Today the Supreme Court announced the expected impasse on Friedrichs vs California Teachers Association:

“The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it was unable to resolve a major challenge to organized labor, and the result was a defeat for a group of California teachers who claim their free speech rights are violated when they are forced to pay dues to the state’s teachers union.

“The court said it was split 4 to 4 on the issue, following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. It was the most important case yet in which the eight-member court was unable to reach a decision.

“At oral argument, the court’s conservatives appeared ready to junk a decades-old precedent that allows unions to collect an “agency fee” from nonmembers to support collective-bargaining activities for members and nonmembers alike.

“It is the most important Supreme Court case of the year for unions and one of a clutch of politically charged cases that puts the justices in the spotlight as the nation turns its attention to the elections of 2016.”

The complete report written by Robert Barnes for the Washington Post is available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-deadlocks-over-public-employee-union-case-calif-teachers-must-pay-dues/2016/03/29/b99faa30-f5b7-11e5-9804-537defcc3cf6_story.html.