Hello and welcome to Amicus Flate Supreme Court Podcast. I am Dahlia Lithwick and the

next few months promise to be filled with chills and spills at the high court as the 2015

term rolls on. We're going to see in the coming months a challenge to Texas abortion ban,

which is a challenge to the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act, and that

all will come on the heels of a challenge to affirmative action in Texas, which the court

has already heard. But, before we get there, next week the court is going to be tackling

another major case that raises questions about the future of public sector unions.

Friedrichs versus California Teachers Association is a free speech challenge to a longstanding

rule, a rule that says that even though union members can't be forced to pay membership

dues that go to overtly political speech, the state still has an interest in maintaining

labor peace, eliminating free writers, and therefore they can make non-members pay what

are known as quote agency fees or fair share fees that go to the union's collective bargaining

activities. For almost four decades the rule has been perfectly clear. Public sector workers

could be charged only for expenses related to collective bargaining and not for the union's

political activities at least in about 25 states that are not quote right to work states.

Those do not allow for this at all. But, the nine California Teachers who bring suit in

Friedrichs argue that even these compelled agency fees violate their own free speech rights

by forcing them to support union political positions that they don't agree with.

Now some see this case as signaling the death knell to public sector unions by allowing

public employees to benefit from collective bargaining agreements but never have to pay

their fair share. Opponents contend that a ruling for the teachers would turn every single

state into a so-called right to work state, it will impact not only California's Teachers

...