The plaintiffs in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association have requested that the Supreme Court grant them a new hearing, saying the case’s issue, the constitutionality of mandatory union fees for workers in public-sector unions, was too important to leave unresolved after a divided court failed to reach a verdict late last month.
“To leave the questions presented unresolved would needlessly prolong the prevailing uncertainty on issues that recur constantly and that affect millions of public employees in the more than 20 states that allow agency fees. Moreover, the schemes at issue implicate hundreds of millions of dollars flowing to organizations that spend those dollars advocating on matters of clear public concern,” the 11 plaintiffs argued in a Friday petition.
The high-profile case involved whether the court should overturn a 1977 precedent called Abood v. Detroit Board of Education that said that government entities could enter into labor contracts that require their workers to have to join a union or pay it a regular fee, called an “agency fee.” The plaintiffs in Friedrichs argued that violated dissenting workers’ rights.
The court’s oral arguments in January indicated there may have been a majority to overturn Abood, which would have been a major blow to public-sector unions by depriving them a major revenue source. That apparently changed when Antonin Scalia, the court’s leading conservative, suddenly died in February.
The remaining eight justices announced on March 29 that they were split evenly on the issue, meaning that a lower court ruling that had affirmed Abood would stand. The plaintiffs, who are represented by the Center for Individual Rights, a libertarian nonprofit law firm, said Friday the court should take up the case again when Scalia’s vacancy is filed.
“While rehearing is, of course, extraordinarily rare when the court has decided an issue, it is quite common where the court is equally divided, particularly when there is a vacancy,” they argued.
Even if the court does grant a rehearing, it may be a while before the court gets around to it. Congressional Republicans have argued that President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, should not get a hearing and the Senate should wait to fill the vacancy until a new president is elected.
