# Amicus Curiae Brief — Janus v. Am. Fed'n, 138 S. Ct. 54 (2017) (No. 16-1466) > Briefs, arguments, decisions, and more. URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/brief%3Amicro_IA40385016_0755%3A35 ## Record - **Collection:** Supreme Court brief - **Document type:** Amicus Curiae Brief - **Published:** January 1, 2017 ## Text No. 16-1466 In the Supreme Court of the United States MARK JANUS, Petitioner, Vv. AMERICAN FEDERATION OF STATE, COUNTY, AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES, COUNCIL 31, ET AL., Respondents. On Writ of Certiorari To The United States Court of Appeals For The Seventh Circuit BRIEF FOR CALIFORNIA PUBLIC-SCHOOL TEACHERS AS AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONER TERENCE J. PELL MICHAEL A. CARVIN MICHAEL E. ROSMAN Counsel of Record CENTER FOR ANTHONY J. DICK INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS WILLIAM D. COGLIANESE 1100 Connecticut Ave. NW VIVEK SURI Suite 625 JONES DAY Washington, DC 20036 51 Louisiana Ave., NW (202) 833-8400 Washington, DC 20001 PAUL B. GREEN (202) 879-3939 JONES DAY macarvin@jonesday.com 3161 Michelson Drive Suite 800 Irvine, CA 92612 (949) 851-3939 Counsel for Amici Curiae ᷑—̃ . — ͤͤ.'U—!b᷑ f — a me a an REE QUESTION PRESENTED Whether the Court should overrule Abood v. De- troit Board of Education, 431 U.S. 209 (1977), and hold that public-sector “agency shop” arrangements violate the First Amendment. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page 2 ......— . ˙ i e 1 .... nncsecnsneriscneemeseestnnncien 1 —T 5 I. Compulsory union fees are subject to — . 6 A. This Court’s cases require exacting scrutiny of compulsory union fees regardless of the Government’s role as — 7 B. Exacting review advances the First Amendment’s purposes 14 C. History confirms the propriety of ...T— 16 II. Compulsory agency fees are unjustifiable on any standard of review . .. . .. 18 A. “Labor peace” does not justify compulsory — w] —⁰Üw—————— 19 B. Concerns about “free riding” do not justify compulsory union fees 22 III. If the Court overrules Abood, it should also clarify that unions may collect fees from nonmembers only with their affirmative il TABLE OF AUTHORITIES Page(s) CASES Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, 11112 T passim Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., . 26 Baggett v. Bullitt, ot ees 9 Board of County Commissioners v. Umbehr, e 9 Branti v. Finkel, , 8 Citizens United v. FEC, D 14 Consolidated Edison Co. v. NLRB, ! 23 Elrod v. Burns, gf | 5 | eee 7, 8, 10 FEC v. National Right to Work Committee, CE ... 14 Fisk v. Inslee, No. 16-5889 (WD Wash. Oct. 16, 2017)......... 31, 32 Friedrichs v. California Teachers , ‘ati e aE 20, 23 Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006)...............ccccessrsseesesees 10, 11, 12 iv TABLE OF AUTHORITIES (continued) Page(s) Harris v. Quinn, r passim Keyishian v. Board of Regents, . ß x Knox v. Service Employees, Se .. passim Lane v. Franks, e ⸗ 10 Maslenjak v. United States, // x 28 Morse v. Frederick, e iincciteincninsinmetintminmnnnedetan 16 O'Hare Truck Services, Inc. v. City of Northlake, r : 8. 9 Perry v. Sinder mann. ,, . 10 Pickering v. Board of Education, RR passim Riley v. National Federation of the Blind, e 30 Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois, og T 8, Steele v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad, . ccc V TABLE OF AUTHORITIES (continued) Page(s) Teachers v. Hudson, 475 U.S. 292 (1986). . ... . . . . 27, 28, 29 Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961) .. . be- 10 U.S. Civil Service Commission v. Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. 548 (1973) . . ... 14 United States v. NTEU, 513 U.S. 454 (1995) . ... 19 United States v. United Foods, 533 U.S. 405 (2001) .. . . . 13 Waters v. Churchill. 511 U.S. 661 (1994) .. . rb. 11 West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943) .. 12, 14, 15, 16 Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183 (1952). ...... . . 4 Yohn v. California Teachers Association, No. 17-202 (CD Cal. 2017). passim STATUTES Act of Supremacy, 1 Eliz. c. 1 (1558) .... 16 Act of Uniformity, 14 Car. II c. 4 (1662). 17 City of London Militia Act, 14 Car. II c. 3 (1662)... .... “’ 17 vi TABLE OF AUTHORITIES (continued) Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy Act, 1 Gul. & Mar. c. 8 (1688) Security of the Succession Act, 13-14 Gul. III c. 6 (170) ieee Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom OTHER AUTHORITIES Declaration of Independence ....................... Oliver Ellsworth, Landholder No. 7 (1787) in Essays on the Constitution of the United States, Paul Leicester 8 Cee Supreme Court Rule 37.6... Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein, Noah Webster, A Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings (1790) Kim Crockett, “Unions Act as if They've Already Lost,” Wall Street Journal 1899... — 1 INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE Amici Bruce Aster, Darren Miller, Allen Osborn, Michelle Raley, Robert Vehrs, Stacy Vehrs, and Ryan Yohn are public-school teachers who are subject to compulsory union fees in California. Amicus Associa- tion of American Educators is a group whose members include public-school teachers subject to compulsory union fees (in California and elsewhere). Amici have sued California and the California Teachers Associa- tion to challenge the compulsory-fee scheme in that State. That lawsuit is pending. Yohn v. California Teachers Association, No. 17-202 (CD Cal. 2017). SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT This amicus brief makes three points: (1) Laws compelling people to pay union fees as a condition of public employment are subject to exacting scrutiny; (2) such laws cannot satisfy any level of scrutiny, as confirmed by empirical information that amici have uncovered in discovery in Yohn; (3) if the Court over- rules Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, 431 U.S. 209 (1977), it should also clarify that a public-sector union may collect fees from nonmembers only with their affirmative consent. I. Laws compelling individuals to pay union fees as a condition of public employment are subject to ex- acting scrutiny. First, this Court has long engaged in exacting review of laws requiring people to support In accordance with Supreme Court Rule 37.6, amici state that no counsel for a party authored this brief in whole or in part, and that no person or entity, other than amici and their counsel, made a monetary contribution intended to fund the preparation and submission of this brief. All parties have filed letters grant- ing blanket consent to the filing of amicus briefs. 