How Scalia's death blew up an anti-union group's grand legal strategy
The anti-union lawsuit known as Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Assn. is widely viewed as one of the leading casualties of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's death.
What's less well-known is how the anti-union plaintiffs connived to fast-track the case through the federal judiciary in order to get it before the court while it still harbored a conservative majority. Their method was to encourage the lower courts to rule against them, so they could file a quick appeal. But Scalia's passing is likely to leave a 4-4 deadlock over the case, so the last ruling, in which the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the union, remains in force.
Everything that is collectively bargained with the government is within the political sphere, almost by definition.
- The late Justice Antonin Scalia in January, firing a broadside at union "agency fees"
This wasn't how the anti-union group behind the lawsuit, the Center for Individual Rights, expected things to work out. As we write, the group's website still features a photograph of nominal plaintiff Rebecca Friedrichs and the center's lawyers standing in front of the Supreme Court on Jan. 10, looking pretty chuffed at oral arguments that morning that plainly went their way. The poet Robert Burns had a line for the subsequent developments: "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley."*
Here's the background...................................
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-scalia-s-death-anti-union-group-legal-strategy-20160214-column.html
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