NOTICE: This opinion is subject to
formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the
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of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington,
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															SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 16–1466

															_________________

															MARK JANUS, PETITIONER v. AMERICAN
FEDER- ATION OF STATE, COUNTY, AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES, COUNCIL 31,
et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the seventh circuit

															[June 27, 2018]

															Justice Alito delivered the opinion of the
Court.

															Under Illinois law, public employees are forced
to subsidize a union, even if they choose not to join and strongly
object to the positions the union takes in collective bargaining
and related activities. We conclude that this arrangement violates
the free speech rights of nonmembers by compelling them to
subsidize private speech on matters of substantial public
concern.

															We upheld a similar law in Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed. , 431 U. S. 209 (1977), and we
recognize the importance of following precedent unless there are
strong reasons for not doing so. But there are very strong reasons
in this case. Fundamental free speech rights are at stake. Abood was poorly reasoned. It has led to practical problems
and abuse. It is inconsistent with other First Amendment cases and
has been undermined by more recent decisions. Developments since Abood was handed down have shed new light on the issue of
agency fees, and no reliance interests on the part of public-sector
unions are sufficient to justify the perpetuation of the free
speech violations that Abood has countenanced for the past
41 years. Abood is therefore overruled.

															I

															A

															Under the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act
(IPLRA), employees of the State and its political subdivisions are
permitted to unionize. See Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 5, §315/6(a) (West
2016). If a majority of the employees in a bargaining unit vote to
be represented by a union, that union is designated as the
exclusive representative of all the employees. §§315/3(s)(1),
315/6(c), 315/9. Employees in the unit are not obligated to join
the union selected by their co-workers, but whether they join or
not, that union is deemed to be their sole permitted
representative. See §§315/6(a), (c).

															Once a union is so designated, it is vested with
broad authority. Only the union may negotiate with the employer on
matters relating to “pay, wages, hours[,] and other conditions of
employment.” §315/6(c). And this authority extends to the
negotiation of what the IPLRA calls “policy matters,” such as merit
pay, the size of the work force, layoffs, privatization, promotion
methods, and non-discrimination policies. §315/4; see §315/6(c);
see gener- ally, e.g. , Illinois Dept. of Central
Management Servs. v. AFSCME, Council 31 , No. S–CB–16–17
etc., 33 PERI ¶67 (ILRB Dec. 13, 2016) (Board Decision).

															Designating a union as the employees’ exclusive
representative substantially restricts the rights of individual
employees. Among other things, this designation means that
individual employees may not be represented by any agent other than
the designated union; nor may individual employees negotiate
directly with their employer. §§315/6(c)–(d), 315/10(a)(4); see Matthews v. Chicago Transit Authority , 2016 IL
117638, 51 N. E. 3d 753, 782; accord, Medo Photo
Supply Corp. v. NLRB , 321 U. S. 678, 683–684
(1944). Protection of the employees’ interests is placed in the
hands of the union, and therefore the union is required by law to
provide fair representation for all employees in the unit, members
and nonmembers alike. §315/6(d).

															Employees who decline to join the union are not
assessed full union dues but must instead pay what is generally
called an “agency fee,” which amounts to a percentage of the union
dues. Under Abood , nonmembers may be charged for the portion
of union dues attributable to activities that are “germane to [the
union’s] duties as collective-bargaining representative,” but
nonmembers may not be required to fund the union’s political and
ideological projects. 431 U. S., at 235; see id. , at
235–236. In labor-law parlance, the outlays in the first category
are known as “chargeable” expenditures, while those in the latter
are labeled “nonchargeable.”

															Illinois law does not specify in detail which
expenditures are chargeable and which are not. The IPLRA provides
that an agency fee may compensate a union for the costs incurred in
“the collective bargaining process, contract administration[,] and
pursuing matters affecting wages, hours[,] and conditions of
employment.” §315/6(e); see also §315/3(g). Excluded from the
agency-fee calculation are union expenditures “related to the
election or support of any candidate for political office.”
§315/3(g); see §315/6(e).

															Applying this standard, a union categorizes its
expenditures as chargeable or nonchargeable and thus determines a
nonmember’s “proportionate share,” §315/6(e); this determination is
then audited; the amount of the “proportionate share” is certified
to the employer; and the employer automatically deducts that amount
from the nonmembers’ wages. See ibid. ; App. to Pet. for
Cert. 37a; see also Harris v. Quinn , 573 U. S.
___, ___–___ (2014) (slip op., at 19–20) (describing this process).
Nonmembers need not be asked, and they are not required to consent
before the fees are deducted.

															After the amount of the agency fee is fixed each
year, the union must send nonmembers what is known as a Hudson notice. See Teachers v. Hudson , 475
U. S. 292 (1986). This notice is supposed to provide
nonmembers with “an adequate explanation of the basis for the
[agency] fee.” Id. , at 310. If nonmembers “suspect that a
union has improperly put certain expenses in the [chargeable]
category,” they may challenge that determination. Harris , supra , at ___ (slip op., at 19).

															As illustrated by the record in this case,
unions charge nonmembers, not just for the cost of collective
bargaining per se , but also for many other supposedly
connected activities. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 28a–39a. Here, the
nonmembers were told that they had to pay for “[l]obbying,”
“[s]ocial and recreational activities,” “advertising,”
“[m]embership meetings and conventions,” and “litigation,” as well
as other unspecified “[s]ervices” that “may ultimately inure to the
benefit of the members of the local bargaining unit.” Id. ,
at 28a–32a. The total chargeable amount for nonmembers was 78.06%
of full union dues. Id. , at 34a.

															B

															Petitioner Mark Janus is employed by the
Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services as a child
support specialist. Id. , at 10a. The employees in his unit
are among the 35,000 public employees in Illinois who are
represented by respondent American Federation of State, County, and
Municipal Employees, Council 31 (Union). Ibid. Janus refused
to join the Union because he opposes “many of the public policy
positions that [it] advocates,” including the positions it takes in
collective bargaining. Id. , at 10a, 18a. Janus believes that
the Union’s “behavior in bargaining does not appreciate the current
fiscal crises in Illinois and does not reflect his best interests
or the interests of Illinois citizens.” Id. , at 18a.
Therefore, if he had the choice, he “would not pay any fees or
otherwise subsidize [the Union].” Ibid. Under his unit’s
collective-bargaining agreement, however, he was required to pay an
agency fee of $44.58 per month, id. , at 14a—which would
amount to about $535 per year.

															Janus’s concern about Illinois’ current
financial situation is shared by the Governor of the State, and it
was the Governor who initially challenged the statute authorizing
the imposition of agency fees. The Governor commenced an action in
federal court, asking that the law be declared unconstitutional,
and the Illinois attorney general (a respondent here) intervened to
defend the law. App. 41. Janus and two other state employees also
moved to intervene—but on the Governor’s side. Id. , at
60.

															Respondents moved to dismiss the Governor’s
challenge for lack of standing, contending that the agency fees did
not cause him any personal injury. E.g. , id. , at
48–49. The District Court agreed that the Governor could not
maintain the lawsuit, but it held that petitioner and the other
individuals who had moved to intervene had standing because the
agency fees unquestionably injured them. Accordingly, “in the
interest of judicial economy,” the court dismissed the Governor as
a plaintiff, while simultane- ously allowing petitioner and the
other employees to file their own complaint. Id. , at 112.
They did so, and the case proceeded on the basis of this new
complaint.

