Well, our reactionary Supreme Court decided to satisfy itself with half a loaf today, opting to merely open the door to eviscerating some basic rights, rather than actually smashing them to bits altogether.
In the Hobby Lobby case, the Supreme Court ruled that certain times of corporations (closely held — five or fewer people own half the stock) may refuse to pay for certain medical procedures (those that deal with lady parts). Safely masculine procedures are still protected, and widely held corporations are apparently not as much persons as those controlled by a small group. I’d love to see an enterprising attorney challenge that on the Fourteenth Amendment principle — why are some corporate persons allowed more rights than other corporate persons?
In Harris v. Quinn, SCOTUS decided that certain types of unions for part-time workers could not charge agency fees. These fees are payments charged to non-members who nonetheless enjoy the work the union does in representation and negotiation benefits, and are designed to eliminate free riding. Those unions, such as home care workers, will now need to get permission from each individual person to charge them for the benefits they enjoy. “Justice” Scalia wrote an opinion more or less salivating at the chance to extend this ruling to fire, police, and education unions should such a case make it to DC.
So it would seem that the Supreme Court has passed judgments that give itself an opening to further attack freedom of religion and freedom to organize in future cases, but decided not to go all out today. What are your reactions?*
*Check out SCOTUSBlog or MSNBC 1,2 for more straightforward coverage of these cases.
The Hobby Lobby ruling is really alarming. I really can’t think of another instance where the Court favored religious freedom over individual freedom.
…the more inclined I am to see this ruling as fitting a pattern of favoring corporations, with religious freedom as the excuse but not the ideological driver.
Twisted, either way.
to consider just how much these opinions (at least the Hobby Lobby case) manage to unite the disparate wings of the Republican Party.
After all, we’ve heard much about how the libertarian “Tea Party” clashes with the “mainstream” (business-oriented) Republicans, who in turn clash with the religious conservatives. The Hobby Lobby decision unites all of them, which is quite convenient for the movement.
Isn’t anti-communism but corporate autonomy and crushing worker’s rights. It certainly brings social liberals like the Koch brothers in bed with the fundies.
I understand that they have the franchise to do so, but is any negotiating done?
For many years, my mother was a secretary in a public school system. The teachers union had the right to negotiate for them – but they often went over 5 years past expiration with no new contract as the teachers had bigger fish to fry and the unit of secretaries was a small one.
The employees in question were caring for family members in their own homes – they were paid part time and were not deployed to other patients as other home care workers were and did not enjoy the benefits of the full time and office based members. DID the union negotiate for them, or just collect dues?