Public Unions vs. the First Amendment

The Supreme Court on Monday will hear the landmark First Amendment case Janus v. Afscme that challenges whether public employees can be compelled to subsidize union advocacy. As Thomas Jefferson once wrote, requiring “a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical”—and unconstitutional. Janus gives the Supreme Court another crack at its flawed Abood (1977) precedent that let governments force nonunion public employees to pay “agency fees.” A 4-4 Court split in Friedrichs v. CTA (2016) after Justice Antonin Scalia’s death left Abood standing, but perhaps not for long.