															The amended complaint claims that all “nonmember
fee deductions are coerced political speech” and that “the First
Amendment forbids coercing any money from the nonmembers.” App. to
Pet. for Cert. 23a. Respondents moved to dismiss the amended
complaint, correctly recognizing that the claim it asserted was
foreclosed by Abood . The District Court granted the motion, id. , at 7a, and the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
affirmed, 851 F. 3d 746 (2017).

															Janus then sought review in this Court, asking
us to overrule Abood and hold that public-sector agency-fee
arrangements are unconstitutional. We granted certiorari to
consider this important question. 582 U. S. ___ (2017).

															II

															Before reaching this question, however, we
must con- sider a threshold issue. Respondents contend that the
Dis- trict Court lacked jurisdiction under Article III of the
Constitution because petitioner “moved to intervene in [the
Governor’s] jurisdictionally defective lawsuit.” Union Brief in
Opposition 11; see also id. , at 13–17; State Brief in
Opposition 6; Brief for Union Respondent i, 16–17; Brief for State
Respondents 14, n. 1. This argument is clearly wrong.

															It rests on the faulty premise that petitioner
intervened in the action brought by the Governor, but that is not
what happened. The District Court did not grant petitioner’s motion
to intervene in that lawsuit. Instead, the court essentially
treated petitioner’s amended complaint as the operative complaint
in a new lawsuit. App. 110–112. And when the case is viewed in that
way, any Article III issue vanishes. As the District Court
recognized—and as respondents concede—petitioner was injured in
fact by Illinois’ agency-fee scheme, and his injuries can be
redressed by a favorable court decision. Ibid. ; see Record
2312–2313, 2322–2323. Therefore, he clearly has Article III
standing. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504
U. S. 555, 560–561 (1992). It is true that the District Court
docketed petitioner’s complaint under the number originally
assigned to the Governor’s complaint, instead of giving it a new
number of its own. But Article III jurisdiction does not turn on
such trivialities.

															The sole decision on which respondents rely, United States ex rel. Texas Portland Cement Co. v. McCord , 233 U. S. 157 (1914), actually works against
them. That case concerned a statute permitting creditors of a
government contractor to bring suit on a bond between 6 and 12
months after the completion of the work. Id. , at 162. One
creditor filed suit before the 6-month starting date, but another
intervened within the 6-to-12-month window. The Court held that the
“[t]he intervention [did] not cure th[e] vice in the original
[prematurely filed] suit,” but the Court also contemplated treating
“intervention . . . as an original suit” in a
case in which the intervenor met the requirements that a plaintiff
must satisfy— e.g. , filing a separate complaint and properly
serving the defendants. Id. , at 163–164. Because that is
what petitioner did here, we may reach the merits of the question
presented.

															III

															In Abood , the Court upheld the
constitutionality of an agency-shop arrangement like the one now
before us, 431 U. S., at 232, but in more recent cases we have
recognized that this holding is “something of an anomaly,” Knox v. Service Employees , 567 U. S. 298, 311
(2012), and that Abood ’s “analysis is questionable on
several grounds,” Harris , 573 U. S., at ___ (slip op.,
at 17); see id. , at ___–___ (slip op., at 17–20) (discussing
flaws in Abood ’s reasoning). We have therefore refused to
extend Abood to situations where it does not squarely
control, see Harris , supra , at ___–___ (slip op., at
27–29), while leaving for another day the question whether Abood should be overruled, Harris , supra , at
___, n. 19 (slip op., at 27, n. 19); see Knox , supra , at 310–311.

															We now address that question. We first consider
whether Abood ’s holding is consistent with standard First
Amendment principles.

															A

															The First Amendment, made applicable to the
States by the Fourteenth Amendment, forbids abridgment of the
freedom of speech. We have held time and again that freedom of
speech “includes both the right to speak freely and the right to
refrain from speaking at all.” Wooley v. Maynard , 430
U. S. 705, 714 (1977); see Riley v. National
Federation of Blind of N. C., Inc. , 487 U. S. 781, 796–797
(1988); Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation
Enterprises , 471 U. S. 539, 559 (1985); Miami Herald
Publishing Co. v. Tornillo , 418 U. S. 241, 256–257
(1974); accord, Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. Public
Util. Comm’n of Cal. , 475 U. S. 1, 9 (1986) (plurality
opinion). The right to eschew association for expressive purposes
is likewise protected. Roberts v. United States
Jaycees , 468 U. S. 609, 623 (1984) (“Freedom of
association . . . plainly presupposes a freedom
not to associate”); see Pacific Gas & Elec. , supra , at 12 (“[F]orced associations that burden protected
speech are impermissible”). As Justice Jackson memorably put it:
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it
is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be
orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of
opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith
therein .” West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette ,
319 U. S. 624, 642 (1943) (emphasis added).

															Compelling individuals to mouth support for
views they find objectionable violates that cardinal constitutional
command, and in most contexts, any such effort would be universally
condemned. Suppose, for example, that the State of Illinois
required all residents to sign a document expressing support for a
particular set of positions on controversial public issues—say, the
platform of one of the major political parties. No one, we trust,
would seriously argue that the First Amendment permits this.

															Perhaps because such compulsion so plainly
violates the Constitution, most of our free speech cases have
involved restrictions on what can be said, rather than laws
compelling speech. But measures compelling speech are at least as
threatening.

															Free speech serves many ends. It is essential to
our democratic form of government, see, e.g. , Garrison v. Louisiana , 379 U. S. 64, 74–75
(1964), and it furthers the search for truth, see, e.g. , Thornhill v. Alabama , 310 U. S. 88, 95 (1940).
Whenever the Federal Government or a State prevents individuals
from saying what they think on important matters or compels them to
voice ideas with which they disagree, it undermines these ends.

															When speech is compelled, however, additional
damage is done. In that situation, individuals are coerced into
betraying their convictions. Forcing free and independent
individuals to endorse ideas they find objectionable is always
demeaning, and for this reason, one of our landmark free speech
cases said that a law commanding “involuntary affirmation” of
objected-to beliefs would require “even more immediate and urgent
grounds” than a law demanding silence. Barnette , supra , at 633; see also Riley , supra , at
796–797 (rejecting “deferential test” for compelled speech
claims).

															Compelling a person to subsidize the
speech of other private speakers raises similar First Amendment
concerns. Knox , supra , at 309; United States v. United Foods, Inc. , 533 U. S. 405, 410 (2001); Abood , supra , at 222, 234–235. As Jefferson famously
put it, “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the
propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhor[s] is sinful
and tyrannical.” A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, in 2
Papers of Thomas Jefferson 545 (J. Boyd ed. 1950) (emphasis deleted
and footnote omitted); see also Hudson , 475 U. S., at
305, n. 15. We have therefore recognized that a
“ ‘significant impingement on First Amendment rights’ ”
occurs when public employees are required to provide financial
support for a union that “takes many positions during collective
bargaining that have powerful political and civic consequences.” Knox , supra , at 310–311 (quoting Ellis v. Railway Clerks , 466 U. S. 435, 455 (1984)).

															Because the compelled subsidization of private
speech seriously impinges on First Amendment rights, it cannot be
casually allowed. Our free speech cases have identified “levels of
scrutiny” to be applied in different contexts, and in three recent
cases, we have considered the standard that should be used in
judging the constitutionality of agency fees. See Knox , supra ; Harris , supra ; Friedrichs v. California Teachers Assn. , 578 U. S. ___ (2016) ( per
cu- riam ) (affirming decision below by equally divided
Court).

