Opinion ID: 757587
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Subsection (H) of Section 3599.031 is Constitutional

Text: 41 Subsection (H) of section 3599.031 prohibits public employers in the state of Ohio from administering a wage checkoff through which public employees donate some portion of their paychecks to political causes. The State of Ohio claims that this ban is a constitutionally permissible effort to take partisan politics out of public workplaces. All parties, the court below, and this court agree that there is no constitutional right to wage checkoffs to support political causes. Nevertheless, the district court held that this provision violated the plaintiffs' rights to free speech and free association under the First Amendment and their right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. We disagree. 42
43 The plaintiffs reason that, although the affected employees and unions have no constitutional right to have public employers administer wage checkoffs, the state's refusal to allow public employers to administer this method of fundraising significantly impairs the ability of public employees and their unions to raise funds used to promote their political agendas and favorite candidates. Thus, they contend, the state's refusal to continue to administer checkoffs for political causes unconstitutionally impairs the employees' and the unions' rights to free association and political expression. 44 The problem with this reasoning is that it confuses what citizens and the associations they form may do to support and disseminate their views with what citizens and groups they form may require the government to do in this regard. It is important to note that it is employers rather than the unions that administer the wage checkoffs at issue, even if they are intended to benefit employees. This is important because the First Amendment only protects individuals' 'negative' rights to be free from government action and does not create 'positive' rights-requirements that the government act. Bradley A. Smith, Money Talks: Speech, Corruption, Equality, and Campaign Finance, 86 GEO. L.J 45, 67 (1997); see also, Lillian R. Bevier, Specious Arguments, Intractable Dilemmas, 94 COLUM. L REV. 1258, 1277 (1994) (the First Amendment is a source of negative rights against the government, not a repository of positive entitlement to government favors.). It is also significant that the provision prohibits public employers from administering wage checkoffs for any candidate, separate segregated fund, political action committee, legislative campaign fund, political party, or ballot issue. O.R.C. § 3599.031(H) (emphasis added). The provision does not single out political contributions to only certain parties, candidates or issues. All Ohio public employees are denied the benefits that might be derived from such publicly-administered programs, regardless of the content of their political views or their party affiliation. 45 The wage checkoff ban simply does not impinge, in a constitutionally significant manner, on any First Amendment rights. This is clear from cases such as Brown v. Alexander which held that  'the First Amendment does not impose any duty on a public employer to affirmatively assist, or even to recognize a union.'  718 F.2d 1417, 1422 (6th Cir.1983) (quoting Arkansas State Highway Employees v. Kell, 628 F.2d 1099, 1102 (8th Cir.1980)). In Brown, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and some of its members challenged a Tennessee law prohibiting state employees from paying union dues through wage checkoffs because their union did not satisfy certain statutory requirements. 11 AFSCME claimed that the statute violated the First Amendment because it impaired the union's effectiveness, especially when measured against the effectiveness of unions that could satisfy the conditions for wage checkoffs. This court determined that statute did not den[y] plaintiffs the right to speak, or to advocate, or to associate, or to petition to redress grievances, or to picket. Id. at 1423. Rather, it simply allowed the state to differentiate among labor unions in determining which organizations would receive the privilege of checkoffs. Ibid. 46 Four years after Brown, the Fourth Circuit rejected First and Fourteenth Amendment challenges to a South Carolina statute regulating wage checkoffs. South Carolina Educ. Ass'n v. Campbell, 883 F.2d 1251 (4th Cir.1989). The statute authorized payroll deductions for membership dues to the South Carolina State Employees Association ['SEA'], but did not permit wage checkoffs for membership dues to the South Carolina Education Association (SCEA). Id. at 1253. The SCEA contended that the statute resulted in a sudden and uniform loss of payroll deduction across the State which had a devastating effect upon the SCEA's membership, financial standing and advocacy program. Id. at 1255. The SCEA argued that the law violated the free association and free speech rights of the SCEA and its members, because when membership dues are not withheld from wages, members are less likely to pay their dues and the association is impaired in its lobbying activities, legal advocacy program, and other services. Id. at 1256. 