Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/585/16-1466/
Timestamp: 2019-11-22 07:00:55
Document Index: 539275743

Matched Legal Cases: ['§315', '§315', '§315', '§19', '§3546', '§315']

Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees :: 585 U.S. ___ (2018) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center
Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 585 › Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees
If a union is designated as the exclusive representative of Illinois public sector employees it represents even those who do not join; individual employees may not be represented by another agent or negotiate directly with their employer. Nonmembers are required to pay an “agency fee,” a percentage of the full union dues to cover union expenditures attributable to activities “germane” to the union’s collective bargaining activities, but may not cover the union’s political and ideological projects. The union sets the agency fee annually and sends nonmembers notices explaining the basis for the fee. Janus, a state employee represented by a public-sector union, challenged the constitutionality of the state law authorizing agency fees. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of his suit.
The Supreme Court reversed, overruling its 1977 holding, “Abood,” as inconsistent with First Amendment principles. Illinois law compelled nonconsenting workers to subsidize the speech of other private speakers and cannot be justified by asserted interests in “labor peace,” which can readily be achieved through less restrictive means, or in avoiding “the risk of free riders,” because unions are willing to represent nonmembers without agency fees. Interests in bargaining with an adequately funded agent and improving the efficiency of the workforce do not suffice; unions can be effective without agency fees. The union speech at issue does not cover only matters of private concern but covers critically important public matters such as the state’s budget crisis, taxes, and collective bargaining issues related to education, child welfare, healthcare, and minority rights. The government’s proffered interests must, therefore, justify the heavy burden of agency fees on nonmembers’ First Amendment interests. They do not. The uncertain status of Abood, known to unions for years; Abood's lack of clarity; the short-term nature of collective-bargaining agreements; and the ability of unions to protect themselves if an agency-fee provision was crucial to operations, undermine the force of reliance on that decision. States and public-sector unions may no longer extract agency fees from nonconsenting employees.
No. 16–1466. Argued February 26, 2018—Decided June 27, 2018
MARK JANUS, PETITIONER v. AMERICAN FEDER- ATION OF STATE, COUNTY, AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES, COUNCIL 31, et al.
Designating a union as the employees’ exclusive representative substantially restricts the rights of individual employees. Among other things, this designation means that individual employees may not be represented by any agent other than the designated union; nor may individual employees negotiate directly with their employer. §§315/6(c)–(d), 315/10(a)(4); see Matthews v. Chicago Transit Authority, 2016 IL 117638, 51 N. E. 3d 753, 782; accord, Medo Photo Supply Corp. v. NLRB, 321 U. S. 678, 683–684 (1944). Protection of the employees’ interests is placed in the hands of the union, and therefore the union is required by law to provide fair representation for all employees in the unit, members and nonmembers alike. §315/6(d).
After the amount of the agency fee is fixed each year, the union must send nonmembers what is known as a Hudson notice. See Teachers v. Hudson, 475 U. S. 292 (1986). This notice is supposed to provide nonmembers with “an adequate explanation of the basis for the [agency] fee.” Id., at 310. If nonmembers “suspect that a union has improperly put certain expenses in the [chargeable] category,” they may challenge that determination. Harris, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 19).
It rests on the faulty premise that petitioner intervened in the action brought by the Governor, but that is not what happened. The District Court did not grant petitioner’s motion to intervene in that lawsuit. Instead, the court essentially treated petitioner’s amended complaint as the operative complaint in a new lawsuit. App. 110–112. And when the case is viewed in that way, any Article III issue vanishes. As the District Court recognized—and as respondents concede—petitioner was injured in fact by Illinois’ agency-fee scheme, and his injuries can be redressed by a favorable court decision. Ibid.; see Record 2312–2313, 2322–2323. Therefore, he clearly has Article III standing. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560–561 (1992). It is true that the District Court docketed petitioner’s complaint under the number originally assigned to the Governor’s complaint, instead of giving it a new number of its own. But Article III jurisdiction does not turn on such trivialities.
The sole decision on which respondents rely, United States ex rel. Texas Portland Cement Co. v. McCord, 233 U. S. 157 (1914), actually works against them. That case concerned a statute permitting creditors of a government contractor to bring suit on a bond between 6 and 12 months after the completion of the work. Id., at 162. One creditor filed suit before the 6-month starting date, but another intervened within the 6-to-12-month window. The Court held that the “[t]he intervention [did] not cure th[e] vice in the original [prematurely filed] suit,” but the Court also contemplated treating “intervention . . . as an original suit” in a case in which the intervenor met the requirements that a plaintiff must satisfy—e.g., filing a separate complaint and properly serving the defendants. Id., at 163–164. Because that is what petitioner did here, we may reach the merits of the question presented.
In Abood, the Court upheld the constitutionality of an agency-shop arrangement like the one now before us, 431 U. S., at 232, but in more recent cases we have recognized that this holding is “something of an anomaly,” Knox v. Service Employees, 567 U. S. 298, 311 (2012), and that Abood’s “analysis is questionable on several grounds,” Harris, 573 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 17); see id., at ___–___ (slip op., at 17–20) (discussing flaws in Abood’s reasoning). We have therefore refused to extend Abood to situations where it does not squarely control, see Harris, supra, at ___–___ (slip op., at 27–29), while leaving for another day the question whether Abood should be overruled, Harris, supra, at ___, n. 19 (slip op., at 27, n. 19); see Knox, supra, at 310–311.