2 political or ideological causes as a condition of public employment. In contrast, the Court has reserved less exacting review for routine personnel policies that re- strict employee speech in order to manage the work- place or ensure effective job performance. Agency-fee laws—which are categorical compulsions to support outside advocacy groups, rather than individualized restrictions on workplace speech-—thus deserve exact- ing review. Second, the purposes of the First Amendment con- firm this analysis. The First Amendment guards against the threat that the government and allied in- terest groups will abuse their powers to coerce uni- formity of thought. There is a grave danger of such abuse whenever a government decides that everyone must support a favored political agenda as a condition of public employment. Aiso, the open marketplace of political ideas protected by the First Amendment is badly distorted by state-imposed requirements to sup- port a particular advocacy group. Finally, the First Amendment secures a sphere of individual conscience free from government control, and the state intrudes on this sphere when it compels people to contradict their deeply held beliefs by subsidizing causes they fervently oppose. Third, history confirms the propriety of exacting review. For centuries before the Founding, English rulers tried to secure conformity of religious and polit- ical thought by compelling public servants to affirm particular beliefs as a condition of employment. For example, Parliament enacted laws forcing public em- ployees to support the monarch’s status as head of the Church, to denounce the theory that the people have the right to rebel against a tyrannical government, 3 and to profess the legitimacy of the Hanoverian suc- cession. The framers of our Bill of Rights condemned these religious and political tests (even though the tests were imposed only on public employees, rather than on the citizenry at large). This history refutes the notion that the First Amendment allows the govern- ment to compel political speech as a prerequisite for public employment. II. Laws requiring payment of agency fees cannot survive any level of review, exacting or deferential. Abood’s defenders claim that compelled agency fees promote “labor peace” by avoiding the problems that would arise if the state had to deal with multiple rival unions instead of a single bargaining agent. But this argument is a non sequitur. The state’s interest in avoiding multiple unions justifies (at most) the proposition that there should be only one union, not the separate proposition that objectors should be forced to subsidize that union. Abood’s defenders per- sist, however, that the state’s interest in dealing with a single union justifies compelled agency fees on the ground that, without such fees, the union would be- come insolvent. Yet Abood’s defenders have never pro- vided any empirical evidence to support such claims. Nor can they do so, since public-sector unions flourish at the federal level and in the many states that pro- hibit agency fees. Abood’s defenders also claim that compelled agency fees are justified to prevent nonmembers from “free riding.” This claim is meritless. The First Amendment generally does not allow the government to force someone to subsidize speech with which he disagrees simply because the government thinks that 4 it benefits him. This is all the more true because a dis- senting worker does not “free ride” on the union’s pol- icies, but rather disagrees with those policies, and must abide by them only because the state has im- posed the union on him as his exclusive bargaining representative. It is thus more accurate to describe the dissenter (in JUSTICE KENNEDY’s words) as a com- pelled rider” on policies with which he disagrees. Against all of this, Abood’s defenders have sug- gested that public-sector unions have a unique privi- lege to extract fees from nonmembers because they have a statutory duty to refrain from discriminating against those nonmembers. But unions voluntarily as- sume this “duty” in exchange for being empowered as an exclusive bargaining representative. The “duty” is, indeed, an essential (but minor) limit on the power of exclusive representation: A union cannot simultane- ously insist on both (1) the sole authority to negotiate on behalf of all workers in the unit and (2) the author- ity to discriminate against some of those workers dur- ing those negotiations. Nor is there any evidence that the nondiscrimination duty makes any difference in how unions actually conduct themselves. Thus, the “free-rider” justification for compelling speech is even weaker in the union context than it is elsewhere. III. If the Court decides to overrule Abood, exist- ing procedures for collecting fees from nonmembers will become defunct. Unions and nonmembers alike need guidance about what rules will take their place. The answer to that question is straightforward: Just like any other political advocacy group, a union may collect fees from a nonmember only if he affirmatively consents (or “opts in”) to this subsidization. Under the First Amendment, states must minimize the burden 5 on political speech. They cannot require individuals to “opt out” of paying union fees, any more than they can require them to “opt out” of making a donation to the Democratic or Republican parties. Forcing nonmem- bers to shoulder the burden of objecting to political wage-garnishment serves no legitimate public pur- pose, particularly since it contradicts the probable preferences of nonmembers. ARGUMENT The First and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the States from “abridging the freedom of speech.” The freedom of speech includes the right to decide which words to speak, which groups to join, and which polit- ical causes to support—or not to support. One of the most powerful ways to support a cause is to fund it—to put your money where your mouth is. That is why the Declaration of Independence ends: “we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our For- tunes and our sacred Honor.” And it is why the Vir- ginia Statute for Religious Freedom (also written by Thomas Jefferson) says: To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.” In spite of these principles, this Court held in Abood that a state may force public employees to sup- port the inherently political agenda pursued by pub- lic-sector unions in collective bargaining. That ruling was incorrect, and this Court should overrule it. This amicus brief addresses three points. First, we explain why exacting scrutiny applies to laws that im- pose compulsory union fees as a condition of public employment. Second, drawing on information secured 6 in discovery in Yohn v. California Teachers Associa- tion, we show why such compulsory fees violate the First Amendment under any standard of review. Third, if the Court does overrule Abood, it should also clarify that a public sector union may not collect any agency fees from nonmembers unless they affirma- tively consent, or “opt in,” to such fee paying. I. Compulsory Union Fees Are Subject To Exacting Scrutiny As a general rule, laws that compel people to sup- port a political or ideological cause as a condition of public employment are subject to exacting judicial scrutiny. This Court has already decided that this ex- acting scrutiny applies to laws that require public em- ployees to pay compulsory union fees to support col- lective bargaining: “Because a public-sector union takes many positions during collective bargaining that have powerful political and civic consequences, the compulsory fees constitute a form of compelled speech and association that imposes a significant im- pingement on First Amendment rights.” Knox v. Ser- vice Employees, 567 U.S. 298, 310—11 (2012). Such an impingement cannot be justified except in the “exceed- ingly rare” situation where it “serve[s] a compelling interest that cannot be achieved