Slate "How SCOTUS could crush American democracy"

[NRaleighLiberal]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/the-lochner-era-is-set-for-a-comeback-at-the-supreme-court.html?via=homepage_taps_top

by Mark Joseph Stern

On Wednesday, shortly before Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, he silently joined one of the most devastating assaults on organized labor in the history of the Supreme Court. In Janus v. AFSCME, by a 5–4 vote, the court’s conservative majority crushed public-sector unions, undercutting thousands of contracts that affect 5 million workers in 22 states. The immediate result will be a precipitous drop in wages and benefits for government employees and a permanent decline in unions’ bargaining power.

Janus is the culmination of several recent 5–4 decisions in which the court’s conservatives laid the groundwork for a fatal blow to public sector unions. But its true predecessor is Lochner v. New York, the notorious 1905 decision that turbocharged the court’s pro-business interventions into health, safety, and economic regulation. This term, Kennedy helped the court revive Lochner in Janus and two other sweeping 5–4 decisions that undermined labor rights and women’s health. His successor is certain to accelerate this trend, all but ensuring an impending judicial crisis.

Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in Janus is the most egregious example of Lochner-ism in modern judicial history. It reverses a 1977 decision, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court ruled that public sector unions may collect “fair share” fees from nonmembers to fund collective bargaining. To justify overturning Abood, Alito declared that fair share fees impose an unconstitutionally “heavy burden” on nonunion members’ First Amendment rights. Why? Because, to Alito, all union speech—including negotiations over salaries, health insurance, and child care benefits—is fundamentally political.

This analysis is sheer nonsense. Fittingly, given Alito’s unabashed hostility toward unions, it rests on the dubious presumption that demands for basic workplace benefits are inherently “political.” And it flouts precedent that gives the government wide latitude to restrict public employees’ speech, even on matters of public concern. Alito essentially carved out an exception to the general First Amendment rules for the express purpose of hobbling unions. His decision was pure partisan politics, a handout to the “right to work” movement.


snip = long but excellent and horrifying read

[dalton99a]

1. Which makes it imperative for Democrats to consider expanding the court

as a path forward out of this dystopia

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

3. Could see the peeResident and his Rethug henchmen doing that right now anyway to stack the

Court with conservatives for decades... what's to stop him?! Scary stuff!

[bucolic_frolic]

2. You mean MONEY is not free speech here?

Republican money is free speech, but union members demands for improved working conditions are not?

Alito is all about the use and abuse of power. We are being strong-armed.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. The ruling regarding Free Speech makes no sense.

There is no logic to it.

If this premise is valid, wouldn't your free speech rights be violated if you worked for Gulf Oil and Gulf Oil made huge donations to the RNC, to the Re-election of Donald Trump, etc.? Your labor is a contribution toward such donations. Sure, sure, you get paid, but not the full amount of the value of the labor you put in. Therefore, the net profit of your labor going to Gulf Oil goes to a source you object to.

I can only hope this case is re-visited ONLY IF there is another balance in the USSC and it will be overturned.

[manor321]

5. Very good article

About the only options we have:
- Expand the court if we can (if Republicans don't do it before us)
- Impose term limits through Constitutional amendment
- Impeach Justices (make something up, based on Mueller results or McConnell actions)
- Write and pass laws to counteract the decisions, hopefully getting the laws past the justices

[unblock]

6. idiotic and hugely biased. a ceo is the leader of a *union* of investors.

unless it's a sole proprietorship, the ceo represents multiple investors. in the case of a public company, it could be many thousands of investors.

can i, as an investor, get a refund for my share of the ceo's pay? or for any spending the company enacts that i disagree with? can i negotiate on my own to hire employees for the company? can i get a refund for political donations the company makes that i disagree with?

no, if i want to invest in a company, i'm stuck paying my fair share of all expenses (not just negotiating with employees) and handing all control over to the ceo (other than the fact that in rare cases shareholders can cause a change in management).

this is remarkably like a labor union in a shop where all employees are required to be members of the union and pay not just the fair share for negotiating, but also the extra amount for overtly political activities by the union.


but for some reason the supreme court thinks it's all kinds of bad when it's a labor union but perfectly ok when it's an investor union.