Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/11pdf/10-1121c4d6.pdf
Page Number: 32

Cite as:  567 U. S. ____ (2012) 

5 

SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring in judgment 

To  make  matters  worse,  the  majority’s  answer  to  its
unasked  constitutional  question  is  not  even  clear.    After 
today,  must  a  union  undertaking  a  special  assessment  or 
dues  increase  obtain  affirmative  consent  to  collect  “any 
funds”  or  solely  to  collect  funds  for  nonchargeable  ex-
penses?  May  a  nonmember  opt  not  to  contribute  to  a 
special  assessment,  even  if  the  assessment  is  levied  to
fund  uncontestably  chargeable  activities?    Does  the  ma-
jority’s  new  rule  allow  for  any  distinction  between  non-
members  who  had  earlier  objected  to  the  payment  of 
nonchargeable  expenses  and  those  who  had  not?  What 
procedures govern this new world of fee collection? 

Moreover, while the majority’s novel rule is, on its face, 
limited  to  special  assessments  and  dues  increases,  the 
majority strongly hints that this line may not long endure.
The  majority  pronounces  the  Court’s  explicit  holding  in 
Machinists  v.  Street,  367  U. S.  740,  774  (1961)—that 
“dissent  is  not  to  be  presumed[,]  it  must  affirmatively  be 
made  known  to  the  union  by  the  dissenting  employee”—
nothing  but  an  “offhand  remark,”  made  by  Justices  who 
did  not  “pause  to  consider  the  broader  constitutional 
implications  of  an  affirmative  opt-out  requirement,”  ante, 
at 12.  The reader is told that our precedents’ “acceptance 
of the opt-out approach appears to have come about more
as  a  historical  accident  than  through  the  careful  applica-
tion of First Amendment principles.”  Ibid.  And that “[b]y 
authorizing  a  union  to  collect  fees  from  nonmembers  and 
permitting  the  use  of  an  opt-out  system  for  the  collection 

—————— 

majority’s  view,  unconstitutional.    But  if  the  Court  was  dissatisfied 
with  the  scope  of  the  questions  presented  here  it  should  not  have 
granted certiorari in this case.  Or having granted it, the Court should 
have asked for supplemental briefing on the question whether an opt-in 
regime  is  constitutionally  required.    What  it  should  not  have  done— 
cannot  do  under  our  rules—is  decide  that  question  without  having 
provided  the  parties  and  potential  amici  an  opportunity  to  weigh  in 
with their own considered views.