposition.

Nothing on the horizon could set the California Democrats back so far or so fast as passing Paycheck Protection.

[ChildOfThe60s]

A brief moment of clarity in two otherwise addled minds.

I doubt that. I imagine that the illegality of the union's actions was just so blatant that [even] they would have been embarrassed to support it. Much as they would probably have liked to do.

Not that any level of embarrassment will stop them from rubber stamping ObamaCare.

[publius911]

Many years ago I worked for a school district maintenance division in California, where there was a strong union.

Not so many years ago I joined a (rather large) public agency where union membership was required.
I was philosophically opposed to unions and asked what my options were.
I was told that I had to contribute an equal amount to a charity of their choice. All of which turned out to be liberal political activists.
I refused, and told them I would be willing to contribute to a charity of MY choice.

After a few months of dialog, the issue simply "went away."

Nothing changed until I retired.

[cardinal4]

This SCOTUS sucks, where are the other rulings?? They know what they are, why wont they tell us? The whole thing is like Geraldo opening that stupid safe..

[napscoordinator]

This was a no brainer. Seriously mandatory funds taken from pay checks for union???? Never should have gotten beyond first court room. Total waste of time for everyone. I could have easily ruled on this case with ZERO legal background.

[HIDEK6]

Breyer and Kagan dissented.

You mean we got Ruth Buzzi?

[BigEdLB]

At least Geraldo found an empty wine bottle.

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

Yessssss!!! Doing a Happy Dance here in California!

[evad]

"This was a no brainer."

And yet 2 of those boneheads dissented.

[RonF]

That Ballotpedia link doesn’t work.

[Norm Lenhart]

Here... I’ll win this for you. Just run the following in a radio ad as often as possible.

“In an era where an out of control Republican Congress has stripped the rights and liberties from disenfranchises people of color and sexual prefrence; now they are placing undue restrictions on hard working union members in a blatant attempt to fill their coffers for the coming election.

STOP THEM NOW!

Pass the Paycheck Protection act so that Romney and the GOP can’t siphon off hard earned money and poor disenfranchised homosexual minority children go without baby formula.”

Guaranteed to win in all lib markets. Truth, as Obama has shown, does not matter.

[RonF]

From the link:

Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan dissented from the opinion. "If the union's basic administrative system does not violate the Constitution, then how could its special assessment have done so?" Breyer said.

Because special is different from basic. I don't see how hard that logic is.

[Stanwood_Dave]

"A brief moment of clarity in two otherwise addled minds."

Hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day. ;-)

[Covenantor]

Hmmm...Given a GOP administration I would surmise that Dept of Labor would require posting this option at all union workplaces and maybe even in labor literature.

With this admin I wonder. What enforcement is really possible?

[Leep]

This will slow them down a little. however, they’ll figure out another way to fund their agendas.
Its what they do.

[Peet]

 This was a no brainer. Seriously mandatory funds taken from
 pay checks for union???? Never should have gotten beyond
 first court room. Total waste of time for everyone. I could
 have easily ruled on this case with ZERO legal background.

What? You think that freedom of association thing means something?

Liberals don't. You can take that to the bank.

I once recieved my two-weeks notice, initiated by the union because I refused to sign the payroll deduction. A call to the personnel office confirmed that, yes, they WOULD fire me because "it is in the contract" and "our hands are tied."

[I typed what I think of unions here, but deleted it. The only acceptable words in it were "communist," "whorehouse," and "Tijuana" and I'm not sure those are OK.]

[re_nortex]

ALL unions.

I have long advocated the dismantling of all unions. They are nothing more than extortion rackets. It's not just those in the public sector but all of these corrupt outfits. They were born out the international socialist movement by the likes of Bill Haywood, Samuel Gompers, John Lewis and Eugene Debs. All of these were anti-American, anti-business despicable characters. They bred the evil that we see today personified by thugs such as Andy Stern and Dick Trumka.

