Opinion ID: 732434
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Precedential Force of KEPAC

Text: 36 The district court relied upon Kentucky Educators Public Affairs Council v. Kentucky Registry of Election Finance, 677 F.2d 1125 (6th Cir.1982) (KEPAC ), as support for the proposition that restrictions on the solicitation of political contributions are unconstitutional unless the government can prove that these restrictions are necessary to remedy coercion of unwilling donors. The district court invalidated § 169.255(6) at least in part because Michigan had offered no proof of actual coercion. This reliance on KEPAC was misplaced. 37 In KEPAC, this court reviewed a district court's holding that the denial to a union of the right to collect funds by reverse check-off, whereby funds for political activities would be deducted from union members' pay checks automatically unless the members affirmatively requested that no such deduction be made, was inconsistent with both the Kentucky statutory prohibition on coercion in collecting funds for political activity and the First Amendment. This court's opinion focused nearly all of its analysis on affirming the statutory holding--that reverse check-off could not be deemed to violate the Kentucky statute absent evidence of coercion of union members. The court in KEPAC made a cryptic reference to the constitutional issue: 38 The district court did not err in finding that there was no substantial evidence to support the findings of fact, conclusions of law, and order of the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance, and in finding that the Registry had applied KRS 121.320 in a manner that violated KEPAC's First Amendment rights to collect money for political purposes by use of a reverse check-off system. 39 Id. at 1133 (emphasis added). 40 The opinion includes no analysis of the constitutional question, and no rule of law is stated. In discussing and attempting to explain what this court did in KEPAC, one court has commented as follows: 41 Kentucky law permitted employee organizations to participate in payroll deductions, and, since the evidence indicated the reverse check-off system was not coercive, the Kentucky Corrupt Practices Act was not deemed violated. The First and Fourteenth Amendment issues raised by Plaintiffs here were not clearly addressed by the Sixth Circuit. 42 .... 43 .... [T]he issue before that Court was not constitutionality of removal of the right to check off; the issue there was whether reverse check-off was coercive under Kentucky law and therefore illegal. The Sixth Circuit held it was not coercive and, therefore, was legal. 44 Toledo Area AFL-CIO Council v. Pizza, 898 F.Supp. 554, 569-70 (N.D.Ohio), modified on other grounds, 907 F.Supp. 263 (N.D.Ohio 1995). 45 Although the district court relied upon the single brief statement in KEPAC that purports to decide the First Amendment issue, a fair reading of that opinion reveals that the resolution of the appeal there under consideration rested entirely on statutory grounds. That conclusion is buttressed by the fact that the opinion undertook no analysis of a First Amendment issue. Accordingly, KEPAC cannot be said to amount to binding precedent on the First Amendment issue in this appeal. We do not take issue with the dissent's view that the First Amendment allows organizations to express their political views.