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Page Number: 49

44  JANUS v. STATE, COUNTY, AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES 

Opinion of the Court 

cases holding that public employees generally may not be 
required to support a political party.  See Elrod, 427 U. S. 
347;  Branti,  445  U. S.  507;  Rutan,  497  U. S.  62;  O’Hare 
Truck  Service,  Inc.  v.  City  of  Northlake,  518  U. S.  712 
(1996).  The Court reached that conclusion despite a “long 
tradition”  of  political  patronage  in  government.    Rutan, 
supra,  at  95  (Scalia,  J.,  dissenting);  see  also  Elrod,  427 
U. S.,  at  353  (plurality  opinion);  id.,  at  377–378  (Powell, 
J.,  dissenting).  It  is  an  odd  feature  of  our  First  Amend­
ment  cases  that  political  patronage  has  been  deemed 
largely  unconstitutional,  while  forced  subsidization  of
union speech (which has no such pedigree) has been largely 
permitted.  As  Justice  Powell  observed:  “I  am  at  a  loss 
to understand why the State’s decision to adopt the agency
shop in the public sector should be worthy of greater defer­
ence, when challenged on First Amendment grounds, than
its  decision  to  adhere  to  the  tradition  of  political  patron­
age.”  Abood,  supra,  at  260,  n. 14  (opinion  concurring  in 
judgment)  (citing  Elrod,  supra,  at  376–380,  382–387 
(Powell,  J.,  dissenting);  emphasis  added).    We  have  no 
occasion  here  to  reconsider  our  political  patronage  deci­
sions, but Justice Powell’s observation is sound as far as it 
goes.  By overruling Abood, we end the oddity of privileg­
ing compelled union support over compelled party support 
and  bring  a  measure  of  greater  coherence  to  our  First 
Amendment law. 

D 

In  some  cases,  reliance  provides  a  strong  reason  for 
adhering  to  established  law,  see,  e.g.,  Hilton  v.  South 
Carolina Public Railways Comm’n, 502 U. S. 197, 202–203 
(1991), and this is the factor that is stressed most strongly 
by  respondents,  their  amici,  and  the  dissent.    They  con­
tend  that  collective-bargaining  agreements  now  in  effect 
were negotiated with agency fees in mind and that unions
may  have  given  up  other  benefits  in  exchange  for  provi­