The First Amendment, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, forbids abridgment of the freedom of speech. We have held time and again that freedom of speech “includes both the right to speak freely and the right to refrain from speaking at all.” Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705, 714 (1977); see Riley v. National Federation of Blind of N. C., Inc., 487 U. S. 781, 796–797 (1988); Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U. S. 539, 559 (1985); Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U. S. 241, 256–257 (1974); accord, Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. Public Util. Comm’n of Cal., 475 U. S. 1, 9 (1986) (plurality opinion). The right to eschew association for expressive purposes is likewise protected. Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U. S. 609, 623 (1984) (“Freedom of association . . . plainly presupposes a freedom not to associate”); see Pacific Gas & Elec., supra, at 12 (“[F]orced associations that burden protected speech are impermissible”). As Justice Jackson memorably put it: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 642 (1943) (emphasis added).
Compelling a person to subsidize the speech of other private speakers raises similar First Amendment concerns. Knox, supra, at 309; United States v. United Foods, Inc., 533 U. S. 405, 410 (2001); Abood, supra, at 222, 234–235. As Jefferson famously put it, “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhor[s] is sinful and tyrannical.” A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, in 2 Papers of Thomas Jefferson 545 (J. Boyd ed. 1950) (emphasis deleted and footnote omitted); see also Hudson, 475 U. S., at 305, n. 15. We have therefore recognized that a “ ‘significant impingement on First Amendment rights’ ” occurs when public employees are required to provide financial support for a union that “takes many positions during collective bargaining that have powerful political and civic consequences.” Knox, supra, at 310–311 (quoting Ellis v. Railway Clerks, 466 U. S. 435, 455 (1984)).
In Knox, the first of these cases, we found it sufficient to hold that the conduct in question was unconstitutional under even the test used for the compulsory subsidization of commercial speech. 567 U. S., at 309–310, 321–322. Even though commercial speech has been thought to enjoy a lesser degree of protection, see, e.g., Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of N. Y., 447 U. S. 557, 562–563 (1980), prior precedent in that area, specifically United Foods, supra, had applied what we characterized as “exacting” scrutiny, Knox, 567 U. S., at 310, a less demanding test than the “strict” scrutiny that might be thought to apply outside the commercial sphere. Under “exacting” scrutiny, we noted, a compelled subsidy must “serve a compelling state interest that cannot be achieved through means significantly less restrictive of associa- tional freedoms.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks and altera- tions omitted).
Suppose that a particular group lobbies or speaks out on behalf of what it thinks are the needs of senior citizens or veterans or physicians, to take just a few examples. Could the government require that all seniors, veterans, or doctors pay for that service even if they object? It has never been thought that this is permissible. “[P]rivate speech often furthers the interests of nonspeakers,” but “that does not alone empower the state to compel the speech to be paid for.” Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Assn., 500 U. S. 507, 556 (1991) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). In simple terms, the First Amendment does not permit the government to compel a person to pay for another party’s speech just because the government thinks that the speech furthers the interests of the person who does not want to pay.[4]
These benefits greatly outweigh any extra burden imposed by the duty of providing fair representation for nonmembers. What this duty entails, in simple terms, is an obligation not to “act solely in the interests of [the union’s] own members.” Brief for State Respondents 41; see Cintron v. AFSCME, Council 31, No. S–CB–16–032, p. 1, 34 PERI ¶105 (ILRB Dec. 13, 2017) (union may not intentionally direct “animosity” toward nonmembers based on their “dissident union practices”); accord, 14 Penn Plaza LLC v. Pyett, 556 U. S. 247, 271 (2009); Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171, 177 (1967).
What does this mean when it comes to the negotiation of a contract? The union may not negotiate a collective-bargaining agreement that discriminates against nonmembers, see Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 323 U. S. 192, 202–203 (1944), but the union’s bargaining latitude would be little different if state law simply prohibited public employers from entering into agreements that discriminate in that way. And for that matter, it is questionable whether the Constitution would permit a public-sector employer to adopt a collective-bargaining agreement that discriminates against nonmembers. See id., at 198–199, 202 (analogizing a private-sector union’s fair-representation duty to the duty “the Constitution imposes upon a legislature to give equal protection to the interests of those for whom it legislates”); cf. Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc., 547 U. S. 47, 69 (2006) (recognizing that government may not “impose penalties or withhold benefits based on membership in a disfavored group” where doing so “ma[kes] group membership less attractive”). To the extent that an employer would be barred from acceding to a discriminatory agreement anyway, the union’s duty not to ask for one is superfluous. It is noteworthy that neither respondents nor any of the 39 amicus briefs supporting them—nor the dissent—has explained why the duty of fair representation causes public-sector unions to incur significantly greater expenses than they would otherwise bear in negotiating collective-bargaining agreements.
What about the representation of nonmembers in grievance proceedings? Unions do not undertake this activity solely for the benefit of nonmembers—which is why Illinois law gives a public-sector union the right to send a representative to such proceedings even if the employee declines union representation. §315/6(b). Representation of nonmembers furthers the union’s interest in keeping control of the administration of the collective-bargaining agreement, since the resolution of one employee’s grievance can affect others. And when a union controls the grievance process, it may, as a practical matter, effectively subordinate “the interests of [an] individual em- ployee . . . to the collective interests of all employees in the bargaining unit.” Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 58, n. 19 (1974); see Stahulak v. Chicago, 184 Ill. 2d 176, 180–181, 703 N. E. 2d 44, 46–47 (1998); Mahoney v. Chicago, 293 Ill. App. 3d 69, 73–74, 687 N.E.2d 132, 135–137 (1997) (union has “ ‘discretion to refuse to process’ ” a grievance, provided it does not act “arbitrar[ily]” or “in bad faith” (emphasis deleted)).
