With the passing of Antonin Scalia America has lost a valiant defender of the Constitution. According to Wikipedia, “Appointed to the Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, Scalia was described as the intellectual anchor for the originalist and textualist position in the Court’s conservative wing”. To Scalia, the Constitution is a legal document and he respected both the spirit and letter of the law. Amen.

According to the Washington Post article: “The death of Antonin Scalia: Chaos, confusion and conflicting reports”, the death determination was made by phone - no local officials were available to come to the scene. Said the Post, “Presidio County Judge Cinderela Guevara pronounced Scalia dead of natural causes without seeing the body — which is permissible under Texas law — and without ordering an autopsy”. Apparently, it will be some time before the events surrounding his death become clear. My prayers go out to the Scalia family.

Aside from the chaos and confusion that surround the circumstances of Scalia’s passing, there will be similar circumstances surrounding the Supreme Court going forward. Any replacement for Scalia would have to be approved by the US Senate and there are already rumblings that that process might be put off until after the elections later this year. Further, there are cases in process that might be affected.

According to Newsmax, while the nation prepared to mourn the death of Scalia, Supreme Court watchers have already begun “to assess the immediate impact of his death on several pending cases whose decisions might have had momentous political implications”. The article points specifically to Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Association “set to have been a landmark case regarding the mandatory collection of union dues and their use for political purposes.”

According to the Washington Post, after oral arguments were heard, “A majority of the Supreme Court…seemed prepared to hand a significant defeat to organized labor and side with a group of California teachers who claim their free speech rights are violated when they are forced to pay dues to the state’s teachers union”. To make things even more complicated, according to Newsmax, since oral arguments have already been heard, Scalia has almost certainly already voted with regard to the court’s ruling on the case. There are some that believe that since Scalia is no longer a sitting justice, his vote on the case shouldn’t count - and there are those that believe that it does. I wonder what authority would decide that one?

An aspect of the Friedrich case is money in politics - a frequent complaint from those on the left. However, according to Open Secrets, of the top 25 contributors to political campaigns since 2002, 13 - more than half - are unions. At the top of the list is the union SEIU - most of its members are in health care. Number three is AFSCME - a union that represents government workers. Now, I always thought that unions were created to fight back against the “greedy capitalists”. Does that now include the government?

Beside the unions, most of the other top 25 political contributors bestow most of their largesse on Democrats. These include, Act Blue, an organization that has helped Bernie Sanders raise a big chunk of his $75 million war chest, the Soros Fund Management (18th place with 98% going to Democrats - and by the way, Koch Industries was down at 49th), Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs (yes - they give more to Democrats than to Republicans) and the American Association for Justice - formerly known as The Association of Trial Lawyers of America. In aggregate, according to Open Secrets, these top 25 donors gave nearly 80% of their donations to the campaigns of Democrats. Money in politics indeed.

That brings me home to West Virginia. For more than 80 years the Democrats controlled both legislative houses. And if you followed the money in recent years you’d find that the Democrats could rely on unions and trial lawyers for campaign funding.

During the current legislative session, West Virginia became the 26th state to pass a Right to Work law - ensuring that workers aren’t forced to join a union as a condition of their employment. Predictably it was vetoed by the governor, Earl Ray Tomblin, a Democrat turned obstructionist. However, his veto has been overridden by the legislature - Right to Work has become law.

Opponents of Right to Work have gone both ways with regard to their criticisms. On the one hand they will say that workers must be forced to pay union dues to prevent “freeloading”. Is that like “featherbedding”?

On the other hand they will say that Right to Work interferes with “free market” contracts between workers and employers. That’s right - they argue that some employers voluntarily make union membership a condition of employment. In other words, Right to Work laws interfere with the right of employers to require union membership. I’d like to see a real life example of that.

That said, if you follow that line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, the implications aren’t very palatable. If an employer requires that its workforce be a union shop it must perceive a benefit for doing so. If that is the case, wouldn’t requiring the worker to pay union dues be tantamount to a kickback? Further, with regard to government employees, whose wages come from the taxpayer, their union dues are then used to finance the campaigns of the elected officials that then determine their compensation. On top of that - they vote. Aren’t these potential conflicts of interest?

Studies have shown that states with Right to Works laws tend to have higher wages and lower unemployment rates than those that don’t. The trends are clear on that. And beside the economic benefits there are issues concerning basic human rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of association.

To be sure, workers have the right to belong to a union. However, they have an equal right not to belong. That is the constitutional right of freedom of association. With regard to the Friedrich case, it would be interesting to see how the Supreme Court would rule but we may never find out. I suspect that Justice Scalia voted against forcing workers to pay union dues. I don’t see how the court could rule that someone could be forced to join a union and pay union dues. Unless of course they decide to call union dues a tax.