															In Knox , the first of these cases, we
found it sufficient to hold that the conduct in question was
unconstitutional under even the test used for the compulsory
subsidization of commercial speech. 567 U. S., at 309–310,
321–322. Even though commercial speech has been thought to enjoy a
lesser degree of protection, see, e.g. , Central Hudson
Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of
N. Y. , 447 U. S. 557, 562–563 (1980), prior precedent
in that area, specifically United Foods , supra , had
applied what we characterized as “exacting” scrutiny, Knox ,
567 U. S., at 310, a less demanding test than the “strict”
scrutiny that might be thought to apply outside the commercial
sphere. Under “exacting” scrutiny, we noted, a compelled subsidy
must “serve a compelling state interest that cannot be achieved
through means significantly less restrictive of associa- tional
freedoms.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks and altera- tions
omitted).

															In Harris , the second of these cases, we
again found that an agency-fee requirement failed “exacting
scrutiny.” 573 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 33). But we
questioned whether that test provides sufficient protection for
free speech rights, since “it is apparent that the speech
compelled” in agency-fee cases “is not commercial speech.” Id. , at ___ (slip op., at 30).

															Picking up that cue, petitioner in the present
case contends that the Illinois law at issue should be subjected to
“strict scrutiny.” Brief for Petitioner 36. The dissent, on the
other hand, proposes that we apply what amounts to rational-basis
review, that is, that we ask only whether a government employer
could reasonably believe that the exaction of agency fees serves
its interests. See post , at 4 (Kagan, J., dissenting) (“A
government entity could reasonably conclude that such a clause was
needed”). This form of minimal scrutiny is foreign to our
free-speech jurisprudence, and we reject it here. At the same time,
we again find it unnecessary to decide the issue of strict scrutiny
because the Illinois scheme cannot survive under even the more
permissive standard applied in Knox and Harris .

															In the remainder of this part of our opinion
(Parts III–B and III–C), we will apply this standard to the
justifications for agency fees adopted by the Court in Abood . Then, in Parts IV and V, we will turn to alternative
rationales proffered by respondents and their amici .

															B

															In Abood , the main defense of the
agency-fee arrangement was that it served the State’s interest in
“labor peace,” 431 U. S., at 224. By “labor peace,” the Abood Court meant avoidance of the conflict and disruption
that it envisioned would occur if the employees in a unit were
represented by more than one union. In such a situation, the Court
predicted, “inter-union rivalries” would foster “dissension within
the work force,” and the employer could face “conflicting demands
from different unions.” Id. , at 220–221. Confusion would
ensue if the employer entered into and attempted to “enforce two or
more agreements specifying different terms and conditions of
employment.” Id. , at 220. And a settlement with one union
would be “subject to attack from [a] rival labor organizatio[n].” Id. , at 221.

															We assume that “labor peace,” in this sense of
the term, is a compelling state interest, but Abood cited no
evidence that the pandemonium it imagined would result if agency
fees were not allowed, and it is now clear that Abood ’s
fears were unfounded. The Abood Court assumed that
designation of a union as the exclusive representative of all the
employees in a unit and the exaction of agency fees are
inextricably linked, but that is simply not true. Harris , supra , at ___ (slip op., at 31).

															The federal employment experience is
illustrative. Under federal law, a union chosen by majority vote is
designated as the exclusive representative of all the employees,
but federal law does not permit agency fees. See 5
U. S. C. §§7102, 7111(a), 7114(a). Nevertheless, nearly a
million federal employees—about 27% of the federal work force—are
union members.[ 1 ] The situation
in the Postal Service is similar. Although permitted to choose an
exclusive representative, Postal Service employees are not required
to pay an agency fee, 39 U. S. C. §§1203(a), 1209(c), and
about 400,000 are union members.[ 2 ] Likewise, millions of public employees in the 28 States
that have laws generally prohibiting agency fees are represented by
unions that serve as the exclusive representatives of all the
employees.[ 3 ] Whatever may have
been the case 41 years ago when Abood was handed down, it is
now undeniable that “labor peace” can readily be achieved “through
means significantly less restrictive of associational freedoms”
than the assessment of agency fees. Harris , supra , at
___ (slip op., at 30) (internal quotation marks omitted).

															C

															In addition to the promotion of “labor peace,” Abood cited “the risk of ‘free riders’ ” as
justification for agency fees, 431 U. S., at 224. Respondents
and some of their amici endorse this reasoning, contending
that agency fees are needed to prevent nonmembers from enjoying the
benefits of union representation without shouldering the costs.
Brief for Union Respondent 34–36; Brief for State Respondents
41–45; see, e.g. , Brief for International Brotherhood of
Teamsters as Amicus Curiae 3–5.

															Petitioner strenuously objects to this
free-rider label. He argues that he is not a free rider on a bus
headed for a destination that he wishes to reach but is more like a
person shanghaied for an unwanted voyage.

															Whichever description fits the majority of
public employees who would not subsidize a union if given the
option, avoiding free riders is not a compelling interest. As we
have noted, “free-rider arguments . . . are
generally insufficient to overcome First Amendment objections.” Knox , 567 U. S., at 311. To hold otherwise across the
board would have startling consequences. Many private groups speak
out with the objective of obtaining government action that will
have the effect of benefiting nonmembers. May all those who are
thought to benefit from such efforts be compelled to subsidize this
speech?

															Suppose that a particular group lobbies or
speaks out on behalf of what it thinks are the needs of senior
citizens or veterans or physicians, to take just a few examples.
Could the government require that all seniors, veterans, or doctors
pay for that service even if they object? It has never been thought
that this is permissible. “[P]rivate speech often furthers the
interests of nonspeakers,” but “that does not alone empower the
state to compel the speech to be paid for.” Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Assn. , 500 U. S. 507, 556 (1991)
(Scalia, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in
part). In simple terms, the First Amendment does not permit the
government to compel a person to pay for another party’s speech
just because the government thinks that the speech furthers the
interests of the person who does not want to pay.[ 4 ]

															Those supporting agency fees contend that the
situation here is different because unions are statutorily required
to “represen[t] the interests of all public employees in the unit,”
whether or not they are union members. §315/6(d); see, e.g. ,
Brief for State Respondents 40–41, 45; post , at 7 (Kagan,
J., dissenting). Why might this matter?

															We can think of two possible arguments. It might
be argued that a State has a compelling interest in requiring the
payment of agency fees because (1) unions would otherwise be
unwilling to represent nonmembers or (2) it would be fundamentally
unfair to require unions to provide fair representation for
nonmembers if nonmembers were not required to pay. Neither of these
arguments is sound.

															First, it is simply not true that unions will
refuse to serve as the exclusive representative of all employees in
the unit if they are not given agency fees. As noted, unions
represent millions of public employees in jurisdictions that do not
permit agency fees. No union is ever compelled to seek that
designation. On the contrary, designation as exclusive
representative is avidly sought.[ 5 ] Why is this so?

															Even without agency fees, designation as the
exclusive representative confers many benefits. As noted, that
status gives the union a privileged place in negotiations over
wages, benefits, and working conditions. See §315/6(c). Not only is
the union given the exclusive right to speak for all the employees
in collective bargaining, but the employer is required by state law
to listen to and to bargain in good faith with only that union.
§315/7. Designation as exclusive representative thus “results in a
tremendous increase in the power” of the union. American
Communications Assn. v. Douds , 339 U. S. 382, 401
(1950).

															In addition, a union designated as exclusive
representative is often granted special privileges, such as
obtaining information about employees, see §315/6(c), and having
dues and fees deducted directly from employee wages,
§§315/6(e)–(f ). The collective-bargaining agreement in this
case guarantees a long list of additional privileges. See App.
138–143.