through means sig- nificantly less restrictive of associational freedoms.” Id. at 310; see id. at 314 (compulsory union fees “must serve a compelling interest and must not be signifi- cantly broader than necessary to serve that interest”). Defenders of Abood have argued, however, that agency-fee laws nonetheless deserve more deferential review because the government has imposed them in its capacity as a public employer. They have relied on 7 cases such as Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968), which holds that the government's decision to restrict employee speech in order to man- age the workplace triggers interest-balancing rather than full First Amendment review. They have urged the Court to extend the same balancing test to com- pulsory-fee laws. This position is incorrect. Precedent, the purposes of the First Amendment, and the history of condition- ing public employment on ideological commitments all establish that compulsory union fees are subject to ex- acting scrutiny. A. This Court’s Cases Require Exacting Scrutiny Of Compulsory Union Fees Regardless Of The Government’s Role As Public Employer 1. Under this Court’s precedents, the scope of the government’s authority to regulate employee speech depends on the nature of the regulation. The most ex- acting scrutiny applies to laws that compel support for political or ideological causes as a condition of public employment. By contrast, routine policies that restrict employee speech in order to manage the workplace or ensure effective job performance receive more defer- ential review. Under this framework, agency-fee laws—which are categorical compulsions to support outside political advocacy groups, rather than individ- ualized restrictions on workplace speech—deserve ex- acting review. The Court made this point most clearly in Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347 (1976) (plurality opinion). There, the Court ruled that any government practice that compels public servants to “contribute a portion of 8 their wages to” an ideological advocacy group “must survive exacting scrutiny.” Id. at 362. A majority of this Court reaffirmed that rule in Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois, 497 U.S. 62, 74 (1990), which held that patronage practices must be “narrowly tailored to further vital government interests.” The Court further elaborated on this point in O Hare Truck Services, Inc. v. City of Northlake, 518 U.S. 712 (1996). There, the Court explained that laws requiring public servants to satisfy a “raw test of po- litical affiliation” face exacting scrutiny and are pre- sumptively invalid. Id. at 719. At the same time, where “a government employer” simply regulates “specific instances of the employee’s speech or expres- sion” in the course of managing the workplace, courts instead apply “the balancing test from Pickering” and often (though not always) sustain the employer's deci- sion. Id. Time and again, the Court has invalidated laws compelling public servants to support a political cause as a condition of getting or keeping their jobs. For ex- ample, the Court has ruled that the state lacks the power to: e Require public-sector employees to join, work for, or contribute money to a political party. Rutan, 497 U.S. at 74; Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507, 513-17 (1980); Elrod, 427 U.S. at 355 (plurality opinion). „ Require public teachers to disavow com- munism. Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S. 589, 597-604 (1967). 9 e Require public teachers to affirm that they will respect the national and state flags. Bag- gett v. Bullitt, 377 U.S. 360, 371 (1964). ¢ Require public-sector employees to affirm that they are not members of “subversive organiza- tions.” Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183, 190-91 (1952). The principles underlying these cases defeat com- pulsory public- union fees. Such coerced subsidization does not involve the management of the workplace or the regulation of “specific instances of [an] employee's speech,” but instead imposes “raw testſs] of political affiliation” by forcing employees to support the inher- ently political agenda that public-sector unions pur- sue in collective bargaining. O'Hare, 518 U.S. at 720. Nobody who refuses to support this political agenda may hold the public office in question—no matter how qualified, no matter how experienced, no matter how effective a public servant he may be. Under this Court’s cases, such coercive politica! favoritism is sub- ject to exacting review, and the government has no special authority to impose it simply because it is an employer. 2. The general principles underlying this Court’s cases about the government’s authority as employer confirm that the Court should engage in exacting re- view of the law here. This Court has long rejected Justice Holmes’ dic- tum that one “may have a constitutional right to talk politics,” but has “no constitutional right to be a po- liceman.” Board of County Commissioners v. Umbehr, 518 U.S. 668, 675 (1996). Quite the contrary, the Court has consistently ruled that “public employees 10 do not renounce their citizenship when they accept employment.” Lane v. Franks, 134 S8. Ct. 2369, 2377 (2014). And the government may not “leverage the employment relationship” (Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 419 (2006)) to “produce a result which it could not command directly” (Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 597 (1972)). This Court thus starts with the presumption that laws abridging freedom of political speech trigger ex- acting scrutiny, regardless of whether the government enforces the restriction by invoking the sovereign’s power to punish or the employer's power to discipline. Indeed, since taking away someone’s job is generally more coercive than simply taking away some of his money—especially in fields such as “teach{ing],” where “the government is a major (or the only) source of employment” (Rutan, 497 U.S. at 77)—it makes no sense to reduce the level of scrutiny just because the government has decided to fire rather than to fine. Consequently, for example, this Court engages in ex- acting review both when the government orders citi- zens to be Democrats and when it orders employees to be Democrats (Elrod, 427 U.S. at 362), both when the government orders citizens to say that God exists and when it orders employees to say that God exists (Tor- caso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488, 495 (1961)). That said, this Court has recognized an exception to this general rule. Under Pickering, the Court en- gages in interest-balancing when the government reg- ulates the workplace speech of individual employees. 