104Feeder
Phoenix Feeder
In some cases, a diminished conservative majority might hand unexpected victories to liberals.
The best example of that concerns a battle over public employee union fees that the court considered last month.
At oral argument, the court seemed prepared to hand a significant defeat to organized labor and side with a group of California teachers who claim that their free-speech rights are violated when they are forced to pay dues to the state’s teachers union.
The court’s conservatives — Scalia included — appeared ready to junk a 40-year-old precedent that allows unions to collect an “agency fee” from nonmembers to support collective-bargaining activities for members and nonmembers alike.
But the lower court, citing that precedent, had ruled for the union. And with the Supreme Court’s liberals seemingly united that way too, a 4-to-4 vote would mean that the precedent and union victory would stand.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/scalias-death-flips-supreme-court-dynamics-hurts-conservative-hopes/2016/02/14/b8f1f8ac-d322-11e5-9823-02b905009f99_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_court-desktoponly-1153am:homepage/story
I would rather we win on merit but ultimately if Labor wins this one this is very good news.