10th Circuit Agrees With Right to Work Foundation: Utah Unions Have No Right to Payroll Deduction for Politics

But a more effective alternative would have been stopping government payroll deduction for all union dues

Salt Lake City, UT (April 22, 2009) – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit yesterday reversed itself and ruled to uphold a Utah statute prohibiting union officials from using payroll deduction to divert teachers’ and other government workers’ money into union electioneering.

“Utah has a legitimate interest in avoiding the reality or appearance of government entanglement with partisan politics” and Utah’s Voluntary Contributions Act “plainly serves the State’s interest in separating public employment from political activities,” the court held.

The National Right to Work Foundation joined in an amici brief with the Utah-based Sutherland Institute (and others) to defend the Utah statute which had previously been struck down. After initially siding with union attorneys who argued the law somehow violated the constitutional rights of the union, the Tenth Circuit put the case on hold pending the outcome of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving a similar Idaho statute.

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Click here to read the rest of the Foundation's press release. The Deseret News covered the reversal here.

The Salt Lake Tribune recently ran the following letter to the editor by Foundation Vice President Stefan Gleason in response to an editorial regarding the Foundation's recent victory in federal court over attempts by union partisans to silence the Foundation's legal aid program using Utah's campaign finance regulations:

A newspaper should understand that the First Amendment isn't merely a "loophole," as implied by The Tribune editorial "Repairs needed: Campaign financing laws should be tougher" (Sept. 11) about the National Right to Work Foundation's federal court victory that struck down as unconstitutional key parts of Utah's campaign finance law.

After the foundation received from Utah teachers reports of coercion and illegal use of school property during a union-run petition drive, it ran radio and TV ads informing teachers of their rights and offering free legal aid. Union activists were upset that we would dare to help teacher victims, and they used state campaign finance laws to retaliate. Utah Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert blundered in trying to force our charitable organization to hand over contributor names and other information, even though we never engaged in any kind of electioneering. Herbert's ham-handed actions led to the deserving demise of Utah's broad and vague speech regulations.

The editorial noted that legislators must now go back to the drawing board. This time, they ought to read the First Amendment before putting pen to paper.

Stefan Gleason
Vice President
National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Inc.
Springfield, Va.

Another so-called "paycheck protection" campaign finance regulation has been struck down in federal court. (A similar law has been struck down in Utah.)

As noted by former Federal Election Commission chair Brad Smith in The Washington Times in the wake of the Right to Work Foundation's defensive victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in June, such regulations are both bad policy and bad politics.