391 U.S. at 568. This Court, however, has never “seen Abood as based on Pickering.” Harris v. Quinn, 134 8. Ct. 2618, 2641 (2014). Pickering applied less strict re- view because of two basic realities: Applying exacting 11 scrutiny to discipline for public employees’ work-re- lated speech would cripple the government’s ability to manage the workplace, and would convert judges into personnel managers. But neither of these problems arises in reviewing laws requiring agency fees, and there is thus no basis for relaxing scrutiny. To elaborate: The Pickering cases explain that “the extra power the government has in this area comes from the nature of the government’s mission as employer.” Waters v. Churchill, 511 U.S. 661, 674—75 (1994) (plurality opinion). “Government employers, like private employers, need a significant degree of control over their employees’ words and actions.” Gar- cetti, 547 U.S. at 418. If an employee “who is paid a salary so that she will contribute to an agency’s effec- tive operation begins to do or say things that detract from the agency’s effective operation, the government employer must have some power to restrain her.” Wa- ters, 511 U.S. at 675. Otherwise, “there would be little chance for the efficient provision of public services.” Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 418. This rationale, however, does not cover laws com- pelling public employees to support the political agenda of an outside advocacy group. A public em- ployer simply has no “need” to require public servants to support the inherently political agenda pursued by public-sector unions’ collective bargaining against the employer. Nor is there any risk that public servants’ refusal to support the union’s political agenda will hamper the “effective operation” of the government workplace. There is, accordingly, no justification for deferential review in this context. 12 Separately, the Pickering cases explain that more deferential review is necessary to avoid the “displace- ment of managerial discretion by judicial supervision.” Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 423. These cases have cautioned against “intrusive” “judicial oversight” of the interac- tions between “government employees and their supe- riors in the course of official business.” Id. Again, however, there is no such risk here. This case involves a general law requiring public servants to fund the political agenda of outside advocacy groups. It does not involve any exercise of “managerial discre- tion” regarding how the workplace is run or how em- ployees perform their job duties. As a result, this key justification that underpinned Pickering and Garcetti is entirely absent here. This is particularly true because it is not Mark Ja- nus’ employer, the Department of Healthcare and Family Services, that has decided to extract fees from him. It is the Illinois General Assembly that has done so. There is no more reason to defer to this law than there is to defer to any other law regulating speech. In any event, even if Janus’s employer itself had extracted the fees, this Court’s “duty” to protect the employee’s right to refrain from supporting a political cause that he opposes “does not depend upon [its] pos- session of marked competence in the field where the invasion of rights occurs.” West Virginia State Board of Education v.Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 639 (1943). The Court “act[s] in these matters not by authority of [its] competence but by force of [its] commissions.” Id. It should not, “because of modest estimates of [its] com- petence in such specialties as public [employment], withhold the judgment that history authenticates as [its] function ... when liberty is infringed.” Id. 13 3. There is no merit to the claim that this Court’s decisions require deferential review here because col- lective bargaining addresses “prosaic” issues rather than issues of “public concern” (Harris, 134 S. Ct. at 2655 (KAGAN, J., dissenting)). This characterization of collective bargaining “flies in the face of reality.” Har- ris, 134 S. Ct. at 2642. Collective bargaining affects public policy, public services, and the public fisc—all “matter|s] of great public concern.” Id. at 2643. More importantly, even assuming the accuracy of this characterization of collective bargaining, the “prosaic” character of the union’s speech would not af- fect the objector’s First Amendment rights. People have a right not to fund speech they oppose, prosaic or not. For example, this Court has held that the First Amendment prohibits compelling people to fund mushroom advertising. United States v. United Foods, 533 U.S. 405 (2001). If there is a fundamental right not to fund something as “mundane” as mushroom ad- vertising, there is also a fundamental right not to fund collective bargaining. Knox, 567 U.S. at 309. This is because the nature of the union’s speech tells us only whether the government may prevent the union from uttering that speech; it says nothing about whether the government may force a third party to subsidize that speech. The “prosaic” nature of the un- ion’s speech may diminish the First Amendment pro- tection enjoyed by the union in making that speech, but it does not diminish the protection enjoyed by pe- titioner in refusing to fund that speech. Indeed, even if the union’s collective-bargaining speech were wholly unprotected, the government would still have no basis for forcing others to fund it. A State’s choice not to ban speech that it could constitutionally prohibit hardly 14 provides a rational justification for forcing others to support that proscribable speech. For example, the government may prohibit unions from contributing to political campaigns (FEC v. National Right to Work Committee, 459 U.S. 197, 208 (1982)), but that hardly suggests that the government may compel third par- ties to subsidize a union’s political contributions. Sim- ilarly, the government may prohibit its employees from participating in partisan politics (U.S. Civil Ser- vice Commission v. Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. 548, 556 (1973)), but that does not mean that it may compel third parties to support its employees’ partisan activ- ities. Thus, petitioner’s right not to fund the union’s bargaining is coextensive with petitioner’s right to criticize or to refuse to praise that speech; it is not co- extensive with the union’s right to engage in that bar- gaining in the first place. B. Exacting Review Advances The First Amendment’s Purposes The basic purposes of the First Amendment rein- force all of these points. First, the First Amendment is “premised on mis- trust of governmental power.” Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310, 340 (2010). It denies government power to regulate speech, because governments (and allied interest groups) tend to abuse that power to “coerce uniformity of sentiment” in society. Barnette, 319 U.S. at 641. There is a grave danger of such abuse any time a government decides to require every public servant to support a given creed as a condition of public em- ployment. That is obvious from, for example, the American experience with loyalty oaths during the 15 Red Scare. It is essential to review such speech com- pulsions rigorously, not deferentially. Second, the First Amendment secures for society an “open marketplace in which differing ideas about political, economic, and social issues can compete freely for public acceptance without improper govern- ment interference.” Knox, 567 U.S. at 309. It denies the government the power to distort that marketplace by “prohibit[ing] the dissemination of ideas that it dis- favors” or “compel|[ling] the endorsement of ideas that it approves.” Jd. A categorical requirement that all public employees support a given political cause un- doubtedly distorts this marketplace of ideas. By con- trast, limiting the speech of government employees in order to manage their wo lace or ensure their effec- tive job performance carries no such risk. It therefore makes sense to review the former far more stringently than the latter. Third, the First Amendment also secures for the individual a “sphere of intellect and spirit” free “from all official control.” Barnette, 319 U.S. at 642. The state intrudes upon this sphere when it prevents someone from “speak[ing] his own mind.