This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, June 24, 2008. I'm Caleb Brown. The Supreme Court is headed toward the end of its current term among the recent rulings Chamber of Commerce v Brown, a case that was poised to force California businesses to either choose to do business with the state or choose to exercise

their First Amendment rights.

Cato Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies Ilia Shapiro offers his thoughts.

So California passed a statute after fierce lobbying by the AFL-CIO that prohibits employers in California who receive

state funds from speaking out about unionization activities. And when I say state funds I mean anything from

reimbursements for Medi-Cal the the state health care system to payments for paving a road or building a school. So essentially anybody

that receives state funds in any measure is not allowed to to speak out

about these labor-related issues.

And we're not talking about subsidies necessarily just conducting business with the state?

That's right, that's right.

And the Ninth Circuit found that this was okay after a few decisions on Bonk eventually.

The whole larger court decided that this was fine, both under labor law and under the First Amendment.

They didn't have to reach the First Amendment issue,

but they said that it was okay under First Amendment as well.

And the Supreme Court took this, and last week decided by a vote of,

it wasn't even closed, by 7-2, that it was not okay.

And for the principle that Congress is supreme in the area of regulating labor relations.

And there's a statute called the National Labor Relations Act.

And Congress specifically has not regulated in this area, has left the area open, but at the same time it's

an uncontroversial long-standing Supreme Court precedent that in this, as in many other areas that are properly left to federal

regulation even where Congress doesn't regulate that's a choice not to

regulate and no state can step in and and use its own regulations there.

...