Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-1466_2b3j.pdf
Page Number: 24

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

19 

Opinion of the Court 

Brief  for  Union  Respondent  47–57.  Taking  away  free
speech  protection  for  public  employees  would  mean 
overturning  decades  of  landmark  precedent.    Under  the 
Union’s  theory,  Pickering  v.  Board  of  Ed.  of  Township 
High School Dist. 205, Will Cty., 391 U. S. 563 (1968), and 
its progeny would fall.  Yet Pickering, as we will discuss, is 
now  the  foundation  for  respondents’  chief  defense  of 
Abood.  And indeed, Abood itself would have to go if public 
employees  have  no  free  speech  rights,  since  Abood  holds 
that the First Amendment prohibits the exaction of agency 
fees for political or ideological purposes.  431 U. S., at 234– 
235 (finding it “clear” that “a government may not require 
an  individual  to  relinquish  rights  guaranteed  him  by  the 
First  Amendment  as  a  condition  of  public  employment”).
Our political patronage cases would be doomed.  See, e.g., 
Rutan  v.  Republican  Party  of  Ill.,  497  U. S.  62  (1990); 
Branti v. Finkel, 445 U. S. 507 (1980); Elrod v. Burns, 427 
U. S. 347 (1976).  Also imperiled would be older precedents
like  Wieman  v.  Updegraff,  344  U. S.  183  (1952)  (loyalty 
oaths), Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479 (1960) (disclosure
of  memberships  and  contributions),  and  Keyishian  v. 
Board  of  Regents  of  Univ.  of  State  of  N.  Y.,  385  U. S.  589 
(1967) (subversive speech).  Respondents presumably want 
none  of  this,  desiring 
instead  that  we  apply  the 
Constitution’s  supposed  original  meaning  only  when  it
suits them—to retain the part of Abood that they like.  See 
Tr. of Oral Arg. 56–57.  We will not engage in this halfway 
originalism.

Nor, in any event, does the First Amendment’s original 
meaning  support  the  Union’s  claim.    The  Union  offers  no 
persuasive  founding-era  evidence  that  public  employees 
were understood to lack free speech protections.  While it 
observes  that  restrictions  on  federal  employees’  activities 
have existed since the First Congress, most of its historical 
examples  involved  limitations  on  public  officials’  outside
business  dealings,  not  on  their  speech.    See  Ex  parte