“ but it in- trudes even more seriously when it compells] him to utter what is not in his mind.” Id. at 634. To be sure, preventing an individual from expressing his views impermissibly distorts the marketplace of ideas by ex- cluding that citizen’s voice. But compulsions to speak are worse still, because they force the citizen to affirm- atively contradict his own views, both violating his conscience and artificially enhancing the voice of the opposing side. For this reason, “involuntary affirma- tion could be commanded only on even more immedi- ate and urgent grounds than silence.” Id. at 633. 16 The school cases illustrate this principle. On the one hand, public schools have broad power to prohibit the utterance of a disruptive message, say by disci- plining a student for unfurling a banner urging drug use. Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393, 410 (2007). On the other hand, public schools lack similar power to compel the support of a favored message, say by disci- plining a student for failing to salute the flag. Barnette, 319 U.S. at 642. The same logic is decisive here. A government em- ployer intrudes upon its employees’ liberty more seri- ously when it requires them to support political posi- tions they do not favor (for example, by forcing them to pay union fees) than when it restricts their speech in order to improve workplace functioning and job per- formance. Such affirmative compulsion therefore in- herently deserves the most exacting scrutiny in all cir- cumstances. C. History Confirms The Propriety Of Exacting Review History illustrates the evils of imposing compul- sory political support as a condition of public employ- ment. For centuries before the Founding, English rul- ers tried to secure conformity by requiring public serv- ants to affirm religious and political beliefs. For exam- ple: e The Act of Supremacy required everyone “hav- ing [the Queen's] Fee or Wagys' to affirm that Elizabeth I was “the supreme Governour of this Realme” in both “Spirituall” and Tempo- rall” matters. 1 Eliz c. 1 (1558). 17 e The City of London Militia Act required mili- tia officers to denounce the “traiterous posi- tion” that the people may “take Armes against the King.” 14 Car. II c. 3 (1662). e The Act of Uniformity required “every Publique Professor” to reject “change or alter- ation of Government ... in Church or State.” 14 Car. II c. 4 (1662). e The Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy Act required anyone “admitted into any Office or Imployment” to “Abjure” the “Damnable Doc- trine” that “Princes ... may be Deposed ... by their Subjects.” 1 Gul. & Mar. c. 8 (1688). e The Security of the Succession Act required everyone who received “any Pay, Salary, Fee, or Wages” from the Crown to profess the legit- imacy of the Hanoverian succession. 13-14 Gul. III c. 6 (1701). The framers of our Bill of Rights were familiar with these abuses, and they abhorred them. For ex- ample, Noah Webster condemned “test laws, oaths of ... abjuration, and partial exclusions from civil of- fices” as instruments of slavery” and “badge{s] of tyr- anny.” Noah Webster, “On Test Laws, Oaths of Alle- giance and Abjuration, and Partial Exclusions from Office,” A Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings, 151-53 (1790). Oliver Ellsworth insisted that laws re- quiring people to “make a public declaration of ... be- lief ... in order to qualify themselves for public em- ployments” were “useless, tyrannical, and peculiarly unfit for the people of this country.” Oliver Ellsworth, Landholder No. 7 (1787), in Essays on the Constitution of the United States, Paul Leicester Ford ed., 168-71 18 (1892). And Thomas Jefferson wrote that “proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by lay- ing upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess ... this or that ... opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right.” Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786). This history forecloses the theory that the govern- ment may require people to support a political or ide- ological cause simply because it happens to be their employer. To the contrary, English history shows that such requirements are rife with potential for abuse, and American history shows that the founding gener- ation would not have tolerated them. It thus makes no difference that agency-fee requirements are enforced through employment sanctions; exacting scrutiny still applies. II. Compulsory Agency Fees Are Unjustifiable On Any Standard Of Review Regardless of whether this Court engages in ex- acting or deferential review, the government bears the burden of identifying a good reason for forcing objec- tors to fund the political agenda of an outside advo- cacy group such as a public-sector union. Defenders of Abood have identified two justifications for this prac- tice: (1) promoting “labor peace” and (2) preventing “free riding.” Neither of these interests, however, can justify the extraordinary step of compelling political speech—on any standard of review. We show why that is so below, drawing on empirical information that we have uncovered during discovery in Yohn v. California Teachers Association. 19 A. “Labor Peace” Does Not Justify Compulsory Union Fees Defenders of Abood claim that compelled agency fees promote “labor peace” by helping the state avoid “the confusion and conflict that could arise if rival ... unions, holding quite different views, ... e ch sought to” represent employees during collective bargaining. Abood, 431 U.S. at 224. But this argument is a non sequitur. The state’s interest in avoiding a multiplicity of unions justifies (at most) the proposition that there should be only one union. It does nut justify the entirely different propo- sition that objectors should be forced to subsidize the speech of that one union. Put simply, “a union’s status as exclusive bargaining agent and the right to collect an agency fee from nonmembers are not inextricably linked.” Harris, 134 S. Ct. at 2640. In an effort to show why the state’s interest in having a single union justifies compelled agency fees, defenders of Abood have argued that the single union would become insolvent without the funding provided by such fees. This argument is mistaken. First, Abood’s defenders bear the burden of sup- porting their claims with evidence, since “mere specu- lation” cannot justify limiting speech. United States v. NTEU, 513 U.S. 454, 473 (1995). Yet public-sector un- ions have never offered any empirical evidence that they will wither away without compulsory fees. The Yohn lawsuit currently pending in California confirms this point. In that case, we asked the unions whether loss of compulsory fees really would make them insolvent or preclude them from serving effec- 20 tively as exclusive bargaining representatives. In re- sponse, the unions never asserted (much less provided any evidence) that