It is particularly discordant to find this argument in a brief that trumpets the importance of stare decisis. See 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 Curtis, 106 U. S. 371, 372–373 (1882). The only early speech restrictions the Union identifies are an 1806 statute prohibiting military personnel from using “ ‘contemptuous or disrespectful words against the President’ ” and other officials, and an 1801 directive limiting electioneering by top government employees. Brief for Union Respondent 3. But those examples at most show that the government was understood to have power to limit employee speech that threatened important governmental interests (such as maintaining military discipline and preventing corruption)—not that public employees’ speech was entirely unprotected. Indeed, more recently this Court has upheld similar restrictions even while recognizing that government employees possess First Amendment rights. See, e.g., Brown v. Glines, 444 U. S. 348, 353 (1980) (upholding military restriction on speech that threatened troop readiness); Civil Service Comm’n v. Letter Carriers, 413 U. S. 548, 556–557 (1973) (upholding limits on public employees’ political activities).
Ultimately, the Union relies, not on founding-era evidence, but on dictum from a 1983 opinion of this Court stating that, “[f]or most of th[e 20th] century, the unchallenged dogma was that a public employee had no right to object to conditions placed upon the terms of employment—including those which restricted the exercise of constitutional rights.” Connick v. Myers, 461 U. S. 138, 143; see Brief for Union Respondent 2, 17. Even on its own terms, this dictum about 20th-century views does not purport to describe how the First Amendment was understood in 1791. And a careful examination of the decisions by this Court that Connick cited to support its dictum, see 461 U. S., at 144, reveals that none of them rested on the facile premise that public employees are unprotected by the First Amendment. Instead, they considered (much as we do today) whether particular speech restrictions were “necessary to protect” fundamental government interests. Curtis, supra, at 374.
The principal defense of Abood advanced by respondents and the dissent is based on our decision in Pickering, 391 U. S. 563, which held that a school district violated the First Amendment by firing a teacher for writing a letter critical of the school administration. Under Pickering and later cases in the same line, employee speech is largely unprotected if it is part of what the employee is paid to do, see Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U. S. 410, 421–422 (2006), or if it involved a matter of only private concern, see Connick, supra, at 146–149. On the other hand, when a public employee speaks as a citizen on a matter of public concern, the employee’s speech is protected unless “ ‘the interest of the state, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees’ outweighs ‘the interests of the [employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern.’ ” Harris, 573 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 35) (quoting Pickering, supra, at 568). Pickering was the centerpiece of the defense of Abood in Harris, see 573 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 17–21) (Kagan, J., dissenting), and we found the argument unpersuasive, see id., at ___–___ (slip op., at 34–37). The intervening years have not improved its appeal.
Respondents’ reliance on Pickering is thus “an effort to find a new justification for the decision in Abood.” Harris, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 34). And we have previously taken a dim view of similar attempts to recast problematic First Amendment decisions. See, e.g., Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm’n, 558 U. S. 310, 348–349, 363 (2010) (rejecting efforts to recast Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 U. S. 652 (1990)); see also Citizens United, supra, at 382–385 (Roberts, C. J., concurring). We see no good reason, at this late date, to try to shoehorn Abood into the Pickering framework.
First, the Pickering framework was developed for use in a very different context—in cases that involve “one employee’s speech and its impact on that employee’s public responsibilities.” United States v. Treasury Employees, 513 U. S. 454, 467 (1995). This case, by contrast, involves a blanket requirement that all employees subsidize speech with which they may not agree. While we have sometimes looked to Pickering in considering general rules that affect broad categories of employees, we have acknowledged that the standard Pickering analysis requires modification in that situation. See 513 U. S., at 466–468, and n. 11. A speech-restrictive law with “widespread impact,” we have said, “gives rise to far more serious concerns than could any single supervisory decision.” Id., at 468. Therefore, when such a law is at issue, the government must shoulder a correspondingly “heav[ier]” burden, id., at 466, and is entitled to considerably less deference in its assessment that a predicted harm justifies a particular impingement on First Amendment rights, see id., at 475–476, n. 21; accord, id., at 482–483 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). The end product of those adjustments is a test that more closely resembles exacting scrutiny than the traditional Pickering analysis.
Third, although both Pickering and Abood divided speech into two categories, the cases’ categorization schemes do not line up. Superimposing the Pickering scheme on Abood would significantly change the Abood regime.
Unions can also speak out in collective bargaining on controversial subjects such as climate change,[18] the Confederacy,[19] sexual orientation and gender identity,[20] evolution,[21] and minority religions.[22] These are sensitive political topics, and they are undoubtedly matters of profound “ ‘value and concern to the public.’ ” Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U. S. 443, 453 (2011). We have often recognized that such speech “ ‘occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values’ ” and merits “ ‘special protection.’ ” Id., at 452.
