SCOTUS Splits 4-4, Upholds Defeat Of Anti-Gay Bid To Upend Mandatory Public Sector Union Fees

In April 2013, Orange County elementary school teacher Rebecca Friedrichs sued the California Teachers Association, arguing that her mandatory union fees meant that she had been unwillingly forced into financially supporting the union’s advertising campaign against the passage of Proposition 8. Friedrich’s suit was joined by the Christian Educators Association International. Which brings us to today. Via The Atlantic:

The U.S. Supreme Court split 4-4 in Friedrichs v. CTA on Tuesday, thwarting a legal challenge that labor activists feared would deal a crippling blow to public-sector unions throughout the country. “The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court,” the justices wrote in a brief, unsigned ruling.

The case was closely watched not only because of the implications for organized labor, but also how the court would rule following Justice Antonin Scalia’s death on February 13. Scalia was seen as likely to have ruled against the unions, and his death deprived the court’s conservatives of a tie-breaking fifth vote.

Tuesday’s deadlock means that the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in favor of the teachers’ union will stand. But it also signaled that Justice Anthony Kennedy, who almost certainly joined Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas on one side of the split, would be willing to overrule Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, the decision that became the basis for public-employee contracts. That tosses the precedent’s ultimate fate to the next justice who serves on the Court.

From a 2013 interview with Friedrichs:



“A lot of us were very offended by these advertisements. We are on the opposite side of this debate and do not support efforts to make gay marriage legal. But the unions used our forced union dues to pay for all sorts of advertising to paint us with a broad brush to say we supported gay marriage when we did not. We didn’t feel that it was right for our personal money to be taken and sent to support political campaigns set up to defeat something we were voting for.”