MORE REASONS TO NOT PUT A REPUBLICAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE

…Supreme Court Justice, Samuel Alito

The desperate conservatives are going even further than anyone thought to keep their party alive.

We have all had to live with the Republican’s attempts and their successes with the voter suppression efforts such as the Government Issued Photo ID’s, fewer voter days, shorter voting hours, fewer voter precincts for the Democratic regions and more precincts for the Republicans.  In addition, whatever other changes that would help keep the voters that usually vote Democratic from getting to the polls.

Now, with a 5 to 4 conservatives vs liberals in the US Supreme Court, Justice Samuel Alito has convinced the court to take on a case that could make all those Republican voter suppression efforts look like child’s play for misleading the voting public.

In a previous case, Justice Alito had argued that no public employee covered by a collective bargaining agreement should be required to pay any union dues.  The liberal justice, Elena Kagan, however noted in her written response, that Alito’s argument did not even refer to the actual subject of the case that was before the court. 

But now, to make his point, Alito has invited any union opponents to bring a challenge to the 1977 Abood decision. 

This is exactly the subject that Alito was previously arguing. 

The Abood case was the original court’s decision that required those that didn’t want to pay union dues for unions that supported election campaigns, the Abood decision required the union members to only pay that portion of their union dues that went to bargaining and administering the union contracts.

With this Alito invitation to the anti-union opponents to bring a case against the Abood decision before the court, that invitation is soliciting a challenge to the very idea of public-sector collective bargaining.  This is the crown jewel of the reasons for American workers to join a union.

If employees can benefit from union representation without funding the union, the high court had reasoned in 1977 that the union could then be weakened to the point that it couldn’t represent those employees adequately, if at all.  Ergo, the Abood decision.  Now Alito wants the result of that decision on paying partial union dues to go away.

This case will be argued later this year.  Those that are writing about this case are saying that it could be expected to render the most partisan Supreme Court decision since Bush v. Gore.  In that case, even though the final Florida vote counts had eventually given the election to Al Gore, the conservative high court instead gave the 2004 White House election to George W. Bush.

The current case in point is Friedrichs vs California Teachers Association.  When the court eventually rules in Friedrichs, the Republican-appointed justices will be able, if they so choose, to create a long-term advantage for the Republican party over the Democrats.

Over the decades, as private-sector unions have dwindled in the face of corporate employer opposition, public-sector unions have become the nation’s largest and most powerful labor organizations.  Come election time, these unions offer a significant source of the legwork needed for the “get-out-the-vote operations” for progressive Democratic candidates.  A decision to remove the requirement for the union members to pay even a portion of the union dues could render that union function “null and void” for supporting the union candidate choices.

Therefore, due to the ridiculous conservative court’s Citizens-United decision, today wealthy corporate America can spend all the money they want to support the corporation’s chosen election candidates.  If this Friedrichs’ decision goes Justice Alito’s way, the only major groups that have the money for supporting the working men and women’s candidate choices will totally disappear.

As an example, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), is the main fund raiser and organizer of campaigns to raise the minimum wage for low-paid (almost entirely non-union) workers.  The SEIU has played a central role in the battle to legalize undocumented immigrants. All the large, public-sector unions have devoted significant resources to opposing Republican-backed state laws that suppress minority voter turnout. For decades they’ve also financed and mounted voter registration and turnout campaigns among their own members and in minority communities.

And this is the main reason for the importance of not electing a Republican president in 2016.

What the working American public does not need is a conservative president that would add even more conservative judges to the high court. 

There are two Supreme Court conservative judges and two liberal judges currently in the age groups of the late 70’s, early 80’s.  The liberal judges, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer are the older of the judges and in the poorest health.  Therefore, who is elected in 2016 for nominating future high court judges is a highly critical issue.

In addition, today, the nation’s conservative political party continues to shrink while it supports the very small percentage of the country that controls the majority of the nation’s wealth.  This conservative group is now becoming desperate, knowing that if they continue to lose their members and their political influence, they will not be able to continue running the country as they have over the past few decades. 

Therefore, the GOP continues to do all they can in dealing the cards from the bottom of the deck for controlling the American voting public.  Now they are going after and doing all they can to take over the long-term control of the highest court in the land.

The conservatives know that most of America does not believe in their concept of governing or of their ideas of right and wrong.  But, as it is with those that become so desperate, that they will do whatever they can to survive, regardless of whose lives it harms or maims.

God help us all if a Republican president makes it to the White House in 2016.

Copyright G.Ater  2015