We readily acknowledge, as Pickering did, that “the State has interests as an employer in regulating the speech of its employees that differ significantly from those it possesses in connection with regulation of the speech of the citizenry in general.” 391 U. S., at 568. Our analysis is consistent with that principle. The exacting scrutiny standard we apply in this case was developed in the context of commercial speech, another area where the government has traditionally enjoyed greater-than-usual power to regulate speech. See supra, at 10. It is also not disputed that the State may require that a union serve as exclusive bargaining agent for its employees—itself a significant impingement on associational freedoms that would not be tolerated in other contexts. We simply draw the line at allowing the government to go further still and require all employees to support the union irrespective of whether they share its views. Nothing in the Pickering line of cases requires us to uphold every speech restriction the government imposes as an employer. See Pickering, supra, at 564–566 (holding teacher’s dismissal for criticizing school board unconstitutional); Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U. S. 378, 392 (1987) (holding clerical employ- ee’s dismissal for supporting assassination attempt on President unconstitutional); Treasury Employees, 513 U. S., at 477 (holding federal-employee honoraria ban unconstitutional).
“Stare decisis is the preferred course because it promotes the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process.” Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808, 827 (1991). We will not overturn a past decision unless there are strong grounds for doing so. United States v. International Business Machines Corp., 517 U. S. 843, 855–856 (1996); Citizens United, 558 U. S., at 377 (Roberts, C. J., concurring). But as we have often recognized, stare decisis is “ ‘not an inexorable command.’ ” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U. S. 223, 233 (2009); see also Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U. S. 558, 577 (2003); State Oil Co. v. Khan, 522 U. S. 3, 20 (1997); Agostini v. Felton, 521 U. S. 203, 235 (1997); Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44, 63 (1996); Payne, supra, at 828.
The doctrine “is at its weakest when we interpret the Constitution because our interpretation can be altered only by constitutional amendment or by overruling our prior decisions.” Agostini, supra, at 235. And stare decisis applies with perhaps least force of all to decisions that wrongly denied First Amendment rights: “This Court has not hesitated to overrule decisions offensive to the First Amendment (a fixed star in our constitutional constellation, if there is one).” Federal Election Comm’n v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551 U. S. 449, 500 (2007) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Citizens United, supra, at 362–365 (overruling Austin, 494 U. S. 652); Barnette, 319 U. S., at 642 (overruling Minersville School Dist. v. Gobitis, 310 U. S. 586 (1940)).
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 arises when a State requires its employees to pay agency fees. See Harris, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 17).
Abood’s unwarranted reliance on Hanson and Street appears to have contributed to another mistake: Abood judged the constitutionality of public-sector agency fees under a deferential standard that finds no support in our free speech cases. (As noted, supra, at 10–11, today’s dissent makes the same fundamental mistake.) Abood did not independently evaluate the strength of the government interests that were said to support the challenged agency-fee provision; nor did it ask how well that provision actually promoted those interests or whether they could have been adequately served without impinging so heavily on the free speech rights of nonmembers. Rather, Abood followed Hanson and Street, which it interpreted as having deferred to “the legislative assessment of the important contribution of the union shop to the system of labor relations established by Congress.” 431 U. S., at 222 (emphasis added). But Hanson deferred to that judgment in deciding the Commerce Clause and substantive due process questions that were the focus of the case. Such deference to legislative judgments is inappropriate in deciding free speech issues.
Overlooking the importance of this distinction, “Abood failed to appreciate the conceptual difficulty of distinguishing in public-sector cases between union expenditures that are made for collective-bargaining purposes and those that are made to achieve political ends.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 18). Likewise, “Abood does not seem to have anticipated the magnitude of the practical administrative problems that would result in attempting to classify public-sector union expenditures as either ‘chargeable’ . . . or nonchargeable.” Ibid. Nor did Abood “foresee the practical problems that would face objecting nonmembers.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 19).
Another relevant consideration in the stare decisis calculus is the workability of the precedent in question, Montejo v. Louisiana, 556 U. S. 778, 792 (2009), and that factor also weighs against Abood.
Developments since Abood, both factual and legal, have also “eroded” the decision’s “underpinnings” and left it an outlier among our First Amendment cases. United States v. Gaudin, 515 U. S. 506, 521 (1995).
This ascendance of public-sector unions has been marked by a parallel increase in public spending. In 1970, total state and local government expenditures amounted to $646 per capita in nominal terms, or about $4,000 per capita in 2014 dollars. See Dept. of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1972, p. 419; CPI Inflation Calculator, BLS, http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl. By 2014, that figure had ballooned to approximately $10,238 per capita. ProQuest, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2018, pp. 17, Table 14, 300, Table 469. Not all that increase can be attributed to public-sector unions, of course, but the mounting costs of public-employee wages, benefits, and pensions undoubtedly played a substantial role. We are told, for example, that Illinois’ pension funds are underfunded by $129 billion as a result of generous public-employee retirement packages. Brief for Jason R. Barclay et al. as Amici Curiae 9, 14. Unsustainable collective-bargaining agreements have also been blamed for multiple municipal bankruptcies. See Brief for State of Michigan et al. as Amici Curiae 10–19. These developments, and the political debate over public spending and debt they have spurred, have given collective-bargaining issues a political valence that Abood did not fully appreciate.
Abood is also an “anomaly” in our First Amendment jurisprudence, as we recognized in Harris and Knox. Harris, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 8); Knox, 567 U. S., at 311. This is not an altogether new observation. In Abood itself, Justice Powell faulted the Court for failing to perform the “ ‘exacting scrutiny’ ” applied in other cases involving significant impingements on First Amendment rights. 431 U. S., at 259; see id., at 259–260, and n. 14. Our later cases involving compelled speech and association have also employed exacting scrutiny, if not a more demanding standard. See, e.g., Roberts, 468 U. S., at 623; United Foods, 533 U. S., at 414. And we have more recently refused, even in agency-fee cases, to extend Abood beyond circumstances where it directly controls. See Knox, supra, at 314; Harris, supra, at ___–___ (slip op., at 28–29).
