Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-1466_2b3j.pdf
Page Number: 40

Cite as:  585 U. S. ____ (2018) 

35 

Opinion of the Court 

opments since the decision was handed down, and reliance 
on the decision.  After analyzing these factors, we conclude 
that stare decisis does not require us to retain Abood. 

A 
An important factor in determining whether a precedent
should  be  overruled  is  the  quality  of  its  reasoning,  see 
Citizens  United,  558  U. S.,  at  363–364;  id.,  at  382–385 
(ROBERTS, C. J., concurring); Lawrence, 539 U. S., at 577– 
578,  and  as  we  explained  in  Harris,  Abood  was  poorly
reasoned, see 573 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 17–20).  We 
will  summarize,  but  not  repeat,  Harris’s  lengthy  discus­
sion of the issue. 

Abood  went  wrong  at  the  start  when  it  concluded  that
two  prior  decisions,  Railway  Employes  v.  Hanson,  351 
U. S.  225  (1956),  and  Machinists  v.  Street,  367  U. S.  740 
(1961),  “appear[ed]  to  require  validation  of  the  agency-
shop  agreement  before  [the  Court].”    431  U. S.,  at  226. 
Properly  understood,  those  decisions  did  no  such  thing.
Both  cases  involved  Congress’s  “bare  authorization”  of 
private-sector  union  shops  under  the  Railway  Labor  Act. 
Street,  supra,  at  749  (emphasis  added).24  Abood  failed  to 
appreciate that a very different First Amendment question 
—————— 

24 No  First  Amendment  issue  could  have  properly  arisen  in  those
cases  unless  Congress’s  enactment  of  a  provision  allowing,  but  not 
requiring,  private  parties  to  enter  into  union-shop  arrangements  was 
sufficient  to  establish  governmental  action.    That  proposition  was 
debatable  when  Abood  was  decided,  and  is  even  more  questionable 
today.  See  American  Mfrs.  Mut.  Ins.  Co.  v.  Sullivan,  526  U. S.  40,  53 
(1999);  Jackson  v.  Metropolitan  Edison  Co.,  419  U. S.  345,  357  (1974). 
Compare,  e.g.,  White  v.  Communications  Workers  of  Am.,  AFL–CIO, 
Local  13000,  370  F. 3d  346,  350  (CA3  2004)  (no  state  action),  and 
Kolinske v. Lubbers, 712 F. 2d 471, 477–478 (CADC 1983) (same), with 
Beck  v.  Communications  Workers  of  Am.,  776  F. 2d  1187,  1207  (CA4 
1985) (state action), and Linscott v. Millers Falls Co., 440 F. 2d 14, 16, 
and  n.  2  (CA1  1971)  (same).    We  reserved  decision  on  this  question  in 
Communications Workers v. Beck, 487 U. S. 735, 761 (1988), and do not 
resolve it here.