any such result would occur. They instead said that, if Abood falls, “some number” of workers will refuse to pay dues and that this number “may” be “substantial.” NEA Response to Interroga- tory No. 13. They made no effort to quantify this short- fall or to suggest that it would impede them from ef- fectively representing employees. This is nothing new. Public-sector unions had a chance in Harris to show that “the cited benefits” of exclusive bargaining “could not have been achieved if the union had been required to depend for funding on the dues paid by those ... who chose to join.” 134 S. Ct. at 2641. They had the same chance again in Frie- drichs. They had the same chance once more in Yohn, and once more after that in this case. Each time, how- ever, “no such showing has been made.” Id. at 2641. That speaks volumes. Second, experience refutes the unions’ claims. The Federal Government and most states already allow emp!,ees to decide for themselves whether to pay un- ion fees. Yet despite the inability to extract fees from dissenters, public-sector unions remain vibrant at the federal level and in all such states. Experience also shows that nonmember fee-pay- ers constitute only a tiny fraction of the people who financially support public-sector unions. For example, we learned in Yohn that, in 2016-17, the National Ed- ucation Association received fees from 3 million mem- bers, but only 90,000 nonmembers (or 3 percent of the total number of workers). NEA Response to Interrog- atory No. 16. In the same period, the California Teach- ers Association collected fees from around 315,000 21 members, but only 25,000 nonmembers (or 7 percent of the total). CTA Response to Interrogatory No. 18. The loss of fees from such a miniscule part of the work- force will not imperil unions’ continued existence. Indeed, even if there were a massive increase in the number of nonmembers, and even if all of these nonmembers decide not to pay fees, unions could still continue to do their jobs effectively. After all, at the federal level, around two-thirds of covered employees pay no union dues. Harris, 134 S. Ct. at 2657 n.7 (KA. GAN, J., dissenting). But public-sector unions ably rep- resent their federal bargaining units. Unions could in all events make up for any short- fall by redirecting funds from express political activity to collective bargaining. Unions spend vast sums on campaigning; just consider the $12 million that the union in Knox budgeted to “fight back” against a Re- publican governor's effort to limit the union’s ability to extract coercive fees. 567 U.S. at 306. Unions can more than make up for the loss of compulsory fees by spending less money at the polling place and more money at the workplace. Third, common sense likewise belies any claim that public-sector unions will collapse unless propped up by compulsory fees. If public-sector workers really consider unions’ agenda and services beneficial and worthy of support, it stands to reason that “a high per- centage” of public-sector workers would “bec[ome] un- ion members and willingly pay union dues.” Harris, 134 S. Ct. at 2641. That suffices to keep the union sol- vent. There is no need (and thus no justification) for the further step of extracting compulsory fees from those who oppose the unions. 22 Ultimately, what the unions really seem to fear is not that the loss of agency fees will hamper their pro- vision of services, but, instead, that it will spur debate about the value of those services. In Yohn, the unions speculated that “dark-money groups” will “attempt to persuade” employees to quit unions and to refuse to pay dues. NEA Response to Interrogatory No. 14. Under the First Amendment, however, more de- bate is a good to be welcomed, not an evil to be avoided. Perhaps outside groups will indeed try to per- suade employees to stop paying dues, but unions re- main free to respond to such speech with more speech of their own. If unions really do achieve all the bene- fits they claim to achieve, they should have little trou- ble persuading workers to continue supporting them. Regardless, a government cannot justify compulsory subsidization of unions on the grounds that it wishes to avoid public debate about the value of those unions. B. Concerns About “Free Riding” Do Not Justify Compulsory Union Fees 1. Defenders of Abood have also claimed that states may force dissenters to pay dues in order to pre- vent the dissenters from “free riding” on the union’s efforts. But this rationale, too, is wrong. “Free-rider arguments ... are generally insuffi- cient to overcome First Amendment objections.” Knox, 567 U.S. at 311. Lots of groups provide benefits for people who are not members, but it does not follow that the government may coerce the beneficiaries to subsidize the groups’ activities. For example, the Gov- ernment may not force hikers to fund the Sierra Club, businesses to fund the Chamber of Commerce, or doc- tors to fund the American Medical Association, even 23 though they might well benefit from these organiza- tions’ activities. So too, the Government may not force objecting employees to fund a public-sector union, re- gardless of whether the employees benefit from the union’s activities. Indeed, the free-rider rationale is far weaker in this setting than it is elsewhere. No law compels un- ions to represent nonmembers; unions may engage in “members only” bargaining. Consolidated Edison Co. v. NLRB, 305 U.S. 197, 236 (1938). Unions consciously choose to represent nonmembers in exchange for recognition as exclusive barga ning representatives. This recognition subjects the nonmembers to the un- ions’ control, depriving them of their right to negotiate independently with their employer and forcing them to adhere to the employment policies that the unions want included in the collective bargaining agreement. It is thus Orwellian to describe the objectors here as “free riders.” As JUSTICE KENNEDY aptly put it, it would be more accurate to describe the objectors as “compelled riders for issues on which they strongly disagree.” Transcript of Oral Argument 45, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, 136 S. Ct. 1085 (2016) (No. 14-915). The government’s decision to force a nonmember to live by union policies to which he objects hardly justifies the additional restriction of forcing him to subsidize the negotiation of those poli- cies. 2. Abood’s defenders have nonetheless claimed that the free-rider rationale uniquely permits compul- sion to speak here, because the exclusive bargaining representative has a duty to represent nonmembers. Where the government requires a union to provide services to nonmembers (the theory goes), it may also 24 require the nonmembers to pay the cost. This ra- tionale is incorrect for a number of reasons. There is, again, no duty to represent nonmembers: No law requires any union to represent workers that it does not want to represent. Public-sector unions have voluntarily assumed this “duty” in exchange for the power of exclusive representation. Indeed, the “duty” of nondiscrimination is an es- sential limitation on the unions’ voluntarily assumed power to control nonmembers’ employment conditions. Having insisted on exclusive authority to negotiate on behalf of members and nonmembers alike, the union cannot reasonably insist