At best, unions should be prosecuted to the fullest extent using the RICO laws. If that's not possible (although in a just world, it should be), every single state should enact Right to Work laws. Eliminating forced unionism will ultimately mean the elimination of unions. Can you imagine the economic juggernaut America would become when enterprise is freed the union stranglehold?

[Wizdum]

so Kagan is the nuttier replacement for Ginsburg.

Fixed.

[Steve1789]

Imagine working a job, knowing that money was being deducted from your paycheck in order to fund the Obama for president campaign or the Elizabeth Warren for senate campaign.

I wouldn't be able to do it.

... to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical ...

--Thomas Jefferson

[Rome2000]

The Commie union bosses can keep playing their games in court with their flying monkey lawyers, but the red sons of bitches are going to get what they deserve real soon.

That son of a bitch Warren in US Vs. Brown threw out the provision in Taft Hartley that required union leadership to sign affidavits that they were not communists.

As a result, union leadership is comprised of nothing but.

We are getting ready to hit the CPUSA and the communist American labor movement so hard that they wont have time to crawl back under the rocks they came out from.

No worker in the US should be held hostage to unions period, compulsory union dues are unconstitutional under the first and 14th amendments, and the unions need to be stripped of their ability to steal money from workers paychecks on a national level.

If the workers love unions so much they will be happy to voluntarily send them dues.

Criminalize Government employee unions, blatantly illegal mechanisms for raping taxpayers by bribing leftist politicians with money and votes in exchange for unsustainable compensation and benefits.

There’s nothing patently illegal about a POTUS issuing an executive order immediately ending withholding of union dues nationwide, and ordering the National Labor Relations Board to enforce the Presidents decision

Lets fight it out in the courts, and lets make it a campaign issue, with the promise to end compulsory withholding of union dues one of the first acts of the new GOP Administration.

Its stupid to allow the left (Communists) to use the same mechanism the IRS uses to extort money from workers.

U.S. Supreme Court UNITED STATES v. BROWN, 381 U.S. 437 (1965) 381 U.S. 437

UNITED STATES v. BROWN. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT. No. 399.

Argued March 29, 1965.

Decided June 7, 1965.

Respondent was convicted under 504 of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, which makes it a crime for one who belongs to the Communist Party or who has been a member thereof during the preceding five years wilfully to serve as a member of the executive board of a labor organization. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding 504 violative of the First and Fifth Amendments. Held: Section 504 constitutes a bill of attainder and is therefore unconstitutional. Pp. 441-462.

(a) The Bill of Attainder Clause, Art. I, 9, cl. 3, was intended to implement the separation of powers among the three branches of the Government by guarding against the legislative exercise of judicial power. Pp. 441-446.

(b) The Bill of Attainder Clause is to be liberally construed in the light of its purpose to prevent legislative punishment of designated persons or groups. Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277; Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333; United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303 . Pp. 447-449.

(c) In designating Communist Party members as those persons who cannot hold union office, Congress has exceeded its Commerce Clause power to enact generally applicable legislation disqualifying from positions affecting interstate commerce persons who may use such positions to cause political strikes. Pp. 449-452.

(d) Section 504 is distinguishable from such conflict-of-interest statutes as 32 of the Banking Act, where Congress was legislating with respect to general characteristics rather than with respect to the members of a specific group. Pp. 453-455.

(e) The designation of Communist Party membership cannot be justified as an alternative, “shorthand” expression for the characteristics which render men likely to incite political strikes. Pp. 455-456.

(f) A statute which inflicts its deprivation upon named or described persons or groups constitutes a bill of attainder whether its aim is retributive, punishing past acts, or preventive, discouraging future conduct. In American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382 , where the Court upheld 9 (h) of the National [381 U.S. 437, 438] Labor Relations Act, the predecessor of 504, the Court erroneously assumed that only a law visiting retribution for past acts could constitute a bill of attainder, and misread the statute involved in United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303 , which it sought to distinguish from 9 (h), as being in that category. Pp. 456-460.

