The majority also suggests that it would be unconstitutional for a public employer to agree to a contract that gives union members a better deal than nonmembers. (Which is why imposing the duty of fair representation on the union is not a significant burden that justifies requiring nonmembers to pay fair share fees).
In rejecting the Union’s originalism argument, the majority notes that the union presumably doesn’t want the Court to overrule all the precedent that provides public employees First Amendment protection in other contexts. And, Justice Alito concludes, “We will not engage in this halfway originalism.”
We have Florida v. Georgia.
It is by Breyer, and it is 5-4.
It's an interesting line-up. Breyer is joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor.
Thomas diseents, joined by Alito, Kagan, and Gorsuch.
They are done. No retirement announcements from any justices.
I am going to get to work now on my write-up of Janus.
Returning to Janus: the majority rejects the claim that under the Constitution’s original meaning, public employees had no First Amendment rights: “But those examples at most show that the government was understood to have power to limit employee speech that threatened important governmental interests (such as maintaining military discipline and preventing corruption)—not that public employees’ speech was entirely unprotected.”
Thanks to all of you for joining us. Have a great summer, and we will see you (barring some unexpected developments) in t fall.
In Florida v. Georgia, the Court holds that the Special Master held Florida to too high a standard, and that, in fact, Florida met its threshold burden to show that its injuries can be redressed by limiting Georgia's consumptive use of water from the Basin without a degree binding the Army Corps of Engineers. But the Court doesn't go beyond that threshold question, and instead sends the case back to the special master for evidentiary findings.
We are going to shut down the live blog for today. Thank you to everyone who joined us this morning.We got a lot of comments of all kinds, but we're just a few people -- sorry if we didn't get to yours.
Today we'll have Amy's reporting on Janus, Lara Fowler on Florida v. Georgia, Mark Walsh with a "view" from the courtroom, as well as our Janus symposium and remaining pieces from our Trump v. Hawaii symposium.
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