Opinion ID: 3033697
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Local Interest Exception

Text: The Supreme Court has cautioned that “inflexible application of [the Garmon] doctrine is to be avoided, especially where the State has a substantial interest in regulation of the conduct at issue and the State’s interest is one that does not 2 Even if one were to disagree with my reading of Section 8(c), I explain below in the Machinists analysis how AB 1889 does not directly regulate employer speech in any case — meaning that even if Section 8(c) did grant employer speech rights, AB 1889 would not be preempted under Garmon because it does not regulate such speech. See infra Section II. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE v. LOCKYER 12217 threaten undue interference with the federal regulatory scheme.” Farmer v. United Bhd. of Carpenters & Joiners, 430 U.S. 290, 302 (1977). When conducting a Gar- mon preemption inquiry into whether regulation overlaps with NLRB jurisdiction, we must therefore conduct “a balanced inquiry into such factors as the nature of the federal and state interests in regulation and the potential for interference with federal regulation.” Id. at 300. This is to avoid preempting state regulation of conduct that involves “interests so deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility that, in the absence of compelling congressional direction, we [cannot] infer that Congress ha[s] deprived the States of the power to act,” or where “the activity regulated [is] a merely peripheral concern” of the NLRA. Garmon, 359 U.S. at 243-44; see Belknap, Inc. v. Hale, 463 U.S. 491, 498 (1983). The previously recognized exceptions to Gar- mon preemption have involved exercises of state court jurisdiction over universally recognized common law torts, rather than, as here, the exercise of a state’s spending power. See, e.g., Linn v. United Plant Guard Workers of America, 383 U.S. 53, 62 (1966) (“[A] State’s concern with redressing malicious libel is ‘so deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility’ that it is not preempted despite arguable overlapping NLRB jurisdiction over the speech at issue.”) (quoting Garmon, 359 U.S. at 244). But the logic that compelled the Supreme Court to recognize the exception in the former category applies just as powerfully — if not more so — to local spending decisions. A state’s control of its own purse strings is of at least as great concern to it as its power to regulate defamatory speech or trespassing. Just as the state has a responsibility to protect its citizens from such torts, so it has a responsibility and a right to spend its treasury — largely generated from the pockets of its citizens — based on principles and guidelines that the democratically elected legislature of that state deems to be appropriate. Such spending decisions are, of course, subject to federal supremacy concerns. But the Supreme Court has commanded us to be extremely cautious 12218 CHAMBER OF COMMERCE v. LOCKYER before concluding that a federal regulatory scheme is meant to intrude upon such a fundamental state prerogative. The majority gets the denominator wrong when it concludes that “regulating employer speech in the labor relations context . . . is not a traditional state interest, nor is it ‘so deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility’ as to invoke the exception.” Maj. Op. at 12202. The majority ignores the broader state interest at issue — control over its own fisc — and inappropriately second-guesses the California legislature’s motivations in exercising this prerogative. In an era of tightening budgets, where many important competing interests vie for every dollar of a state’s treasury, it is all the more important that states retain their right to determine the best way to allocate their scarce resources. Today, the majority effectively forces California to fund employers’ union-related expression with those scarce dollars.