(g) The legislative specification of those to whom the enacted sanction is to apply invalidates a provision as a bill of attainder whether the individuals are designated by name as in Lovett or by description as here. Pp. 461-462.

334 F.2d 488, affirmed.

Solicitor General Cox argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Assistant Attorney General Yeagley, Nathan Lewin, Kevin T. Maroney and George B. Searls.

Richard Gladstein argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Norman Leonard.

Briefs of amici curiae, urging affirmance, were filed by Melvin L. Wulf for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California et al., and by Victor Rabinowitz and Leonard B. Boudin for the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this case we review for the first time a conviction under 504 of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, which makes it a crime for a member of the Communist Party to serve as an officer or (except in clerical or custodial positions) as an employee of a labor union. 1 Section 504, the purpose of which is to protect [381 U.S. 437, 439] the national economy by minimizing the danger of political strikes, 2 was enacted to replace 9 (h) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended by the Taft-Hartley Act, which conditioned a union’s access to the National Labor Relations Board upon the filing of affidavits by all of the union’s officers attesting that they were not members of or affiliated with the Communist Party. 3 [381 U.S. 437, 440]

Respondent has been a working longshoreman on the San Francisco docks, and an open and avowed Communist, for more than a quarter of a century. He was elected to the Executive Board of Local 10 of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union for consecutive one-year terms in 1959, 1960, and 1961. On May 24, 1961, respondent was charged in a one-count indictment returned in the Northern District of California with “knowingly and wilfully serv[ing] as a member of an executive board of a labor organization . . . while a member of the Communist Party, in wilful violation of Title 29, United States Code, Section 504.” It was neither charged nor proven that respondent at any time advocated or suggested illegal activity by the union, or proposed a political strike. 4 The jury found respondent guilty, and he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, reversed and remanded with instructions to set aside the conviction and dismiss the indictment, holding that 504 violates the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. 334 F.2d 488. We granted certiorari, 379 U.S. 899 .

Respondent urges - in addition to the grounds relied on by the court below - that the statute under which he was convicted is a bill of attainder, and therefore violates Art. I, 9, of the Constitution. 5 We agree that 504 is void as a bill of attainder and affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals on that basis. We therefore find it unnecessary to consider the First and Fifth Amendment arguments. [381 U.S. 437, 441]

[Rome2000]

Seriously mandatory funds taken from pay checks for union????

This case does nothing to stop that very practice that occurs today in all forced union states.

You don't pay dues, you don't work, period.

This case was about an ADDITIONAL amount of money on top of dues that was being extorted to fund communist politicians campaigns in California.

[4Liberty]

[dadfly]

i think i can laud the work of both NRTW organizations. the committee arm really did yoeman work in the wisconsin recall for instance. they ask for very small contributions and i'm sending them more, today. NRTW Committee and the complementary legal defense arm: NRTW Defense Fund obviously, as a californian. i'm greatful for this small respite from the statist onslaught. do your own vetting.

[1010RD]

My union came after me for the portion of the dues my company didn’t pay. Keep in mind the company was still in business. I never did like the union or feel that it was good. Once I got that letter I knew it was a conspiracy of union insiders and the company against the members. I wrote them a terse letter that stated I don’t pay bills for someone else. They never collected from me.

[GOPJ]

Thanks for the ping.

[chessplayer]

Shocking this wasn’t a 9-0 vote. This was a no brainer.

[Republican Wildcat]

Opinion of the Court: Alito, Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy
Concurring Opinion: Sotomayor, Ginsburg

Dissenting Opinion: Breyer, Kagan

[Repeal 16-17]

This means that Sotomayor and Ginsberg voted with the conservatives.

Yes, but they didn't agree with everything the majority opinion said (read the concurring opinion). They could only go so far in the right direction. Still, for Liberal Justices, they were surprisingly logical.