47 Noting that there is no constitutional right to payroll deductions, the Fourth Circuit concluded that the statute was: 48 facially neutral and merely defines the type of deductions the state will authorize from the paychecks of state employees. This legislation does not prohibit, regulate, or restrict the right of the SCEA or any other organization to associate, to solicit members, to express its views, to publish or disseminate material, to engage in political activities, or to affiliate or cooperate with other groups. 49 Ibid. The Fourth Circuit continued that [a]lthough loss of payroll deductions may economically burden the SCEA ... such a burden is not constitutionally impermissible. Ibid. This was because the state's decision not to subsidize the free association and free speech rights of the union and its members did not infringe on these rights even if it did undermine the realization of all of the advantages associated with them. See ibid. (citing Regan v. Taxation With Representation of Washington, 461 U.S. 540, 549-50, 103 S.Ct. 1997, 76 L.Ed.2d 129 (1983)). 50 Brownand Campbell are wholly consistent with Supreme Court cases acknowledging that the protections accorded to fundamental First Amendment rights do not extend to imposing a duty on government to assist the exercise of First Amendment rights no matter how much the withdrawal of such assistance undercuts the effect of exercising such rights. See, e.g., Regan v. Taxation With Representation of Washington, 461 U.S. 540, 545, 103 S.Ct. 1997, 76 L.Ed.2d 129 (1983); Smith v. Arkansas State Highway Employees, 441 U.S. 463, 465-66, 99 S.Ct. 1826, 60 L.Ed.2d 360 (1979) (holding First Amendment imposes no duty on public employers to listen to or respond to union grievances or to recognize unions, even if refusing to do so impairs union effectiveness). If a large private employer decided that it did not want itself or any of its subsidiaries to administer wage checkoffs for political causes, its employees could not claim that this decision violated the Constitution. The same is true for public employees. They have no more right than private employees to compel their employer to assist them in exercising their First Amendment rights. 51 This is not to say that the government can place conditions on the receipt of state-created benefits that have the effect of dissuading people from exercising a constitutional right, even if the government has absolute discretion as to whether it will provide the benefit in the first instance. See generally, Richard Epstein, Unconstitutional Conditions, 102 HARV. L. REV. 4 (1988) (explaining the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions); Kathleen M. Sullivan, Unconstitutional Conditions, 102 HARV. L. REV. 1413 (1989) (discussing the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions). This is well established in our First Amendment jurisprudence. See, e.g., Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488, 81 S.Ct. 1680, 6 L.Ed.2d 982 (1961) (citizen cannot be refused public office because he refused to declare belief in God); Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513, 78 S.Ct. 1332, 2 L.Ed.2d 1460 (1958) (government cannot condition receipt of tax exemption on people signing declaration that they have never advocated forcible overthrow of the government). 52 The unifying principle behind this body of case law is simple. Allowing the government to decide that it will not give some people a benefit that it gives to others, even though it is not required to provide such benefit to anyone, simply because a person has exercised a right guaranteed under the Constitution, amounts to a penalty for exercising such right. See Regan, 461 U.S. at 545, 103 S.Ct. 1997. Allowing the government to penalize conduct it cannot directly ban raises concerns that the government will be able to curtail by indirect means what the Constitution prohibits it from regulating directly. As a practical matter, the government creates an obstacle to the exercise of the right to free association if it says to a person that he or she may keep a job in the public sector only by forswearing allegiance to certain political parties. Likewise, the government creates an obstacle to a woman's exercise of her right to terminate a pregnancy if it enacts a law withholding all Medicaid benefits from an otherwise eligible candidate simply because that candidate had exercised her constitutionally protected freedom to terminate her pregnancy by abortion. Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297, 317 n. 19, 100 S.Ct. 2671, 65 L.Ed.2d 784 (1980). Simply put, government may not place obstacles in the path of [a person's] exercise of [a constitutionally protected right] by impinging on the right absent a compelling justification. Id. at 316, 100 S.Ct. 2671; see also Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 360-62, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976). It is, however, equally clear that the government does not in any constitutionally significant way impinge on a constitutional right when it refuses to remove obstacles not of its own creation to the exercise of a constitutional right. Harris, 448 U.S. at 316, 100 S.Ct. 2671. 