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Originally Posted by BroncoBilly";p="
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Well, as usual, "World Net Daily" got it about one quarter right. The issue was not, as World Net Daily claimed, that the WEA Teachers Union was "stealing" fees from unwilling non-members for political purposes. The WEA has always provided a simple check box on a form so that any non-member could prevent the union from using a portion of their "agency fees," the equvalent of dues, for political purposes.
The conflict had to do with whether it was the responsibility of the teacher to "opt out" of supporting such fees or to "opt in" by authorizing the use of such fees. That issue, however, was not determined by the US Supreme Court. Instead, the Court simply found that states (in this case Washington) have the power to determine which way the procedure should operate rather than finding (as the Washington Supreme Court had found) that the union itself was free to determine the procedure without regulation by the State.
As far as this being a case of "whacking liberal Democrats," it is worth noting that the SCOTUS decision was unanimous, including all four of those (*)(*)(*)(*) "liberal" justices.
Finally, the effect of the ruling is decidedly limited since (a) no other state besides Washington has a law enabling the state to make this determination; (b) well over 95% of all Washington teachers are members of the WEA while this affects the agency fees of only the non-members; and (c) most importantly, the Washington legislature in 2007 changed the law to conform to the WEA's current practice, a power the US Supreme Court decided in the case in question was within the legislature's power.
In short, this ruling gave the Washington legislature, controlled by "liberal Democrats," the power to regulate union practice with regard to political spending of non-members' fees. Not exactly a "whack" for "liberal Democrats."
Rather than uncritically posting nonsense from such sources as "World Net Daily" it would take you only about 60 seconds (as it took me) to google the case in question and determine what the Court really decided. Or you can simply post nonsense from Wingnut websites and expect others to point out you don't know what you're talking about. Let me guess what your choice will be.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...&type=politics
http://cms.washingtonea.org/index.ph...sk=view&id=929