Cross-posted from The Nation
The most politically partisan -- and politically activist -- Supreme Court in modern American history has already assumed that, when it comes to electioneering, corporations have pretty much the same rights as human beings. Indeed, the High Court's Citizens United ruling has given corporations unprecedented flexibility to act on their own behalf to influence election campaigns and results.
Yet, the same Court has now said that groups of actual human
beings -- trade unions that have organized public-sector workers -- must
sacrifice their flexibility in order to meet standards never before
demanded of labor organizations.
Do we detect a pattern here?
Of course.
That pattern was on stark display in Thursday's Supreme Court decision
to require that public-employee unions get specific permission from
employees in workplaces they represent for special assessments that are
used to advance political agendas. This high court swipe at the ability
of working people to make their voices heard in the political life of
communities, states and the nation won't get the attention that will be
accorded the Supreme Court's equally politicized ruling on the
Affordable Care Act.
But there's a good argument to be made that, by further skewing the
Democratic process that was so badly warped by the 2010 Citizens United
ruling, the court has done even greater damage to the long-term
prospects for renewing the republic.
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The damage is contained in a structural shift that will make unions
-- and potentially other membership-based organizations -- less
flexible and functional in the political fights of the future.
Traditionally, unions in the public sector have maintained "opt-out"
systems, which allow any worker in an organized shop to indicate that
they do not want to support union political action. Those dissenting
workers are allowed to avoid contributing to campaigning, even when it
is on behalf of their interests.
Now, because of the Court's ruling, public-sector unions are required
to develop new and more burdensome systems in which represented
employees must "opt-in" before they can support political initiatives by
organized labor.
The Court-ordered shift creates an incredible bureaucratic nightmare
for organizations that represent hundreds of thousands of workers. (And
it was entirely unnecessary, as key unions have indicated that they
would be willing not just to maintain their "opt-out" clauses but to
refund special assessment money to any member or represented nonmember
who might object to a political initiative.)
To get a sense of how onerous
the Court's move could turn out to be -- especially at this late stage in
an election cycle -- just imagine if the Court had on Thursday ordered
corporations, corporate groupings and corporate political action
committees to get pre-approval from all shareholders before spending
money on political or lobbying initiatives.
Of course, that is unimaginable.
But that is the barrier to public-sector union activism erected on
Thursday by the Court majority (in a decision written by Justice Samuel
Alito and agreed to by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices
Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas).
The clearest objections to the ruling came from Justices Stephen
Breyer and Elena Kagan, who objected to the requirement that unions get
advance approval from workers to "opt-in" for political activity.
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John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Online Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.
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