															These benefits greatly outweigh any extra burden
imposed by the duty of providing fair representation for
nonmembers. What this duty entails, in simple terms, is an
obligation not to “act solely in the interests of [the union’s] own
members.” Brief for State Respondents 41; see Cintron v. AFSCME, Council 31 , No. S–CB–16–032, p. 1, 34 PERI ¶105
(ILRB Dec. 13, 2017) (union may not intentionally direct
“animosity” toward nonmembers based on their “dissident union
practices”); accord, 14 Penn Plaza LLC v. Pyett , 556
U. S. 247, 271 (2009); Vaca v. Sipes , 386
U. S. 171, 177 (1967).

															What does this mean when it comes to the
negotiation of a contract? The union may not negotiate a
collective-bargaining agreement that discriminates against
nonmembers, see Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R.
Co. , 323 U. S. 192, 202–203 (1944), but the union’s
bargaining latitude would be little different if state law simply
prohibited public employers from entering into agreements that
discriminate in that way. And for that matter, it is questionable
whether the Constitution would permit a public-sector employer to
adopt a collective-bargaining agreement that discriminates against
nonmembers. See id. , at 198–199, 202 (analogizing a
private-sector union’s fair-representation duty to the duty “the
Constitution imposes upon a legislature to give equal protection to
the interests of those for whom it legislates”); cf. Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights,
Inc. , 547 U. S. 47, 69 (2006) (recognizing that government
may not “impose penalties or withhold benefits based on membership
in a disfavored group” where doing so “ma[kes] group membership
less attractive”). To the extent that an employer would be barred
from acceding to a discriminatory agreement anyway, the union’s
duty not to ask for one is superfluous. It is noteworthy that
neither respondents nor any of the 39 amicus briefs
supporting them—nor the dissent—has explained why the duty of fair
representation causes public-sector unions to incur significantly
greater expenses than they would otherwise bear in negotiating
collective-bargaining agreements.

															What about the representation of nonmembers in
grievance proceedings? Unions do not undertake this activity solely
for the benefit of nonmembers—which is why Illinois law gives a
public-sector union the right to send a representative to such
proceedings even if the employee declines union representation.
§315/6(b). Representation of nonmembers furthers the union’s
interest in keeping control of the administration of the
collective-bargaining agreement, since the resolution of one
employee’s grievance can affect others. And when a union controls
the grievance process, it may, as a practical matter, effectively
subordinate “the interests of [an] individual em-
ployee . . . to the collective interests of all
employees in the bargaining unit.” Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co. , 415 U.S.
36 , 58, n. 19 (1974); see Stahulak v. Chicago ,
184 Ill. 2d 176, 180–181, 703 N. E. 2d 44, 46–47 (1998); Mahoney v. Chicago , 293 Ill. App. 3d 69, 73–74, 687
N.E.2d 132, 135–137 (1997) (union has “ ‘discretion to refuse
to process’ ” a grievance, provided it does not act
“arbitrar[ily]” or “in bad faith” (emphasis deleted)).

															In any event, whatever unwanted burden is
imposed by the representation of nonmembers in disciplinary matters
can be eliminated “through means significantly less restrictive of
associational freedoms” than the imposition of agency fees. Harris , 573 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 30) (internal
quotation marks omitted). Individual nonmembers could be required
to pay for that service or could be denied union representation
altogether.[ 6 ] Thus, agency
fees cannot be sustained on the ground that unions would otherwise
be unwilling to represent nonmembers.

															Nor can such fees be justified on the ground
that it would otherwise be unfair to require a union to bear the
duty of fair representation. That duty is a necessary concomitant
of the authority that a union seeks when it chooses to serve as the
exclusive representative of all the employees in a unit. As
explained, designating a union as the exclusive representative of
nonmembers substantially restricts the nonmembers’ rights. Supra , at 2–3. Protection of their interests is placed in
the hands of the union, and if the union were free to disregard or
even work against those interests, these employees would be wholly
unprotected. That is why we said many years ago that serious
“constitutional questions [would] arise” if the union were not subject to the duty to represent all employees fairly. Steele , supra , at 198.

															In sum, we do not see any reason to treat the
free-rider interest any differently in the agency-fee context than
in any other First Amendment context. See Knox , 567
U. S., at 311, 321. We therefore hold that agency fees cannot
be upheld on free-rider grounds.

															IV

															Implicitly acknowledging the weakness of Abood ’s own reasoning, proponents of agency fees have come
forward with alternative justifications for the decision, and we
now address these arguments.

															A

															The most surprising of these new arguments is
the Union respondent’s originalist defense of Abood .
According to this argument, Abood was correctly decided
because the First Amendment was not originally understood to
provide any protection for the free speech rights of public
employees. Brief for Union Respondent 2–3, 17–20.

															As an initial matter, we doubt that the Union—or
its members—actually want us to hold that public employees have
“ no [free speech] rights.” Id. , at 1. Cf., e.g. , Brief for National Treasury Employees Union as Amicus Curiae in Garcetti v. Ceballos ,
O. T. 2005, No. 04–473, p. 7 (arguing for “broa[d]”
public-employee First Amendment rights); Brief for AFL–CIO as Amicus Curiae in No. 04–473 (similar).

															It is particularly discordant to find this
argument in a brief that trumpets the importance of stare
decisis . See Brief for Union Respondent 47–57. Taking away free
speech protection for public employees would mean overturning
decades of landmark precedent. Under the Union’s theory, Pickering v. Board of Ed. of Township High School Dist.
205, Will Cty. , 391 U. S. 563 (1968), and its progeny
would fall. Yet Pickering , as we will discuss, is now the
foundation for respondents’ chief defense of Abood . And
indeed, Abood itself would have to go if public employees
have no free speech rights, since Abood holds that the First
Amendment prohibits the exaction of agency fees for political or
ideological purposes. 431 U. S., at 234–235 (finding it
“clear” that “a government may not require an individual to
relinquish rights guaranteed him by the First Amendment as a
condition of public employment”). Our political patronage cases
would be doomed. See, e.g. , Rutan v. Republican
Party of Ill. , 497 U. S. 62 (1990); Branti v. Finkel , 445 U. S. 507 (1980); Elrod v. Burns , 427 U. S. 347 (1976). Also imperiled would be
older precedents like Wieman v. Updegraff , 344
U. S. 183 (1952) (loyalty oaths), Shelton v. Tucker , 364 U. S. 479 (1960) (disclosure of memberships
and contributions), and Keyishian v. Board of Regents of
Univ. of State of N. Y. , 385 U. S. 589 (1967) (subversive
speech). Respondents presumably want none of this, desiring instead
that we apply the Constitution’s supposed original meaning only
when it suits them—to retain the part of Abood that they
like. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 56–57. We will not engage in this
halfway originalism.

															Nor, in any event, does the First Amendment’s
original meaning support the Union’s claim. The Union offers no
persuasive founding-era evidence that public employees were
understood to lack free speech protections. While it observes that
restrictions on federal employees’ activities have existed since
the First Congress, most of its historical examples involved
limitations on public officials’ outside business dealings, not on
their speech. See Ex parte Curtis , 106 U. S. 371,
372–373 (1882). The only early speech restrictions the Union
identifies are an 1806 statute prohibiting military personnel from
using “ ‘contemptuous or disrespectful words against the
President’ ” and other officials, and an 1801 directive
limiting electioneering by top government employees. Brief for
Union Respondent 3. But those examples at most show that the
government was understood to have power to limit employee speech
that threatened important governmental interests (such as
maintaining military discipline and preventing corruption)—not that
public employees’ speech was entirely unprotected. Indeed, more
recently this Court has upheld similar restrictions even while
recognizing that government employees possess First Amendment
rights. See, e.g. , Brown v. Glines , 444
U. S. 348, 353 (1980) (upholding military restriction on
speech that threatened troop readiness); Civil Service
Comm’n v. Letter Carriers , 413 U. S. 548, 556–557
(1973) (upholding limits on public employees’ political
activities).

