Excellent editorial in Saturday’s Rocky Mountain News on the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding individual free speech rights:
It is perfectly OK to require unions to get permission from workers before spending their dues on political activity, the U.S. Supreme Court said this week in a unanimous decision. Yet when Dennis ruled that unions obtain permission annually from every member before making donations to political campaigns from their “small-donor” committees, the outcry was such you’d have thought she’d raided Fort Knox. We agreed with critics that she acted without sufficient public debate, but we never doubted the basic good sense of her decision.
Nevertheless, the courts went against Dennis, with the state appeals court making the absurd argument that “(The secretary’s rule) effectively denies the First Amendment rights of the majority of union members for the benefit of dissenting members.” Memo to the court: The First Amendment protects an individual right to free speech, not the right of a majority to bully a minority into subsidizing speech it doesn’t like.
I’m in wholesale agreement with the Rocky‘s editors on this well-substantiated point. Nevertheless, they made a pessimistic observation that failed to take into account the voice of Colorado’s people:
Last week’s ruling won’t make much difference in Colorado, since this legislature isn’t about to approve a bill lessening union influence in politics.
The Davenport U.S. Supreme Court decision could give Coloradans the go-ahead to put forward support for Ask First as a statewide ballot initiative. Because we can all agree on the concluding point in the Rocky editorial:
“We believe there was an important public policy question at stake in this case, and that’s what caused us to write an amicus brief,” said Attorney General John Suthers. “No Coloradan . . . should be required to contribute to political issues or candidates without their consent.”
Indeed not.
Should corporations be required to get permission from shareholders before contributing to political causes?
a) Shareholders choose to buy shares, unlike people who never sign up to be members of a union and are forced to pay as a condition of employment. Shareholders can sell shares without reprisals of losing their job.
b) Corporations are not allowed to contribute directly to political campaigns, but small donor committees are tailor made for unions to take money from lots of people without their permission and spend them on candidates and issues. Corporations don’t have these perks.
Nice try.
So if a union had voluntary membership, you would be fine with it’s contributing to political causes without the members permission?
When it comes to state campaign finance laws, I’d be glad to make unions play by the same rules as all other organizations. And I think Colorado would do well to have a policy requiring every organization to obtain written authorization from members before putting their money into committees that fund political issues, parties, & candidates.
I look forward to your writings on holding Corporate and Union political donations to the same standard.