that it should also be allowed to discriminate against those nonmembers. In fact, such an inequitable arrangement—in which a union gets fiduciary powers over nonmembers but owes no fiduciary duties to them—would raise grave constitutional concerns. In Steele v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad, 323 U.S. 192 (1944), the Court ex- plained that an exclusive representative “is clothed with power not unlike that of a legislature,” and so has “an affirmative constitutional duty” to refrain from discriminatlingl against ... those for whom it legis- lates.” Id. at 198. “Constitutional questions arise” if a statute gives a union exclusive authority to speak on behalf of a worker, yet “without any commensurate statutory duty” to refrain from discriminating against that worker. Id. Unions are not entitled to compensation for ful- filling this duty. Refraining from discrimination against nonmembers, such as the black employees in Steele, is not a favor that burdens the union; it is, in- 25 stead, the nonmembers’ constitutional due. In none- theless insisting on payment for refraining from dis- crimination, a union in effect says to the objector: “Even though you disagree with all of our policies, we've made sure that only our union can represent you during your negotiations with your employer. Now pay up, because if you don’t, we'll use our power to see that you get paid less than everybody else.” This kind of claim—which resembles a demand for protec- tion money—can hardly justify abridging the non- members’ speech rights. Underscoring these points, the nondiscrimina- tion duty imposes no meaningful burden on unions and provides no meaningful benefit to nonmembers. The duty does not require unions to advocate for the views held by nonmembers. It does not even require them to consider the views of nonmembers. To the con- trary, unions remain free to strike bargains that ele- vate their own policies over those of nonmembers. The union need only refrain from making agreements that discriminate on their face against nonmembers. Our experience in YoAn illustrates these points. During discovery, we asked the defendant unions to identify all instances in which they had even con- sulted with a nonmember about the terms of the col- lective bargaining agreement. In response, they acknowledged that they had never “undertaken any poll, survey, or other formal outreach” seeking the opinions of nonmembers. NEA Response to Interroga- tory No. 10. More generally, they could not identify a single dollar they had spent because of the “nondis- crimination duty,” since they dſo] not maintain rec- ords that track or report the total amount or percent- 26 age of funds” they spend “in connection with repre- senting nonmembers.” CTA Response to Interrogatory No. 11. What is more, the “burden” of nondiscrimination is so trivial and commonplace that advocacy groups (even unions) already voluntarily refrain from dis- criminating. The AMA and AARP do not seek higher Medicare payments to members than to nonmembers. Unions lobbying state legislatures (a context in which there is no nondiscrimination duty) do not seek higher statutory overtime rates for members than for nonmembers. The reality that unions and other groups voluntarily refrain from discriminatory advo- cacy vividly demonstrates both that the “duty” to do so imposes no meaningful burden and that such non- discrimination does not distinguish unions from other advocacy organize tions. The “duty” thus cannot ex- plain why unions should be allowed to extract fees from “free riders,” when no other advocacy group can. 3. Perhaps recognizing that the nondiscrimina- tion duty has no effect on collective-bargaining nego- tiations, defenders of Abood have claimed that their obligation to handle the grievances of nonmembers entitles them to fees. Not true. To begin with, grievance representation in fact helps the union rather than the objector. This repre- sentation gives the union control over the grievance process: The union gets to decide which grievances to press, and in doing so it may subordinatſe]l' the in- terests of the individual” nonmember to “the collective interests” of the bargaining unit. Alexander v. Gard- ner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 58 n.19 (1974). Mean- while, grievance representation has little value for the 27 nonmember. Such representation only covers griev- ances under the collective bargaining agreement—the very thing the dissenting nonmember may find objec- tionable. A State may not require a nonmember to pay a union to help him enforce a provision that he does not agree with in the first place. In all events, any restriction of speech must be “carefully tailored” to the government’s interests. Knox, 567 U.S. at 313. But nobody suggests that states have carefully tailored agency fees to grievance handling. Quite the contrary, the costs of grievance representation represent at most a tiny percentage of the total agency fee. Indeed, in Yohn, the unions could not even say if they had spent any money on “repre- senting nonmembers ... in grievance proceedings.” CTA Response to Interrogatory No. 11. Asking griev- ance representation to support the compelled agency fee is thus like asking a Lilliputian to support Gulliver. III. If The Court Overrules Abood, It Should Also Clarify That Unions May Collect Fees From Nonmembers Only With Their Affirmative Consent 1. If this Court decides to overrule Abood, it should also clarify what procedures unions must fol- low when collecting fees from nonmembers. Doing so is a practical necessity. In Teachers v. Hudson, 475 U.S. 292 (1986), this Court set out the procedures that unions must follow if they wish to collect ordinary annual assessments. Each year, the union tallies up its “chargeable” ex- penses (expenses related to collective bargaining) and its “non-chargeable expenses” (expenses related to lob- bying). The union then sends nonmembers a “Hudson 28 notice,” instructing them to pay the “chargeable” por- tion of the fee and inviting them to pay the “non- chargeable” portion. Id. at 304—09. If the Court overrules Abood, however, the Hud- son procedure will become defunct. There will no longer be a distinction between “chargeable” and “non- chargeable” expenses; in effect, all expenses will be non-chargeable. Consequently, Unions and nonmembers alike need guidance about what will take Hudson’s place. Both of these groups need to know what rules unions must follow going forward when collecting agency fees. Providing guidance on this point would accord with the principle that this Court has a “responsibil- ity” to avoid “halfway decisions,” and that its opinions should address the “operational question” of how its rulings should “apply in practice.” Maslenjak v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 1918, 1927 n.4 (2017). 