															Ultimately, the Union relies, not on
founding-era evidence, but on dictum from a 1983 opinion of this
Court stating that, “[f]or most of th[e 20th] century, the
unchallenged dogma was that a public employee had no right to
object to conditions placed upon the terms of employment—including
those which restricted the exercise of constitutional rights.” Connick v. Myers , 461 U. S. 138, 143; see Brief
for Union Respondent 2, 17. Even on its own terms, this dictum
about 20th-century views does not purport to describe how the First
Amendment was understood in 1791. And a careful examination of the
decisions by this Court that Connick cited to support its
dictum, see 461 U. S., at 144, reveals that none of them
rested on the facile premise that public employees are unprotected
by the First Amendment. Instead, they considered (much as we do
today) whether particular speech restrictions were “necessary to
protect” fundamental government interests. Curtis , supra , at 374.

															The Union has also failed to show that, even if
public employees enjoyed free speech rights, the First Amendment
was nonetheless originally understood to allow forced subsidies
like those at issue here. We can safely say that, at the time of
the adoption of the First Amendment, no one gave any thought to
whether public-sector unions could charge nonmembers agency fees.
Entities resembling labor unions did not exist at the founding, and
public-sector unions did not emerge until the mid-20th century. The
idea of public-sector unionization and agency fees would astound
those who framed and ratified the Bill of Rights.[ 7 ] Thus, the Union cannot point to any
accepted founding-era practice that even remotely resembles the
compulsory assessment of agency fees from public-sector employees.
We do know, however, that prominent members of the founding
generation condemned laws requiring public employees to affirm or
support beliefs with which they disagreed. As noted, Jefferson
denounced compelled support for such beliefs as “ ‘sinful and
tyrannical,’ ” supra , at 9, and others expressed
similar views.[ 8 ]

															In short, the Union has offered no basis for
concluding that Abood is supported by the original
understanding of the First Amendment.

															B

															The principal defense of Abood advanced
by respondents and the dissent is based on our decision in Pickering , 391 U. S. 563, which held that a school
district violated the First Amendment by firing a teacher for
writing a letter critical of the school administration. Under Pickering and later cases in the same line, employee speech
is largely unprotected if it is part of what the employee is paid
to do, see Garcetti v. Ceballos , 547 U. S. 410,
421–422 (2006), or if it involved a matter of only private concern,
see Connick , supra , at 146–149. On the other hand,
when a public employee speaks as a citizen on a matter of public
concern, the employee’s speech is protected unless “ ‘the
interest of the state, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency
of the public services it performs through its employees’ outweighs
‘the interests of the [employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon
matters of public concern.’ ” Harris , 573 U. S.,
at ___ (slip op., at 35) (quoting Pickering , supra ,
at 568). Pickering was the centerpiece of the defense of Abood in Harris , see 573 U. S., at ___–___ (slip
op., at 17–21) (Kagan, J., dissenting), and we found the argument
unpersuasive, see id. , at ___–___ (slip op., at 34–37). The
intervening years have not improved its appeal.

															1

															As we pointed out in Harris , Abood was not based on Pickering . 573 U. S., at
___, and n. 26 (slip op., at 34, and n. 26). The Abood majority cited the case exactly once—in a footnote—and
then merely to acknowledge that “there may be limits on the extent
to which an employee in a sensitive or policymaking position may
freely criticize his superiors and the policies they espouse.” 431
U. S., at 230, n. 27. That aside has no bearing on the
agency-fee issue here.[ 9 ]

															Respondents’ reliance on Pickering is
thus “an effort to find a new justification for the decision in Abood .” Harris , supra , at ___ (slip op., at
34). And we have previously taken a dim view of similar attempts to
recast problematic First Amendment decisions. See, e.g. , Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm’n , 558
U. S. 310, 348–349, 363 (2010) (rejecting efforts to recast Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce , 494
U. S. 652 (1990)); see also Citizens United , supra , at 382–385 (Roberts, C. J., concurring). We see
no good reason, at this late date, to try to shoehorn Abood into the Pickering framework.

															2

															Even if that were attempted, the shoe would be
a painful fit for at least three reasons.

															First, the Pickering framework was
developed for use in a very different context—in cases that involve
“one employee’s speech and its impact on that employee’s public
responsibilities.” United States v. Treasury
Employees , 513 U. S. 454, 467 (1995). This case, by
contrast, involves a blanket requirement that all employees
subsidize speech with which they may not agree. While we have
sometimes looked to Pickering in considering general rules
that affect broad categories of employees, we have acknowledged
that the standard Pickering analysis requires modification
in that situation. See 513 U. S., at 466–468, and n. 11.
A speech-restrictive law with “widespread impact,” we have said,
“gives rise to far more serious concerns than could any single
supervisory decision.” Id. , at 468. Therefore, when such a
law is at issue, the government must shoulder a correspondingly
“heav[ier]” burden, id. , at 466, and is entitled to
considerably less deference in its assessment that a predicted harm
justifies a particular impingement on First Amendment rights, see id. , at 475–476, n. 21; accord, id. , at 482–483
(O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in
part). The end product of those adjustments is a test that more
closely resembles exacting scrutiny than the traditional Pickering analysis.

															The core collective-bargaining issue of wages
and benefits illustrates this point. Suppose that a single employee
complains that he or she should have received a 5% raise. This
individual complaint would likely constitute a matter of only
private concern and would therefore be unprotected under Pickering . But a public-sector union’s demand for a 5% raise
for the many thousands of employees it represents would be another
matter entirely. Granting such a raise could have a serious impact
on the budget of the government unit in question, and by the same
token, denying a raise might have a significant effect on the
performance of government services. When a large number of
employees speak through their union, the category of speech that is
of public concern is greatly enlarged, and the category of speech
that is of only private concern is substantially shrunk. By
disputing this, post , at 13–14, the dissent denies the
obvious.

															Second, the Pickering framework fits much
less well where the government compels speech or speech subsidies
in support of third parties. Pickering is based on the
insight that the speech of a public-sector employee may interfere
with the effective operation of a government office. When a public
employer does not simply restrict potentially disruptive speech but
commands that its employees mouth a message on its own behalf, the
calculus is very different. Of course, if the speech in question is
part of an employee’s official duties, the employer may insist that
the employee deliver any lawful message. See Garcetti , 547
U. S., at 421–422, 425–426. Otherwise, however, it is not easy
to imagine a situation in which a public employer has a legitimate
need to demand that its employees recite words with which they
disagree. And we have never applied Pickering in such a
case.

															Consider our decision in Connick . In that
case, we held that an assistant district attorney’s complaints
about the supervisors in her office were, for the most part,
matters of only private concern. 461 U. S., at 148. As a
result, we held, the district attorney could fire her for making
those comments. Id. , at 154. Now, suppose that the assistant
had not made any critical comments about the supervisors but that
the district attorney, out of the blue, demanded that she circulate
a memo praising the supervisors. Would her refusal to go along
still be a matter of purely private concern? And if not, would the
order be justified on the ground that the effective operation of
the office demanded that the assistant voice complimentary
sentiments with which she disagreed? If Pickering applies at
all to compelled speech—a question that we do not decide—it would
certainly require adjustment in that context.

