I'm Elizabeth Lattery and I'm Tiffany Bates.

And welcome to SCOTUS 101, where we break down what's happening at the Supreme Court,

what the justices are up to, and other things related to our favorite branch of government.

This week, we're not talking about much since there was no SCOTUS news.

Just kidding, we're talking about everything that happened this week, and there was a lot.

Before we get into the biggest SCOTUS headline of the week, we'll recap the major decisions

from the past week, and we're joined by Kimberly Robinson of Bloomberg Law. Welcome to SCOTUS 101.

Great to be on. So first up, the court decided the long-awaited years in the making Janus case.

This is the case challenging

compelled agency fees for public employees who declined to join their local union. Mark Janice

is an Illinois state employee, and he opted out of joining the union, but then he discovered he

still had to pay what's called an agency fee to cover the cost of collective bargaining.

Now, that for him, amounted to 78% of a full union member's fees.

Mr. Janice didn't want anything to do with the union in his state,

and it was one that had made large political donations to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund,

among other political causes.

Now, under a 1977 decision, Aboud v versus Detroit Board of Education, the Supreme Court had previously

ruled that unions could collect these fees from non-members to cover their, quote, fair share of

collective bargaining costs. The theory was that the government had a compelling interest in labor

peace for its employees, and also that this prevented free riders from benefiting from

union activities

without paying a fair share.

...