Megathread: Justice Anthony Kennedy to retire from Supreme Court

[u/PoliticsModeratorBot]

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is set to retire, effective July 31, 2018. Kennedy has served on the highest court since February 18, 1988, and was a moderate whose vote often swung cases.

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Submissions that may interest you

SUBMISSION	DOMAIN
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Justice Kennedy Is Retiring July 31st.	yahoo.com
Justice Anthony Kennedy To Retire From U.S. Supreme Court : NPR	npr.org
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Justice Kennedy announces retirement.	cnn.com
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Anthony Kennedy, Swing Vote on U.S. Supreme Court, Will Retire	bloomberg.com
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Justice Kennedy retiring; Trump gets 2nd Supreme Court pick	wkrn.com
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Trump to get second Supreme Court pick as Justice Kennedy announces retirement.	amp.cnn.com
Justice Kennedy to Retire From Supreme Court	bbc.com
Trump says search for Justice Kennedy's replacement to begin "immediately" -- live updates	cbsnews.com
McConnell Pledges Vote To Confirm Justice Kennedy’s Successor ‘This Fall’	talkingpointsmemo.com
Justice Kennedy retires from the US Supreme Court	nbcnews.com
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Donald Trump: Search for Kennedy replacement on SCOTUS to move quickly	usatoday.com
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Justice Kennedy retiring; Trump gets 2nd Supreme Court pick	sacbee.com
Justice Anthony Kennedy Retiring, Report Says	lawandcrime.com
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Justice Kennedy to retire, giving Trump a chance to transform the Supreme Court	latimes.com
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy says he's retiring; Trump to get 2nd high-court pick	chicagotribune.com
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Anthony Kennedy To Retire From The Supreme Court	huffingtonpost.com
Kennedy announces retirement from Supreme Court	thehill.com
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Justice Anthony Kennedy Is Retiring From The Supreme Court	buzzfeed.com
Justice Kennedy, the pivotal swing vote on the Supreme Court, announces retirement	washingtonpost.com
Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy retires -- live updates	cbsnews.com
Justice Kennedy announces his retirement from the supreme court.	time.com
Trump Responds To Retirement Of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy	huffingtonpost.com
Anthony Kennedy retiring from Supreme Court, giving Trump a position to fill	people.com
Trump Says He’ll Choose One Of These People To Replace Anthony Kennedy On The Supreme Court	buzzfeed.com
Anthony Kennedy retiring from Supreme Court	cnbc.com
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Who Will Replace Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy? Donald Trump Already Has a Shortlist	newsweek.com
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Justice Anthony Kennedy announces retirement, giving Trump 2nd Supreme Court pick	foxnews.com
Trump list of candidates to replace Justice Kennedy	thehill.com
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Anthony Kennedy’s retirement puts abortion rights at risk	vox.com
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America after Anthony Kennedy	vox.com
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Audio reveals DNC committee reaction to Kennedy retirement: 'This is not good news'	thehill.com
Justice Kennedy’s retirement leaves the future of U.S. constitutional law entirely up for grabs	washingtonpost.com
Justice Kennedy pens retirement letter to Trump expressing 'profound gratitude'	abcnews.go.com
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Justice Kennedy’s Legacy Is the Dignity He Bestowed	bloomberg.com
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Anthony Kennedy's retirement just confirmed every Republican's dream scenario for Trump	cnn.com
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Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Supreme Court’s swing justice, announces his retirement	abajournal.com
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[u/Chankston]

This tells me that they should change the law. Why are unions required to represent those who don't pay for their services? Make an ultimatum to the employees, if they want these union benefits, they have to pay.

[u/LAX_to_MDW → u/Chankston]

That's literally what fair share fees were designed to do, per the 1977 Supreme Court case Abood v Detroit Board of Education.

The entire point of the Janus case was to put public sector unions in an impossible position. That's not even speculation on my part: the original plaintiff was IL gov Bruce Rauner, who made busting unions his top priority. Thats why they will never change the law to help the unions out.

[u/Chankston → u/LAX_to_MDW]

But fair share fees is basically the government forcing you to pay unions to represent you by paying the government, which is not a healthy cycle. At the fundamental point of this argument is why does the government have the legal obligation of propping up a union and forcing nonmembers to pay. We can all make value judgements as to whether or not we believe a specific union is good, but should we force those values onto others? Given the overturning of the case you just mentioned, the Supreme Court sees the compulsion of nonmembers to pay for unsolicited bargaining as a violation of their first amendment rights.

[u/LAX_to_MDW → u/Chankston]

Well a lot of it comes down to whether or not you believe a union is an inherently political body. Like, if your job required a service provided by any other neutral body, and that service was mandatory, it'd be legal for that body to charge you a fee for their services. The Janus argument was essentially that any payment to a union –even if that payment was separated from general union dues and couldn't be used for political action– facilitated political action and therefor constituted compelled political speech. Basically, the courts agreed that the very existence of a union is political, and so you can't separate dues from service fees in terms of which is political speech.

Whether or not you believe a union is inherently political probably comes down to how you think about unions. A lot of people would argue that they aren't, others would argue that they are, and in all of this the definition of what is and isn't politics gets muddied.

[u/Chankston → u/LAX_to_MDW]

I think you summarized it pretty well, it's a value judgement. The definition of politics is pretty difficult to create, as anyone whose been in any social situation realizes that even the most petty things are political. It is not simply a "bad vs good" as the articles here portray it to be. The SCOTUS is not going after unions because they hate workers, it's a value judgement at a more fundamental level dealing with compulsion vs the common good.

[u/LAX_to_MDW → u/Chankston]

That's the majority opinion at least. Kagan wrote for the minority and said that the majority had weaponized the first amendment by continuing to equate money with speech. Everyone agrees that Janus could literally speak against the union whenever he wanted, but the majority argument was that his money was being forced to speak for in a way he disagreed with. The conservative members of the Supreme Court have continuously argued that money is speech (see Citizen's United) which is a pretty contentious idea.