Washington Post syndicated columnist George Will dedicated his most recent column to Gov. Bruce Rauner (R-IL), praising the governor's plans to go after public-sector unions, but got some basic facts wrong in the process.
Rauner has quickly become a favorite among right-wing media figures, both during his gubernatorial campaign and since his election in November. The Wall Street Journal and National Review have also lauded Rauner for his February 9 executive order blocking public-sector unions from collecting “fair share” fees from state employees they represent. Although state employees are not required to join, their union is nevertheless required to represent every state employee -- including nonmembers -- during contract negotiations. Without fair-share fees, nonmembers would get all the benefits of unionization without having to pay for it. Rauner's order would effectively institute “right-to-work” rules for state workers without the headache of getting approval from the Democratic majority in the state legislature first.
In his February 25 column, Will called Rauner's election “this century's most intriguing political experiment” and endorsed the governor's plan “to change Illinois's political culture of one-party rule by entrenched politicians subservient to public-sector unions.” Will went on to support Rauner's executive order on union dues, but completely bungled basic facts about the order and the ongoing legal challenges surrounding it:
By executive order, Rauner has stopped the government from collecting “fair share” fees for unions from state employees who reject joining a union. This, he says, violates First Amendment principles by compelling people to subsidize speech with which they disagree. The unions might regret challenging this in federal court: If the case reaches the Supreme Court and it overturns the 1977 decision that upheld “fair shares,” this would end the practice nationwide.
Rauner hopes to ban, as some states do, public employees unions from making political contributions, whereby they elect the employers with whom they negotiate their compensation. Rauner notes that an owner of a small firm that does business with Illinois's government is forbidden to make political contributions. Rauner also hopes to enable counties and local jurisdictions to adopt right-to-work laws, thereby attracting businesses that will locate only where there are such laws.
The public-sector unions affected by Rauner's order weren't actually the ones to first “challeng[e] this in federal court,” as Will claims. In reality, it was Rauner and his lawyers who realized they were bucking long-established legal precedent and initially filed the complaint, asking the federal district court to rule in his favor and declare his executive order legal. The governor almost certainly filed in hopes of getting his case struck down repeatedly on the way to the conservative justices of the Supreme Court. As Will notes, the court upheld fair-share fees in a 1977 case, but in his majority opinion in 2014's Harris v. Quinn, conservative Justice Samuel Alito signaled a willingness to strike them down.
Will also ignores the fact that Illinois law already addresses the use of fair-share fees by unions for political activities. The Illinois Public Labor Relations Act explicitly states that fair-share dues “shall not include any fees for contributions to the election or support of any candidate for political office” -- but Rauner argues in his complaint that all union activity is inherently political, so therefore fair-share fees are unconstitutional. Will, who is a outspoken champion of the "excellent" Citizens United decision, also makes no mention of the fact that Rauner's advocacy would undermine it. Unless, of course, Will is advocating for a revision of Citizens United, with First Amendment rights only for corporations and not labor unions.
Will was apparently too impressed with Rauner's union-busting to notice the flaws in his approach.