53 For example, in Harris the government's refusal to subsidize medically necessary abortions despite its decision to subsidize other medically necessary health procedures did not impinge on the due process liberty [to terminate a pregnancy] recognized in [Roe v.] Wade.  Id. at 318, 100 S.Ct. 2671. The refusal to provide such funding left the appellees with at least the same range of choice in deciding whether to obtain a medically necessary abortion as [they] would have had if Congress had chosen to subsidize no health care costs at all. Id. at 317, 100 S.Ct. 2671. The same is true in this case. We do not doubt that wage checkoffs are a great tool for maximizing political contributions from public servants. But, in the absence of the public employers administering checkoffs for political causes, all political candidates and funds, regardless of their persuasion, are left with at least the same range of options in deciding how to tap this sector of the population for contributions as they would have had if the state had chosen not to allow any employers to administer wage checkoffs. And more to the point, public employees are left with the same range of options in deciding how to best pool their resources in furtherance of a common cause. 54 In summary, the affected parties have no constitutional right to checkoffs. The privilege of checkoffs is not being denied to penalize the exercise of constitutionally protected rights. Nor are checkoffs being conditioned on refraining from exercising a constitutional right. Thus, it cannot be said that the state has impinged in any way on the First Amendment rights of public employees and their unions by prohibiting public employers (in effect, itself) from administering checkoffs. Therefore, we reverse the district court's ruling that section 3599.031(H) violates the First Amendment by prohibiting public employees from utilizing wage checkoffs for political causes.
55 Since there is no First Amendment violation in the wage checkoff ban, the remaining question is whether it violates the Constitution to deny the affected workers checkoffs because of their status as public employees. The public employees assert that the wage checkoff ban in subsection (H) violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it denies public-sector employees, but not private-sector employees, this highly efficient method of fundraising. When a law apportions benefits or burdens on the basis of a classification among citizens, it will be subject to strict scrutiny if the classification involves a suspect class or affects a fundamental right. Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, 473 U.S. 432, 440, 105 S.Ct. 3249, 87 L.Ed.2d 313 (1985). If the classification involves a quasi-suspect class, such as gender or illegitimacy, it will be subject to intermediate level scrutiny requiring that the law substantially further a legitimate state interest. Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 191-92, 97 S.Ct. 451, 50 L.Ed.2d 397 (1976); Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U.S. 495, 505, 96 S.Ct. 2755, 49 L.Ed.2d 651 (1976). If the classification does not involve a suspect or quasi-suspect classification or affect a fundamental right, it will be reviewed to determine whether it is rationally related to any conceivable legitimate state interest. Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312, 320, 113 S.Ct. 2637, 125 L.Ed.2d 257 (1993). Under the rational basis standard a legislative choice is not subject to courtroom factfinding and may be based on rational speculation unsupported by evidence or empirical data. Ibid. 56 The equal protection challenge to Ohio's wage checkoff ban must be evaluated under a rational basis standard. As previously explained, the wage checkoff ban does not impinge on any First Amendment rights. Furthermore, the status of being a public employee has never been deemed either a suspect or quasi-suspect classification. Although it is the state acting in this case, we see no significant difference between what Ohio has done here and what a large corporation might do by ordering all of its subsidiaries to stop administering checkoffs for political causes. Public employees have no greater rights than their private-sector counterparts to challenge such decisions. Ohio's wage checkoff ban satisfies rational basis scrutiny given the state's professed interest in removing partisan politics from places of public employment. The Ohio legislature rationally could have determined that ending wage checkoffs would remove a minor vestige of partisan politics from places of public employment. We cannot say that this is not a legitimate and rational concern sufficient to defeat the Appellees' equal protection claim. To the extent the district court concluded otherwise, we reverse. 57