Tag: Supreme Court

Trump administration asks Supreme Court to overrule precedent helping unions

The following article by Robert Barnes was posted on the Washington Post website December 6, 2017:

The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington. Credit:
Carlos Barria/Reuters

The Trump administration on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to overrule a 40-year-old precedent that allows compelling public employees to pay some fees to unions that represent them, an important tool for the U.S. labor movement.

It was another dramatic reversal in a high-profile case before the high court, and at least the third time since President Trump’s inauguration that the Justice Department has renounced its past positions, some held for decades.

It puts the administration squarely on the side of conservative legal activists, who have complained for years that the requirement violates the free-speech rights of those who don’t want to join the union or pay fees to it.

The Supreme Court precedent the administration wants to overturn says that unions may charge all employees for the cost of collective bargaining, but not for the union’s political activities. About 20 states allow that practice.

The Obama administration supported the unions in previous challenges, and when the issue was last before the court in January 2016. It appeared from oral arguments that challenge would be successful, but Justice Antonin Scalia died a month later, and the court announced that it had split, 4 to 4, on the issue.

With Justice Neil M. Gorsuch taking Scalia’s place, the court announced in September it was taking a new challenge on the issue.

“The government reconsidered the question” after the new grant, says the brief filed by Solicitor General Neal J. Francisco. “The government’s previous briefs gave insufficient weight to the First Amendment interest of public employees in declining to fund speech on contested matters of public policy.”

The court’s decision in 1977’s Abood v. Detroit Board of Education “is inconsistent with prevailing First Amendment precedent and should be overruled.”

It is at least the third time since the election that the Justice Department has switched its position on an issue at the Supreme Court. While different views are expected when control of the White House moves from one party to another, they can sometimes cause problems for the government lawyers who argue at the high court.

The office of the solicitor general, which represents the government at the Supreme Court, is supposed to supply the court with a consistent view of the law without undue partisan considerations.

The Trump administration already has changed its view on one case involving worker’s rights that created a rift with the National Labor Relations Board. In another, it changed the Justice Department’s long-standing position on how states may purge inactive voters from the rolls.

The Abood decision said states could allow public-employee unions to collect fees from nonmembers to cover the costs of workplace negotiations but not the union’s political activities.

The unions say losing those fees would be a heavy blow because there is no incentive for workers to pay for collective-bargaining representation they could receive free.

But conservative activists — and conservative justices in recent cases — have sharply questioned whether it is possible to separate public-employee negotiations from the kind of public-policy questions — teacher salaries and classroom sizes, for instance, and the tax dollars needed to pay for them — that are raised.

The lead plaintiff in the new case is Mark Janus, a child-support specialist at the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services. The case is Janus v. AFSCME Council 31.

View the post here.

Trump’s travel ban may expire before it reaches the Supreme Court

The following column by the Washington Post Editorial Board was posted on their website September 10, 2017:

ONCE AGAIN, a federal court has ruled against the Trump adminis

FILE – In this May 15, 2017 file photo, protesters wave signs and chant during a demonstration against President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban outside a federal courthouse in Seattle. 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Thursday, Sept. 7, 2017, rejected the Trump administration’s limited view of who is allowed into the United States under the president’s travel ban, saying grandparents, cousins and similarly close relations of people in the U.S. should not be prevented from coming to the country. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File) (Ted S. Warren/AP)

ration’s temporary ban on admission into the United States of refugees and citizens of six majority-Muslim countries. And once again, the Justice Department is appealing the ruling to the Supreme Court — this time arguing that the government should not have to exclude from the ban grandparents or other close family members of people within the United States, along with refugees sponsored by American resettlement organizations, while the case is pending before the court.

It’s not clear what the Justice Department hopes to gain by appealing this injunction against Mr. Trump’s executive order, as the Supreme Court was already set to hear arguments on the ban’s legality on Oct. 10. What’s more, a significant portion of the ban will likely have expired by that date — and the rest before the justices can even rule on the case.

Mr. Trump’s order halts entry into the United States by citizens of the six banned countries for 90 days and suspends refugee admissions for 120 days. After courts blocked the ban, Mr. Trump clarified that these clocks would begin ticking as soon as the policy was allowed to go into effect. Because the Supreme Court lifted in part the lower-court injunctions against the order on June 26, the refugee ban will expire in late October, and the entry ban at the end of September. Continue reading “Trump’s travel ban may expire before it reaches the Supreme Court”

Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee Puts the Rights of Corporations over Individuals

The following article by Billy Corriher was posted on the Think Progress website March 13, 2017:

(AP/Andrew Harnik)
Supreme Court Justice nominee Neil Gorsuch meets with Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) on Capitol Hill in Washington, February 14, 2017.

Judge Neil Gorsuch thinks that corporations are people, entitled to broad rights of religious freedom and free speech under the First Amendment. Corporations could use these rights as an excuse to deny their workers certain health care insurance, to discriminate against certain customers, or to spend big money to influence elections.

The U.S. Supreme Court, under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, has significantly broadened the rights of corporations, often to the detriment of workers and consumers.1 Before the death of Justice Antonin Scalia a year ago, big business was on a winning streak at the Court. The 5-4 conservative majority—Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito—made it harder for employees and consumers to file class action lawsuits, and the Court made it easier for corporations to force consumers into mandatory arbitration.2 The Roberts Court also limited the reach of employment discrimination laws and other rules that protect workers.3 Continue reading “Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee Puts the Rights of Corporations over Individuals”

Rightward Turn By Supreme Court Will Greatly Affect Women

The following article by Cynthia Tucker Haynes was posted on the National Memo website February 3, 2017:

Activists hold signs as they rally in support of Planned Parenthood on “National Pink Out Day” on the steps of City Hall in Los Angeles, California September 29, 2015. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

A new right-wing justice won’t change the Supreme Court. The confirmation of Neil Gorsuch — and he is quite likely to be confirmed — won’t alter its makeup. A committed ultraconservative, Gorsuch would take the place of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who was also a committed (and combative) ultraconservative.

Still, President Donald Trump is likely to get the chance to change the court — and to abolish Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized reproductive rights. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing voter who has kept Roe alive, is 80 years old. The reliably liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 83 and ailing. And liberal Justice Steven Breyer is 78. Their ages alone suggest relatively short service ahead.  Continue reading “Rightward Turn By Supreme Court Will Greatly Affect Women”