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 Amendment 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 deference, when challenged on First Amendment grounds, than its decision to adhere to the tradition of political patronage.” 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 decisions, but Justice Powell’s observation is sound as far as it goes. By overruling Abood, we end the oddity of privileging compelled union support over compelled party support and bring a measure of greater coherence to our First Amendment law.
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 contend 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 provisions granting them such fees. Tr. of Oral Arg. 67–68; see Brief for State Respondents 54; Brief for Union Respondent 50; post, at 22–26 (Kagan, J., dissenting). In this case, however, reliance does not carry decisive weight.
For one thing, it would be unconscionable to permit free speech rights to be abridged in perpetuity in order to preserve contract provisions that will expire on their own in a few years’ time. “The fact that [public-sector unions] may view [agency fees] as an entitlement does not establish the sort of reliance interest that could outweigh the countervailing interest that [nonmembers] share in having their constitutional rights fully protected.” Arizona v. Gant, 556 U. S. 332, 349 (2009).
Because public-sector collective-bargaining agreements are generally of rather short duration, a great many of those now in effect probably began or were renewed since Knox (2012) or Harris (2014). But even if an agreement antedates those decisions, the union was able to protect itself if an agency-fee provision was essential to the overall bargain. A union’s attorneys undoubtedly understand that if one provision of a collective-bargaining agreement is found to be unlawful, the remaining provisions are likely to remain in effect. See NLRB v. Rockaway News Supply Co., 345 U. S. 71, 76–79 (1953); see also 8 R. Lord, Williston on Contracts §19:70 (4th ed. 2010). Any union believing that an agency-fee provision was essential to its bargain could have insisted on a provision giving it greater protection. The agreement in the present case, by contrast, provides expressly that the invalidation of any part of the agreement “shall not invalidate the remaining portions,” which “shall remain in full force and effect.” App. 328. Such severability clauses ensure that “entire contracts” are not “br[ought] down” by today’s ruling. Post, at 23, n. 5 (Kagan, J., dissenting).
6 There is precedent for such arrangements. Some States have laws providing that, if an employee with a religious objection to paying an agency fee “requests the [union] to use the grievance procedure or arbitration procedure on the employee’s behalf, the [union] is authorized to charge the employee for the reasonable cost of using such procedure.” E.g., Cal. Govt. Code Ann. §3546.3 (West 2010); cf. Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 5, §315/6(g) (2016). This more tailored alternative, if applied to other objectors, would prevent free ridership while imposing a lesser burden on First Amendment rights.
7 Indeed, under common law, “collective bargaining was unlawful,” Teamsters v. Terry, 494 U. S. 558, 565–566 (1990) (plurality opinion); see N. Citrine, Trade Union Law 4–7, 9–10 (2d ed. 1960); Notes, Legal-ity of Trade Unions at Common Law, 25 Harv. L. Rev. 465, 466 (1912), and into the 20th century, every individual employee had the “liberty of contract” to “sell his labor upon such terms as he deem[ed] proper,” Adair v. United States, 208 U. S. 161, 174–175 (1908); see R. Morris, Government and Labor in Early America 208, 529 (1946). So even the concept of a private third-party entity with the power to bind employees on the terms of their employment likely would have been foreign to the Founders. We note this only to show the problems inherent in the Union respondent’s argument; we are not in any way questioning the foundations of modern labor law.
9 Justice Powell’s separate opinion did invoke Pickering in a relevant sense, but he did so only to acknowledge the State’s relatively greater interest in regulating speech when it acts as employer than when it acts as sovereign. Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed., 431 U. S. 209, 259 (1977) (concurring in judgment). In the very next sentence, he explained that “even in public employment, a significant impairment of First Amendment rights must survive exacting scrutiny.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). That is the test we apply today.
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.
25 Contrary to the dissent’s claim, see post, at 19, and n. 4, the fact that “[t]he rationale of [Abood] does not withstand careful analysis” is a reason to overrule it, e.g., Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U. S. 558, 577 (2003). And that is even truer when, as here, the defenders of the precedent do not attempt to “defend [its actual] reasoning.” Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm’n, 558 U. S. 310, 363 (2010); id., at 382–385 (Roberts, C. J., concurring).
27 The dissent emphasizes another type of reliance, namely, that “[o]ver 20 States have by now enacted statutes authorizing [agency-fee] provisions.” Post, at 23. But as we explained in Citizens United, “[t]his is not a compelling interest for stare decisis. If it were, legislative acts could prevent us from overruling our own precedents, thereby interfering with our duty ‘to say what the law is.’ ” 558 U. S., at 365 (quoting Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803)). Nor does our decision “ ‘require an extensive legislative response.’ ” Post, at 23. States can keep their labor-relations systems exactly as they are—only they cannot force nonmembers to subsidize public-sector unions. In this way, these States can follow the model of the federal government and 28 other States.
28 Unfortunately, the dissent sees the need to resort to accusations that we are acting like “black-robed rulers” who have shut down an “energetic policy debate.” Post, at 27–28. We certainly agree that judges should not “overrid[e] citizens’ choices” or “pick the winning side,” ibid.—unless the Constitution commands that they do so. But when a federal or state law violates the Constitution, the American doctrine of judicial review requires us to enforce the Constitution. Here, States with agency-fee laws have abridged fundamental free speech rights. In holding that these laws violate the Constitution, we are simply enforcing the First Amendment as properly understood, “[t]he very purpose of [which] was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts.” West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 638 (1943).
