Supreme Court's tie vote upholds public employee fees for unions

LA Times ^ | 03/29/2016 | David Savage

[USCG SimTech]

To those who did not vote for Romney in the last election, “thanks a pantload.” Your refusal to go with the lesser of two evils gave us the greater of two evils. Lovely. And the stakes will be even higher in this election. It’s existential, people. We’re on a knife-edge.

Conservatives are anxious and happy to ride their morality ideals and Utopia visions all the way to the depths of hell and pull their children down with them.

You use your vote as a weapon to STOP damage, not to elect whom you want to get in. Democrats learned this 50 years ago.

[BuckeyeTexan]

It’s not a new precedent and not national law. The states decide. The following is from a NYT article earlier this year.

In the 1977 decision, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, the Supreme Courtmade a distinction between two kinds of compelled payments. Forcing nonmembers to pay for a union’s political activities violated the First Amendment, the court said. But it was constitutional, the court added, to require nonmembers to help pay for the union’s collective bargaining efforts to prevent freeloading and ensure “labor peace.”

[NonValueAdded]

I know many, as did I, ate the excrement sammich (yet again). But several on this forum boast of their not voting for Romney. J’accuse.

The proper fight is what is taking place now, the battle for the standard bearer of the opposition to the dark side. The battle needs to be taken further to the precinct level, making sure that the GOPe is unseated. But once the die is cast it is time to suck it up. That Jugears got a second term should be sufficient notice.

[Sans-Culotte]

Better yet. Let’s learn a lesson from this. Congress needs to pass a law reducing the court to only eight members and make it MANDATORY that it has to be staffed with four commie libs and four normal people. This would take the political activism out of the court and make it more of a mediocre court rather than a SUPREME court. Works for me.

The trouble with that is that a tie affirms the lower court ruling. The libs would merely run their cases through liberal lower courts knowing that a 4-4 tie will not overturn the lower court's decision.

[xzins]

If Obama’s pick had been there, he would not have voted to take away union power.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Don’t need a conspiracy theory.

He probably died of natural causes. But he DID die in a convenient moment for Obola.

[JSteff]

Those on FR who either did NOT vote against the left, or failed to vote at all are as culpable as those who actually voted for the left (OBAMA and minions).
Go back and research my name and posts. OVER and OVER I warned this would happen. Also said over and over that we were just to close to the line and as the conservatives SCOTUS we were/ NOW are in trouble.
Romney was no good but is he this bad?
FOOLS!!!
Choke on this SCOTUS ruling. This is (as I noted) exactly what was MOST important to the left... NOT the Presidency, but SCOTUS!
lIVE WITH IT NOW AND FOR DECADES Fools!!!

[Stat Man]

I agree with you completely.

And the pathetic thing is, you can tell from the Trumpers hate towards Cruz and everyone elses hate towards Trump that very, very few conservatives and/or Republicans have learned a darn thing, and are going to repeat the same fatal mistake in November.

Our freedom is rapidly leaving, but that's what we deserve.

[fireman15]

This is what I was caught up in for 25 years. I was forced to pay thousands of dollars a year to an organization that was working against what I believed in.

[i_robot73]

Better yet, what good is GOVT if it will not support, follow, abide..by the Constitution?

[i_robot73]

A monopoly cannot exist WITHOUT govt. It’s one big $$-laundering scheme

[ripsap]

The supreme court is supposed to say if something is constitutional. They are not supposed to make law, abortion is an easy example, constitution says its up to states because it is not specifically in the constitution.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Yup! Just heard Clinton say that the Wepublicans are politicizing the Supreme Court. The woman is totally clueless and she wants to be president. Dumb. Really dumb. The SCOTUS already is a political, lawmaking branch of the Federal government. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be having this fight. IMHO.

[Jim W N]

The Abood v. Detroit Board of Education was effective only upon the parties in involved, not all parties everywhere as is commonly supposed and followed. (AND a federal question case is legitimately effective ONLY IF the opinion and decision was reasonably based on the Constitution as written and originally understood and intended.)

All governments, state and federal, follow this constitutional perversion as easily seen with cases like Roe v. Wade. The feds and the states took Roe v. Wade as national federal law, a wrong conclusion on two counts. One, the decision was not constitutional, and two, even if the decision was constitutional, it was effective only upon the parties of the case.

[Impy]

(insert profanity)

Critical case. Tie goes to the runner in baseball, in court, I guess it goes in favor of not overturning a lower court?

Damn we miss you, Justice Scalia.

[stephenjohnbanker]

“Damn we miss you, Justice Scalia.”

Indeed!

[SunkenCiv]

Weird that they hurried up to hear the case, eh?

[Svartalfiar]

No, but it is treated as such. Whatever the case was that the 9th Circuit decided, it applies ONLY to the parties involved, just as the Roe v. Wade decision SHOULD have constitutionally affected ONLY the parties involved, NOT the whole country.

Correct, except that when they render their verdict, lower courts are going to follow that decision in any other cases they have. If another case gets to the SC, theoretically it should get the same answer as the original case, so there's not much point in lower courts issuing an opposite ruling.

[Jim W N]

The two issues are

1) Is the decision constitutional? If not, the lower courts should question the decision based on constitutional reasoning.

2) If the decision is constitutional, it is mandatory authority for lower courts only for the same questions of law and fact. No national law or sweeping judicial edict has been made.