															Third, although both Pickering and Abood divided speech into two categories, the cases’
categorization schemes do not line up. Superimposing the Pickering scheme on Abood would significantly change
the Abood regime.

															Let us first look at speech that is not germane
to collective bargaining but instead concerns political or
ideological issues. Under Abood , a public employer is flatly
prohibited from permitting nonmembers to be charged for this
speech, but under Pickering , the employees’ free speech
interests could be overcome if a court found that the employer’s
interests outweighed the employees’.

															A similar problem arises with respect to speech
that is germane to collective bargaining. The parties
dispute how much of this speech is of public concern, but
respondents concede that much of it falls squarely into that
category. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 47, 65. Under Abood ,
nonmembers may be required to pay for all this speech, but Pickering would permit that practice only if the employer’s
interests outweighed those of the employees. Thus, recasting Abood as an application of Pickering would
substantially alter the Abood scheme.

															For all these reasons, Pickering is a
poor fit indeed.

															V

															Even if we were to apply some form of Pickering , Illinois’ agency-fee arrangement would not
survive.

															A

															Respondents begin by suggesting that union
speech in collective-bargaining and grievance proceedings should be
treated like the employee speech in Garcetti , i.e. ,
as speech “pursuant to [an employee’s] official duties,” 547
U. S., at 421. Many employees, in both the public and private
sectors, are paid to write or speak for the purpose of furthering
the interests of their employers. There are laws that protect
public employees from being compelled to say things that they
reasonably believe to be untrue or improper, see id. , at
425–426, but in general when public employees are performing their
job duties, their speech may be controlled by their employer.
Trying to fit union speech into this framework, respondents now
suggest that the union speech funded by agency fees forms part of
the official duties of the union officers who engage in the speech.
Brief for Union Respondent 22–23; see Brief for State Respondents
23–24.

															This argument distorts collective bargaining and
grievance adjustment beyond recognition. When an employee engages
in speech that is part of the employee’s job duties, the employee’s
words are really the words of the employer. The employee is
effectively the employer’s spokesperson. But when a union
negotiates with the employer or represents employees in
disciplinary proceedings, the union speaks for the employees , not the employer. Otherwise, the employer would
be negotiating with itself and disputing its own actions. That is
not what anybody understands to be happening.

															What is more, if the union’s speech is really
the employer’s speech, then the employer could dictate what the
union says. Unions, we trust, would be appalled by such a
suggestion. For these reasons, Garcetti is totally
inapposite here.

															B

															Since the union speech paid for by agency fees
is not controlled by Garcetti , we move on to the next step
of the Pickering framework and ask whether the speech is on
a matter of public or only private concern. In Harris , the
dissent’s central argument in defense of Abood was that
union speech in collective bargaining, including speech about wages
and benefits, is basically a matter of only private interest. See
573 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 19–20) (Kagan, J.,
dissenting). We squarely rejected that argument, see id. , at
___–___ (slip op., at 35–36), and the facts of the present case
substantiate what we said at that time: “[I]t is impossible to
argue that the level of . . . state spending
for employee benefits . . . is not a matter of great
public concern,” id. , at ___ (slip op., at 36).

															Illinois, like some other States and a number of
counties and cities around the country, suffers from severe budget
problems.[ 10 ] As of 2013,
Illinois had nearly $160 billion in unfunded pension and retiree
healthcare liabilities.[ 11 ]
By 2017, that number had only grown, and the State was grappling
with $15 billion in unpaid bills.[ 12 ] We are told that a “quarter of the budget is now
devoted to paying down” those liabilities.[ 13 ] These problems and others led Moody’s and
S&P to downgrade Illinois’ credit rating to “one step above
junk”—the “lowest ranking on record for a U. S.
state.”[ 14 ]

															The Governor, on one side, and public-sector
unions, on the other, disagree sharply about what to do about these
problems. The State claims that its employment-related debt is
“ ‘squeezing core programs in education, public safety, and
human services, in addition to limiting [the State’s] ability to
pay [its] bills.’ ” Securities Act of 1933 Release No. 9389,
105 S. E. C. Docket 3381 (2013). It therefore “told the
Union that it would attempt to address th[e financial] crisis, at
least in part, through collective bargaining.” Board Decision
12–13. And “the State’s desire for savings” in fact “dr[o]ve [its]
bargaining” positions on matters such as health-insurance benefits
and holiday, overtime, and promotion policies. Id. , at 13; Illinois Dept. of Central Management Servs. v. AFSCME,
Council 31 , No. S–CB–16–17 etc., 33 PERI ¶67 (ILRB Dec. 13,
2016) (ALJ Decision), pp. 26–28, 63–66, 224. But when the State
offered cost-saving proposals on these issues, the Union countered
with very different suggestions. Among other things, it advocated
wage and tax increases, cutting spending “to Wall Street financial
institutions,” and reforms to Illinois’ pension and tax systems
(such as closing “corporate tax loopholes,” “[e]xpanding the base
of the state sales tax,” and “allowing an income tax that is
adjusted in accordance with ability to pay”). Id. , at 27–28.
To suggest that speech on such matters is not of great public
concern—or that it is not directed at the “public square,” post , at 16 (Kagan, J., dissenting)—is to deny reality.

															In addition to affecting how public money is
spent, union speech in collective bargaining addresses many other
important matters. As the examples offered by respondents’ own amici show, unions express views on a wide range of
subjects—education, child welfare, healthcare, and minority rights,
to name a few. See, e.g. , Brief for American Federation of
Teachers as Amicus Curiae 15–27; Brief for Child Protective
Service Workers et al. as Amici Curiae 5–13; Brief for
Human Rights Campaign et al. as Amici Curiae 10–17; Brief
for National Women’s Law Center et al. as Amici Curiae 14–30. What unions have to say on these matters in the context of
collective bargaining is of great public importance.

															Take the example of education, which was the
focus of briefing and argument in Friedrichs . The public
importance of subsidized union speech is especially apparent in
this field, since educators make up by far the largest category of
state and local government employees, and education is typically
the largest component of state and local government
expenditures.[ 15 ]

															Speech in this area also touches on fundamental
questions of education policy. Should teacher pay be based on
seniority, the better to retain experienced teachers? Or should
schools adopt merit-pay systems to encourage teachers to get the
best results out of their students?[ 16 ] Should districts transfer more experienced teachers
to the lower performing schools that may have the greatest need for
their skills, or should those teachers be allowed to stay where
they have put down roots?[ 17 ] Should teachers be given tenure protection and, if
so, under what conditions? On what grounds and pursuant to what
procedures should teachers be subject to discipline or dismissal?
How should teacher performance and student progress be measured—by
standardized tests or other means?

															Unions can also speak out in collective
bargaining on controversial subjects such as climate
change,[ 18 ] the
Confederacy,[ 19 ] sexual
orientation and gender identity,[ 20 ] evolution,[ 21 ]
and minority religions.[ 22 ]
These are sensitive political topics, and they are undoubtedly
matters of profound “ ‘value and concern to the
public.’ ” Snyder v. Phelps , 562 U. S. 443,
453 (2011). We have often recognized that such speech
“ ‘occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First
Amendment values’ ” and merits “ ‘special
protection.’ ” Id. , at 452.

															What does the dissent say about the prevalence
of such issues? The most that it is willing to admit is that “some”
issues that arise in collective bargaining “raise important
non-budgetary disputes.” Post , at 17. Here again, the
dissent refuses to recognize what actually occurs in public-sector
collective bargaining.