The majority’s fallback argument purports to respond to the distinctive position of unions, but still misses Abood’s economic insight. Here, the majority delivers a four-page exegesis on why unions will seek to serve as an exclusive bargaining representative even “if they are not given agency fees.” Ante, at 14; see ante, at 14–17. The gist of the account is that “designation as the exclusive representative confers many benefits,” which outweigh the costs of providing services to non-members. Ante, at 15. But that response avoids the key question, which is whether unions without agency fees will be able to (not whether they will want to) carry on as an effective exclusive representative. And as to that question, the majority again fails to reckon with how economically rational actors behave—in public as well as private workplaces. Without a fair-share agreement, the class of union non-members spirals upward. Employees (including those who love the union) realize that they can get the same benefits even if they let their memberships expire. And as more and more stop paying dues, those left must take up the financial slack (and anyway, begin to feel like suckers)—so they too quit the union. See Ichniowski & Zax, Right-to-Work Laws, Free Riders, and Unionization in the Local Public Sector, 9 J. Labor Economics 255, 257 (1991).[1] And when the vicious cycle finally ends, chances are that the union will lack the resources to effectively perform the responsibilities of an exclusive representative—or, in the worst case, to perform them at all. The result is to frustrate the interests of every government entity that thinks a strong exclusive-representation scheme will promote stable labor relations.
The majority claims it is not making a special and unjustified exception. It offers two main reasons for declining to apply here our usual deferential approach, as exemplified in Pickering, to the regulation of public employee speech. First, the majority says, this case involves a “blanket” policy rather than an individualized employment decision, so Pickering is a “painful fit.” Ante, at 23. Second, the majority asserts, the regulation here involves compelling rather than restricting speech, so the pain gets sharper still. See ante, at 24–25. And finally, the majority claims that even under the solicitous Pickering standard, the government should lose, because the speech here involves a matter of public concern and the government’s managerial interests do not justify its regulation. See ante, at 27–31. The majority goes wrong at every turn.
First, this Court has applied the same basic approach whether a public employee challenges a general policy or an individualized decision. Even the majority must concede that “we have sometimes looked to Pickering in considering general rules that affect broad categories of employees.” Ante, at 23. In fact, the majority cannot come up with any case in which we have not done so. All it can muster is one case in which while applying the Pickering test to a broad rule—barring any federal employee from accepting any payment for any speech or article on any topic—the Court noted that the policy’s breadth would count against the government at the test’s second step. See United States v. Treasury Employees, 513 U. S. 454 (1995). Which is completely predictable. The inquiry at that stage, after all, is whether the government has an employment-related interest in going however far it has gone—and in Treasury Employees, the government had indeed gone far. (The Court ultimately struck down the rule because it applied to speech in which the government had no identifiable managerial interest. See id., at 470, 477.) Nothing in Treasury Employees suggests that the Court defers only to ad hoc actions, and not to general rules, about public employee speech. That would be a perverse regime, given the greater regularity of rulemaking and the lesser danger of its abuse. So I would wager a small fortune that the next time a general rule governing public employee speech comes before us, we will dust off Pickering.
Third and finally, the majority errs in thinking that under the usual deferential approach, the government should lose this case. The majority mainly argues here that, at Pickering’s first step, “union speech in collective bargaining” is a “matter of great public concern” because it “affect[s] how public money is spent” and addresses “other important matters” like teacher merit pay or tenure. Ante, at 27, 29 (internal quotation marks omitted). But to start, the majority misunderstands the threshold inquiry set out in Pickering and later cases. The question is not, as the majority seems to think, whether the public is, or should be, interested in a government employee’s speech. Instead, the question is whether that speech is about and directed to the workplace—as contrasted with the broader public square. Treasury Employees offers the Court’s fullest explanation. The Court held there that the government’s policy prevented employees from speaking as “citizen[s]” on “matters of public concern.” 513 U. S., at 466 (quoting Pickering, 391 U. S., at 568). Why? Because the speeches and articles “were addressed to a public audience, were made outside the workplace, and involved content largely unrelated to their Government employment.” 513 U. S., at 466; see id., at 465, 470 (repeating that analysis twice more). The Court could not have cared less whether the speech at issue was “important.” Ante, at 29. It instead asked whether the speech was truly of the workplace—addressed to it, made in it, and (most of all) about it.
What’s more, the government should prevail even if the speech involved in collective bargaining satisfies Pickering’s first part. Recall that the next question is whether the government has shown “an adequate justification for treating the employee differently from any other member of the general public.” Garcetti, 547 U. S., at 418; supra, at 11. That inquiry is itself famously respectful of government interests. This Court has reversed the government only when it has tried to “leverage the employment relationship” to achieve an outcome unrelated to the workplace’s “effective functioning.” Garcetti, 547 U. S., at 419; Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U. S. 378, 388 (1987). Nothing like that is true here. As Abood described, many government entities have found agency fees the best way to ensure a stable and productive relationship with an exclusive bargaining agent. See 431 U. S., at 220–221, 224–226; supra, at 3–4. And here, Illinois and many governmental amici have explained again how agency fees advance their workplace goals. See Brief for State Respondents 12, 36; Brief for Governor Tom Wolf et al. as Amici Curiae 21–33. In no other employee-speech case has this Court dismissed such work-related interests, as the majority does here. See supra, at 6–9 (discussing the majority’s refusal to engage with the logic of the State’s position). Time and again, the Court has instead respected and acceded to those interests—just as Abood did.
