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February 26, 2018|Abood v. Board of Education, First Amendment, Friedrichs v. California, Harris v. Quinn, Janus v. American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Council 31, Knox v. SEIU, Public Sector Unions

Will the Janus Case Strike the Deathblow to Public Sector Unions?

by Mark Pulliam|

US Supreme Court, Washington DC,
A badly-flawed precedent is about to get KO’d in a rematch of a contest that last ended in a draw.

July 24, 2015|Abood v. Board of Education, Freedom of Speech, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, Harris v. Quinn, Public Sector Unions

Overruling Abood Will Correct a Travesty

by Mark Pulliam|

My first two posts in this series discussed, respectively, the origins of the concept of “exclusive representation” in the NLRA and the Supreme Court case law leading up to Abood in 1977.   In this post, I will analyze the decision in Abood (which, it will be recalled, was roundly criticized in Harris v. Quinn (2014) and may be overruled in Friedrichs). 

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July 1, 2015|

Is It Curtains for Mandatory Public Sector Union Dues?

by Michael Toth|

MADISON, WI - MARCH 12: Thousands of demonstrators protest outside the Wisconsin State Capitol March 12, 2011 in Madison, Wisconsin. Organizers were expecting 200 thousand participants to attend the rally to voice their opposition to Governor Scott Walker public sector union reforms. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

In America’s experiment with unionized government, 2005 was a watershed year. California was then in the second year of the Age of Arnold. Elected on a pledge to put the Golden State’s dysfunctional fiscal house in order, Governor Schwarzenegger terminated the car tax on his first day in office. In his first year, the Republican and self-proclaimed Milton Friedman devotee successfully championed a balanced budget initiative and legislation putting a lid on spiraling worker-compensation costs. His prime time address at the 2004 GOP convention portrayed the Republican Party as dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and to “getting government off your…

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Responses

Clawing Back the Right of Free Speech

by Daniel DiSalvo

Many say the Roberts Court has been exceptionally supportive of First Amendment principles. As Michael Toth ably details in his Liberty Forum essay, these principles have been at issue in two recent cases, Knox v. SEIU Local 1000 (2012) and Harris v. Quinn (2014). Both dealt with public employee unions and both were decided in…

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Time to Drive a Stake Through the Heart of Mandatory Dues

by John C. Eastman

Let me start with a disclaimer. I was once a member of a union—albeit involuntarily. During college, I responded to Southwestern Bell’s ad for a part-time, 20-hour-a-week graveyard shift job designing Yellow Pages advertisements. I was offered the position, but was required to join the union as a condition of my employment. Had I been…

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January 6, 2014|Abood v. Detroit Board of Ed., First Amendment, Free-riding, Harris v. Quinn, Illinois, John McGinnis, Knox v. SEIU, Labor Unions, Labor-and-Speech, Medicaid, SEIU, Supreme Court, Union Fees

The Government is Us. Let’s Unionize!

by Michael S. Greve|

Happy New Year, and all cheer the arrival of the one and only John McGinnis on this excellent site! His contributions will make it excellenter still. Rummaging around on the Supremes’ docket and among briefs and petitions, I’ve come across Harris v. Quinn. The question is whether it’s okay for a state (Illinois) to authorize unionization, complete with mandatory union fees, for home health care workers who provide in-home care to individual patients under Medicaid-financed programs. Abood v. Detroit Board of Ed. (1977) held that public employers have a “compelling interest” in labor peace and in preventing free-riding by employees. (However,…

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Book Reviews

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

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The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

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James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

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Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

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Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

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Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

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America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

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About

Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

The opinions expressed on Law & Liberty are solely those of the contributors to the site and do not reflect the opinions of Liberty Fund.
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