															Even union speech in the handling of grievances
may be of substantial public importance and may be directed at the
“public square.” Post , at 16. For instance, the Union
respondent in this case recently filed a grievance seeking to
compel Illinois to appropriate $75 million to fund a 2% wage
increase. State v. AFSCME Council 31 , 2016 IL 118422,
51 N. E. 3d 738, 740–742, and n. 4. In short, the
union speech at issue in this case is overwhelmingly of substantial
public concern.

															C

															The only remaining question under Pickering is whether the State’s proffered interests justify
the heavy burden that agency fees inflict on nonmembers’ First
Amendment interests. We have already addressed the state interests
asserted in Abood —promoting “labor peace” and avoiding free
riders, see supra , at 11–18—and we will not repeat that
analysis.

															In Harris and this case, defenders of Abood have as- serted a different state interest—in the
words of the Harris dissent, the State’s “interest in
bargaining with an adequately funded exclusive bargaining agent.”
573 U. S., at ___ (Kagan, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 7);
see also post , at 6–7 (Kagan, J., dissenting). This was not
“the interest Abood recognized and protected,” Harris , supra , at ___ (slip op., at 7) (Kagan, J.,
dissenting), and, in any event, it is insufficient.

															Although the dissent would accept without any
serious independent evaluation the State’s assertion that the
absence of agency fees would cripple public-sector unions and thus
impair the efficiency of government operations, see post , at
8–9, 11, ample experience, as we have noted, supra , at 12,
shows that this is questionable.

															Especially in light of the more rigorous form of Pickering analysis that would apply in this context, see supra , at 23–25, the balance tips decisively in favor of the
employees’ free speech rights.[ 23 ]

															We readily acknowledge, as Pickering did,
that “the State has interests as an employer in regulating the
speech of its employees that differ significantly from those it
possesses in connection with regulation of the speech of the
citizenry in general.” 391 U. S., at 568. Our analysis is
consistent with that principle. The exacting scrutiny standard we
apply in this case was developed in the context of commercial
speech, another area where the government has traditionally enjoyed
greater-than-usual power to regulate speech. See supra , at
10. It is also not disputed that the State may require that a union
serve as exclusive bargaining agent for its employees—itself a
significant impingement on associational freedoms that would not be
tolerated in other contexts. We simply draw the line at allowing
the government to go further still and require all employees to
support the union irrespective of whether they share its views.
Nothing in the Pickering line of cases requires us to uphold
every speech restriction the government imposes as an employer. See Pickering , supra , at 564–566 (holding teacher’s
dismissal for criticizing school board unconstitutional); Rankin v. McPherson , 483 U. S. 378, 392 (1987)
(holding clerical employ- ee’s dismissal for supporting
assassination attempt on President unconstitutional); Treasury
Employees , 513 U. S., at 477 (holding federal-employee
honoraria ban unconstitutional).

															VI

															For the reasons given above, we conclude that
public-sector agency-shop arrangements violate the First Amendment,
and Abood erred in concluding otherwise. There remains the
question whether stare decisis nonetheless counsels against
overruling Abood . It does not.

															“ Stare decisis is the preferred course
because it promotes the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent
development of legal principles, fosters reliance on judicial
decisions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of
the judicial process.” Payne v. Tennessee , 501
U. S. 808, 827 (1991). We will not overturn a past decision
unless there are strong grounds for doing so. United States v. International Business Machines Corp. , 517 U. S.
843, 855–856 (1996); Citizens United , 558 U. S., at 377
(Roberts, C. J., concurring). But as we have often recognized, stare decisis is “ ‘not an inexorable command.’ ” Pearson v. Callahan , 555 U. S. 223, 233 (2009);
see also Lawrence v. Texas , 539 U. S. 558, 577
(2003); State Oil Co. v. Khan , 522 U. S. 3, 20
(1997); Agostini v. Felton , 521 U. S. 203, 235
(1997); Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida , 517
U. S. 44, 63 (1996); Payne , supra , at 828.

															The doctrine “is at its weakest when we
interpret the Constitution because our interpretation can be
altered only by constitutional amendment or by overruling our prior
decisions.” Agostini , supra , at 235. And stare
decisis applies with perhaps least force of all to decisions
that wrongly denied First Amendment rights: “This Court has not
hesitated to overrule decisions offensive to the First Amendment (a
fixed star in our constitutional constellation, if there is one).” Federal Election Comm’n v. Wisconsin Right to Life,
Inc. , 551 U. S. 449, 500 (2007) (Scalia, J., concurring in
part and concurring in judgment) (internal quotation marks
omitted); see also Citizens United , supra , at 362–365
(overruling Austin , 494 U. S. 652); Barnette ,
319 U. S., at 642 (overruling Minersville School Dist. v. Gobitis , 310 U. S. 586 (1940)).

															Our cases identify factors that should be taken
into account in deciding whether to overrule a past decision. Five
of these are most important here: the quality of Abood ’s
reasoning, the workability of the rule it established, its
consistency with other related decisions, developments since the
decision was handed down, and reliance on the decision. After
analyzing these factors, we conclude that stare decisis does
not require us to retain Abood .

															A

															An important factor in determining whether a
precedent should be overruled is the quality of its reasoning, see Citizens United , 558 U. S., at 363–364; id. , at
382–385 (Roberts, C. J., concurring); Lawrence , 539
U. S., at 577–578, and as we explained in Harris , Abood was poorly reasoned, see 573 U. S., at ___–___
(slip op., at 17–20). We will summarize, but not repeat, Harris ’s lengthy discussion of the issue. Abood went wrong at the start when it
concluded that two prior decisions, Railway Employes v. Hanson , 351 U. S. 225 (1956), and Machinists v. Street , 367 U. S. 740 (1961), “appear[ed] to require
validation of the agency-shop agreement before [the Court].” 431
U. S., at 226. Properly understood, those decisions did no
such thing. Both cases involved Congress’s “ bare
authorization ” of private-sector union shops under the
Railway Labor Act. Street , supra , at 749 (emphasis
added).[ 24 ] Abood failed to appreciate that a very different First Amendment question
arises when a State requires its employees to pay agency
fees. See Harris , supra , at ___ (slip op., at
17).

															Moreover, neither Hanson nor Street gave careful consideration to the First Amendment. In Hanson , the primary questions were whether Congress exceeded
its power under the Commerce Clause or violated substantive due
process by authorizing private union-shop arrangements under the
Commerce and Due Process Clauses. 351 U. S., at 233–235. After
deciding those questions, the Court summarily dismissed what was
essentially a facial First Amendment challenge, noting that the
record did not substantiate the challengers’ claim. Id. , at
238; see Harris , supra , at ___ (slip op., at 17). For
its part, Street was decided as a matter of statutory
construction, and so did not reach any constitutional issue. 367
U. S., at 749–750, 768–769. Abood nevertheless took the
view that Hanson and Street “all but decided” the
important free speech issue that was before the Court. Harris , 573 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 17). As we said
in Harris , “[s]urely a First Amendment issue of this
importance deserved better treatment.” Ibid. Abood ’s unwarranted reliance on Hanson and Street appears to have contributed to
another mistake: Abood judged the constitutionality of
public-sector agency fees under a deferential standard that finds
no support in our free speech cases. (As noted, supra , at
10–11, today’s dissent makes the same fundamental mistake.) Abood did not independently evaluate the strength of the
government interests that were said to support the challenged
agency-fee provision; nor did it ask how well that provision
actually promoted those interests or whether they could have been
adequately served without impinging so heavily on the free speech
rights of nonmembers. Rather, Abood followed Hanson and Street , which it interpreted as having deferred to
“ the legislative assessment of the important contribution of
the union shop to the system of labor relations established by
Congress.” 431 U. S., at 222 (emphasis added). But Hanson deferred to that judgment in deciding the Commerce
Clause and substantive due process questions that were the focus of
the case. Such deference to legislative judgments is inappropriate
in deciding free speech issues.