And in any event, one stare decisis factor—reliance—dominates all others here and demands keeping Abood. Stare decisis, this Court has held, “has added force when the legislature, in the public sphere, and citizens, in the private realm, have acted in reliance on a previous decision.” Hilton v. South Carolina Public Railways Comm’n, 502 U. S. 197, 202 (1991). That is because overruling a decision would then “require an extensive legislative response” or “dislodge settled rights and expectations.” Ibid. Both will happen here: The Court today wreaks havoc on entrenched legislative and contractual arrangements.
The majority, though, offers another reason for not worrying about reliance: The parties, it says, “have been on notice for years regarding this Court’s misgivings about Abood.” Ante, at 45. Here, the majority proudly lays claim to its 6-year crusade to ban agency fees. In Knox, the majority relates, it described Abood as an “anomaly.” Ante, at 45 (quoting 567 U. S., at 311). Then, in Harris, it “cataloged Abood’s many weaknesses.” Ante, at 45. Finally, in Friedrichs, “we granted a petition for certiorari asking us to” reverse Abood, but found ourselves equally divided. Ante, at 45. “During this period of time,” the majority concludes, public-sector unions “must have understood that the constitutionality of [an agency-fee] provision was uncertain.” Ibid. And so, says the majority, they should have structured their affairs accordingly.
2 For those reasons, it is not surprising that the “categorization schemes” in Abood and Pickering are not precisely coterminous. Ante, at 25. The two cases are fraternal rather than identical twins—both standing for the proposition that the government receives great deference when it regulates speech as an employer rather than as a sovereign. See infra this page and 12–13.
6 In a single, cryptic sentence, the majority also claims that arguments about reliance “based on [Abood’s] clarity are misplaced” because Abood did not provide a “clear or easily applicable standard” to separate fees for collective bargaining from those for political activities. Ante, at 45. But to begin, the standard for separating those activities was clear and workable, as I have already shown. See supra, at 21–22. And in any event, the reliance Abood engendered was based not on the clarity of that line, but on the clarity of its holding that governments and unions could generally agree to fair-share arrangements.
I join Justice Kagan’s dissent in full. Although I joined the majority in Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., 564 U. S. 552 (2011), I disagree with the way that this Court has since interpreted and applied that opinion. See, e.g., National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, ante, p. ___. Having seen the troubling development in First Amendment jurisprudence over the years, both in this Court and in lower courts, I agree fully with Justice Kagan that Sorrell—in the way it has been read by this Court—has allowed courts to “wiel[d] the First Amendment in . . . an aggressive way” just as the majority does today. Post, at 27.
June 20, 2017 Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs, in support of either party or of neither party, received from counsel for respondent American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 31.
June 21, 2017 Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs, in support of either party or of neither party, received from counsel for petitioner.
June 26, 2017 Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs, in support of either party or of neither party, received from counsel for respondents Michael Hoffman, in his official capacity as the Acting Director of the Illinois Department of Central Management Services, et al.
July 3, 2017 Order extending time to file response to petition to and including August 11, 2017, for all respondents.
July 7, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions filed.
July 7, 2017 Brief amici curiae of Pacific Legal Foundation, et al. filed.
July 10, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of Debora Nearman filed.
July 10, 2017 Brief amici curiae of Rebecca Friedrichs, et al. filed.
July 10, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of The Competitive Enterprise Institute filed.
July 10, 2017 Brief amici curiae of the Cato Institute, et al. filed.
July 10, 2017 Brief amici curiae of Michigan and Eighteen other States filed.
July 10, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of Atlantic Legal Foundation filed.
July 10, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence filed.
July 10, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of Mackinac Center for Public Policy filed.
August 10, 2017 Brief of respondents Lisa Madigan and Michael Hoffman in opposition filed.
August 11, 2017 Brief of respondent American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31 in opposition filed.
August 29, 2017 Reply of petitioner Mark Janus filed.
October 24, 2017 Blanket Consent filed by Respondents, Lisa Madigan and Michael Hoffman.
November 2, 2017 Blanket Consent filed by Respondent, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31
November 3, 2017 Blanket Consent filed by Petitioner, Mark Janus.
November 8, 2017 The time to file the joint appendix and petitioner's brief on the merits is extended to and including November 29, 2017.
November 8, 2017 The time to file respondents' briefs on the merits is extended to and including January 12, 2018.
November 14, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of James Madison Center for Free Speech, Inc. filed.
November 15, 2017 Brief amici curiae of Cato Institute, et al. filed.
November 29, 2017 Brief of petitioner Mark Janus filed.
November 29, 2017 Joint appendix filed. (Statement of costs filed)
December 1, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of Pacific Legal Foundation filed.
December 5, 2017 Brief amici curiae of Michigan, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin filed.
December 5, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence filed.
December 5, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of The Rutherford Institute filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of Competitive Enterprise Institute filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of American Center for Law & Justice filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amici curiae of Gregory J. Hartnett, Elizabeth M. Galaska, Robert G. Brough, Jr., John M. Cress filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amici curiae of The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions and Southeastern Legal Foundation filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of Landmark Legal Foundation filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amici curiae of The Center on National Labor Policy, Inc. & Ben Johnson filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of Mackinac Center for Public Policy filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of California Public-school Teachers filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amici curiae of Jason R. Barclay and James S. Montana, Jr. filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amici curiae of Certified Public Accountants in support of neither party filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amici curiae of Rebecca Friedrichs, et al. filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of Atlantic Legal Foundation filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of 1851 Center for Constitutional Law filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amici curiae of Employees of the State of Minnesota Court System filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amici curiae of Charles Fried and Robert C. Post in support of neither party filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of Corporate Law Professors in support of neither party filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amici curiae of Jane Ladley and Christopher Meier filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of James Madison Institute filed.