2. The question of what rule should take Abood s and Hudson’s place is easy to answer. Like any other political advocacy group, a public-sector union may collect donations from nonmembers only by their af- firmative consent. Just as a state cannot require em- ployees to “opt out” of donating money to the Demo- cratic or Republican parties, neither can it do so for public-sector unions. This Court has already held that a union’s use of an opt-out rather than an opt-in scheme for collecting fees is, itself, “a substantial impingement on First Amendment rights.” Knox, 567 U.S. at 317. Rightly so. First, opt-out regimes subject nonmembers to “the burden” of opting out of making payments to which 29 they object. Id. at 312. In practice, this burden will of- ten be severe, since a union will have an incentive to make it as difficult as possible for someone to refuse to fund its activities. Second, opt-out regimes distort the marketplace of ideas. “An opt-out system creates a risk that the fees paid by nonmembers will be used to further political and ideological ends with which they do not agree.” Id. After all, as modern social sci- ence demonstrates, “people have a strong tendency to go along with the status quo or default option.” Rich- ard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein, Nudge 8 (2008). Opt-out regimes thus allow governments to exploit in- ertia and ignorance in order to promote their pre- ferred ideas. Third, opt-out regimes contradict the principle that courts “do not presume the acquies- cence in the loss of fundamental rights.” Knox, 567 U.S. at 316. As a result, an opt-out requirement—like any other “impingement” on freedom of speech—complies with the First Amendment only if it survives exacting scrutiny. Or, as the Court put it in Knox and Hudson, “any procedure for exacting fees from unwilling con- tributors must be ‘carefully tailored to minimize the infringement of free speech rights.” Knox, 567 U.S. at 313 (quoting Hudson, 475 U.S. at 303). Opt-out requirements cannot satisfy this test. In Yohn, we asked the unions whether they could come up with any justification for a default rule under which every nonmember presumptively subsidizes unions. The unions first asserted that an opt-out re- gime “reduces administrative burdens for unions.” CTA Response to Interrogatory No. 17. But this justi- fication is plainly inadequate. For one thing, the un- ions have not even attempted to describe in general 30 terms what sort of unidentified “administrative bur- dens” an opt-in regime would purportedly impose. And it is not obvious what these administrative burdens would be. Either way, unions would have to send non- members forms notifying them of their rights; either way, unions would have to review the responses before deducting any dues from the nonmembers’ paychecks. In any event, “the First Amendment does not permit the State to sacrifice speech for ef* ~iency.” Riley v. Na- tional Federation of the Blind, 487 U.S. 781, 795 (1988). Even if an opt-out system were more efficient than an opt-in system, the government still would have no authority to adopt it. The unions in bonn also claimed that an opt-out regime “comport(s] with the preferences of most work- ers.” CTA Response to Interrogatory No. 17. This wholly unsupported claim defies common sense. As this Court has already recognized, “the probable pref- erenc[e] of most nonmembers” is to withhold fees, not to pay them. Knox, 567 U.S. at 312. After all, it is “likely that most employees who choose not to join the union that represents their bargaining unit prefer not to pay the full amount of union dues.” Id. In sum, un- ions have come up with no cognizable justification at all for an opt-out requirement. More generally, it is obvious that requiring em- ployees to “opt-out” of subsidizing political activity is inherently unconstitutional. Otherwise, a State could establish a default rule that one percent of every pub- lic employee’s wages goes to the Democratic Party, re- quiring employees to check a box on a form in order to avoid that deduction. All would agree, however, that such a scheme violates the First Amendment. Just as the First Amendment requires an opt-in regime for 31 contributions to political parties, so too it requires an opt-in regime for contributions to unions. Nothing else would “avoid the risk” that dissenters’ funds will be used “to finance ideological activities.” Jd. at 312. It is true that the Court has previously given im- plicit approval to opt-out regimes like California’s. But those earlier cases “have given surprisingly little attention to this distinction.” Id. Rather, “acceptance of the opt-out approach appears to have come about more as a historical accident than through the careful application of First Amendment principles.” Id. This Court has never directly decided whether the First Amendment requires that public employees opt into subsidizing nonchargeable speech. It is therefore free to vindicate the important First Amendment interests at stake in setting the default rule without reconsid- ering any prior decisions. It should do so now. 3. Finally, an opinion squarely clarifying that only truly voluntary, “opt-in” fees are permitted will help ensure that the Court’s ruling does not become a dead letter. Public-sector unions have been known to resort to “aggressive” and even “indefensible” ploys to “collect fees from nonmembers.” Id. at 314. There is every danger that, unless checked by this Court, they will engage in such ploys to circumvent the Court’s de- cision in this case. To take one example, consider one public-sector union’s efforts to evade this Court’s decision in Harris v. Quinn. After the Court decided in that case that states may not compel homecare providers to pay agency fees, one union in Washington unilaterally de- clared every homecare provider in the State to be one of its members by default. Fisk v. Inslee, No. 16-5889, Order 2—4 (WD Wash. Oct. 16, 2017). Having done so, 32 it proceeded to collect full dues from these new “mem- bers”—even though previously, when these homecare providers were nonmembers, it could collect only a portion of the dues, representing chargeable expenses. Id. Making matters worse, a federal district court then blessed this procedure as lawful. Id. at 5. To take another example, consider reports that a public-sector teachers’ union in Minnesota has al- ready prepared a new dues form “in anticipation of Ja- nus.” This form “says that the union is authorized to deduct dues from the teachers’ paychecks.” The form “also includes the following fine print”: This authorization shall remain in effect and shall be automatically renewed from year to year, irrespective of my membership in the un- ion, unless I revoke it by submitting written notice to both my employer and the local union during the seven-day period that begins on September 24 and ends on September 30. Kim Crockett, “Unions Act as if They've Already Lost, Wall Street Journal (Oct. 2, 2017) (emphasis added). If this Court overturns Abood, it should not leave the door open to such evasions. CONCLUSION The judgment of the court of appeals should be re- versed. DECEMBER 6, 2017 TERENCE J. PELL MICHAEL E. ROSMAN CENTER FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS 1100 Connecticut Ave. NW Suite 625 Washington, DC 20036 (202) 833-8400 PAUL B. GREEN JONES DAY 3161 Michelson Drive Suite 800 Irvine, CA 92612 (949) 851-3939 33 Respectfully submitted, MICHAEL A. CARVIN Counsel of Record ANTHONY J. DICK WILLIAM D. COGLIANESE VIVEK SUR JONES DAY 51 Louisiana e., NW Washington, DC 20001 (202) 879-3939 macarvin@jonesday.com Counsel for Amici Curiae --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/brief%3Amicro_IA40385016_0755%3A35. Public record. Not legal advice.