Hoping for the Best

Here is a case I'm glad to see the Supreme Court take on:

The Supreme Court said yesterday that it will decide whether a teachers union can collect fees from nonunion members and spend their money on political activity without their prior permission....

In the union case, the court will decide whether the Washington Education Association (WEA) can spend money, collected from 3,000 nonunion teachers, on political activity without their prior consent. The teachers are required to pay fees to the union even if they don't belong to it because they are deemed to benefit from collective bargaining. Washington state's Supreme Court ruled that the requirement is unconstitutional because it puts too much burden on the union to check with every nonmember....

Stefan Gleason, vice president of the Fairfax-based National Right to Work Foundation, which is working on behalf of the teachers, said the case has big stakes because the state court's ruling could be seen to create a right to collect money even from nonunion teachers.

Long-time readers know that this is a pet peeve of mine dating back to 2004's SB 507, which gives the Board of Education authorization to enact a fee on non-union teachers who do not affiliate with TAAAC.

It is unfortunate that an issue like this has to go all of the way before the Supreme Court. The problem, as we have seen here in Maryland, is that legislatures do not understand that Americans have a basic freedom not only to associate with whomever they wish, but to not associate with whomever they wish. When teachers exercise their right to not associate with the teacher's union, they should not be punished for their decision by paying a fee because of the so called "benefits" they receive from the continued existence of the union. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will set a precedent in this case that people cannot be strongarmed into funding an organization they do not wish to be associated with.