December 6, 2017 Brief amici curiae of Freedom Foundation and Economists filed.
December 20, 2017 SET FOR ARGUMENT ON Monday, February 26, 2018
January 10, 2018 Record requested from the U.S.C.A. 7th Circuit.
January 10, 2018 Record received from the U.S.C.A. 7th Circuit is electronic.
January 12, 2018 Brief of respondent American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31 filed. (Distributed)
January 12, 2018 Brief of respondents Lisa Madigan and Michael Hoffman filed. (Distributed)
January 18, 2018 Brief amici curiae of American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations filed. (Distributed)
January 18, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Workers Rasheedah Gray, et al filed. (Distributed)
January 18, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of Public Citizen, Inc. filed. (Distributed)
January 18, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Governor Tom Wolf, et al. filed. (Distributed)
January 18, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of Steve Bullock, Governor of Montana filed. (Distributed)
January 18, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Chabot Las-Positas Faculty Association, et al. filed. (Distributed)
January 18, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Economists and Professors of Law and Economics filed. (Distributed)
January 18, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Richard Blumenthal filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Republican Current and Former State and Local Officeholders filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of Laborers' International Union of North America filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Los Angeles County's Department of Health Services, et al. filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of Professor Benjamin I. Sachs filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amici curiae of National Education Association, et al. filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of United States Conference of Catholic Bishops filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of International Association of Fire Fighters filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of American Federation of Teachers filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Fifteen Unions, et al. filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Crown Building Maintenance Co. d/b/a Able Services and Northern Indiana Independent Contractors Group filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amici curiae of 24 Past Presidents of the D.C. Bar filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Joint motion for divided argument filed by respondents.
January 19, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of The National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of The National Fraternal Order of Police filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Mayor Eric Garcetti, County Executive Dow Constantine, Mayor Jenny Durkan, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Mayor James Kenney, and Mayor Bill De Blasio filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of International Brotherhood of Teamsters filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of New York City Municipal Labor Committee filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of State of California filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of American Federation of Government Employees filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of NEW YORK CITY SERGEANTS BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Human Rights Campaign, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., National Center for Lesbian Rights, National LGBTQ Task Force, and PFLAG National filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Professors Cynthia L. Estlund, Samuel Estreicher, Julius G. Getman, William B. Gould IV, Michael C. Harper, and Theodore J. St. Antoine filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Professors Eugene Volokh and William Baude filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Labor Law & Labor Relations Professors filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Faith in Public Life, et al. filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Motion of the Solicitor General for leave to participate in oral argument as amicus curiae and for divided argument filed.
January 19, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Constitutional Law Scholars filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amici curiae of National Women's Law Center, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and 85 Additional Organizations Committed to Civil Rights and Economic Opportunity filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of American Civil Liberties Union filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amici curiae of States of New York, Alaska Connecticut Delaware Hawaii Iowa Kentucky Maine Maryland Massachusetts Minnesota New Mexico New Jersey North Carolina Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island Vermont Virginia and Washington and the District of Columbia filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amicus curiae of The City of New York filed. (Distributed)
January 19, 2018 Brief amici curiae of International Association of Machininists and Aerospace Workers filed. (Distributed)
January 23, 2018 Brief amici curiae of Child Protective Service Workers and Their Representatives filed. (Distributed)
February 12, 2018 Reply of petitioner Mark Janus filed. (Distributed)
February 16, 2018 Motion of the Solicitor General for leave to participate in oral argument as amicus curiae and for divided argument GRANTED.
February 16, 2018 Motion for divided argument filed by respondent GRANTED.
February 26, 2018 Argued. For petitioner: William L. Messenger, Springfield, Va.; and Noel J. Francisco, Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C. (for United States, as amicus curiae.) For state respondents: David L. Franklin, Solicitor General of Illinois, Chicago, Ill. For respondent AFSCME Council 31: David C. Frederick, Washington, D. C.
June 27, 2018 Judgment REVERSED and case REMANDED. Alito, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kennedy, Thomas, and Gorsuch, JJ., joined. Sotomayor, J. filed a dissenting opinion. Kagan, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor, JJ., joined.
Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, No. 16-3638 (7th Cir. Mar. 21, 2017)
Under the Illinois Public Relations Act, 5 ILCS 315, a union representing public employees collects dues from its members, but only “fair share” fees (a proportionate share of the costs of collective bargaining and contract administration) from non-member employees on whose behalf the union also negotiates. A 2015 suit sought to preclude such fees, arguing that the statute violated the First Amendment by compelling employees who disapprove of the union to contribute money. The Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal, noting that one of the plaintiffs has previously challenged the “fair share” provision in state court and that his claim is barred by claim preclusion. The court also noted the Supreme Court’s 1977 decision, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, upholding, against a First Amendment challenge, a Michigan law that allowed a public employer, whose employees (public-school teachers) were represented by a union, to require those of its employees who did not join the union nevertheless to pay fees to it because they benefited from the union’s collective bargaining agreement with the employer.
Rauner v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 31 et al, No. 1:2015cv01235 (N.D. Ill. May. 19, 2015)