															If Abood had considered whether agency
fees were actually needed to serve the asserted state interests, it
might not have made the serious mistake of assuming that one of
those interests—“labor peace”—demanded, not only that a single
union be designated as the exclusive representative of all the
employees in the relevant unit, but also that nonmembers be
required to pay agency fees. Deferring to a perceived legislative
judgment, Abood failed to see that the designation of a
union as exclusive representative and the imposition of agency fees
are not inextricably linked. See supra , at 11–12; Harris , supra , at ___ (slip op., at 31). Abood also did not sufficiently take into
account the difference between the effects of agency fees in
public- and private-sector collective bargaining. The challengers
in Abood argued that collective bargaining with a government
employer, unlike collective bargaining in the private sector,
involves “inherently ‘political’ ” speech. 431 U. S., at
226. The Court did not dispute that characterization, and in fact
conceded that “decisionmaking by a public employer is above all a
political process” driven more by policy concerns than economic
ones. Id. , at 228; see id. , at 228–231. But (again
invoking Hanson ), the Abood Court asserted that
public employees do not have “weightier First Amendment
interest[s]” against compelled speech than do private employees. Id. , at 229. That missed the point. Assuming for the sake of
argument that the First Amendment applies at all to private-sector
agency-shop arrangements, the individual interests at stake still
differ. “In the public sector, core issues such as wages, pensions,
and benefits are important political issues, but that is generally
not so in the private sector.” Harris , 573 U. S., at
___ (slip op., at 17).

															Overlooking the importance of this distinction,
“ Abood failed to appreciate the conceptual difficulty of
distinguishing in public-sector cases between union expenditures
that are made for collective-bargaining purposes and those that are
made to achieve political ends.” Id. , at ___ (slip op., at
18). Likewise, “ Abood does not seem to have anticipated the
magnitude of the practical administrative problems that would
result in attempting to classify public-sector union expenditures
as either ‘chargeable’ . . . or nonchargeable.” Ibid. Nor did Abood “foresee the practical problems
that would face objecting nonmembers.” Id. , at ___ (slip
op., at 19).

															In sum, as detailed in Harris , Abood was not well reasoned.[ 25 ]

															B

															Another relevant consideration in the stare
decisis calculus is the workability of the precedent in
question, Montejo v. Louisiana , 556 U. S. 778,
792 (2009), and that factor also weighs against Abood .

															1 Abood ’s line between chargeable and
nonchargeable union expenditures has proved to be impossible to
draw with precision. We tried to give the line some definition in Lehnert . There, a majority of the Court adopted a three-part
test requiring that chargeable expenses (1) be
“ ‘germane’ ” to collective bargaining, (2) be
“justified” by the government’s labor-peace and free-rider
interests, and (3) not add “significantly” to the burden on free
speech, 500 U. S., at 519, but the Court splintered over the
application of this test, see id. , at 519–522 (plurality
opinion); id. , at 533–534 (Marshall, J., concurring in part
and dissenting in part). That division was not surprising. As the Lehnert dissenters aptly observed, each part of the
majority’s test “involves a substantial judgment call,” id. ,
at 551 (opinion of Scalia, J.), rendering the test “altogether
malleable” and “no[t] principled,” id. , at 563 (Kennedy, J.,
concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part).

															Justice Scalia presciently warned that Lehnert ’s amorphous standard would invite “perpetua[l]
give-it-a-try litigation,” id. , at 551, and the Court’s
experience with union lobbying expenses illustrates the point. The Lehnert plurality held that money spent on lobbying for
increased education funding was not chargeable. Id. , at
519–522. But Justice Marshall—applying the same three-prong
test—reached precisely the opposite conclusion. Id. , at
533–542. And Lehnert failed to settle the matter; States and
unions have continued to “give it a try” ever since.

															In Knox , for example, we confronted a
union’s claim that the costs of lobbying the legislature and the
electorate about a ballot measure were chargeable expenses under Lehnert . See Brief for Respondent in Knox v. Service Employees , O. T. 2011, No. 10–1121,
pp. 48–53. The Court rejected this claim out of hand, 567
U. S., at 320–321, but the dissent refused to do so, id. , at 336 (opinion of Breyer, J.). And in the present
case, nonmembers are required to pay for unspecified “[l]obbying”
expenses and for “[s]ervices” that “may ultimately inure to the
benefit of the members of the local bargaining unit.” App. to Pet.
for Cert. 31a–32a. That formulation is broad enough to encompass
just about anything that the union might choose to do.

															Respondents agree that Abood ’s
chargeable-nonchargeable line suffers from “a vagueness problem,”
that it sometimes “allows what it shouldn’t allow,” and that “a
firm[er] line c[ould] be drawn.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 47–48. They
therefore argue that we should “consider revisiting” this part of Abood . Tr. of Oral Arg. 66; see Brief for Union Respondent
46–47; Brief for State Respondents 30. This concession only
underscores the real- ity that Abood has proved unworkable:
Not even the parties defending agency fees support the line that it
has taken this Court over 40 years to draw.

															2

															Objecting employees also face a daunting and
expensive task if they wish to challenge union chargeability
determinations. While Hudson requires a union to provide
nonmembers with “sufficient information to gauge the propriety of
the union’s fee,” 475 U. S., at 306, the Hudson notice
in the present case and in others that have come before us do not
begin to permit a nonmember to make such a determination.

															In this case, the notice lists categories of
expenses and sets out the amount in each category that is said to
be attributable to chargeable and nonchargeable expenses. Here are
some examples regarding the Union respondent’s expenditures:

															See App. to Pet. for Cert. 35a–36a.

															How could any nonmember determine whether these
numbers are even close to the mark without launching a legal
challenge and retaining the services of attorneys and accountants?
Indeed, even with such services, it would be a laborious and
difficult task to check these figures.[ 26 ]

															The Union respondent argues that challenging its
chargeability determinations is not burdensome because the Union
pays for the costs of arbitration, see Brief for Union Respondent
10–11, but objectors must still pay for the attorneys and experts
needed to mount a serious challenge. And the attorney’s fees
incurred in such a proceeding can be substantial. See, e.g. , Knox v. Chiang , 2013 WL 2434606, *15 (ED Cal., June
5, 2013) (attorney’s fees in Knox exceeded $1 million). The
Union respondent’s suggestion that an objector could obtain
adequate review without even showing up at an arbitration, see App.
to Pet. for Cert. 40a–41a, is therefore farfetched.

															C

															Developments since Abood , both factual
and legal, have also “eroded” the decision’s “underpinnings” and
left it an outlier among our First Amendment cases. United
States v. Gaudin , 515 U. S. 506, 521 (1995).

															1 Abood pinned its result on the
“unsupported empirical assumption” that “the principle of exclusive
representation in the public sector is dependent on a union or
agency shop.” Harris , 573 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at
20); Abood , 431 U. S., at 220–222. But, as already
noted, experience has shown otherwise. See supra , at
11–12.

															It is also significant that the Court decided Abood against a very different legal and economic backdrop.
Public-sector unionism was a relatively new phenomenon in 1977. The
first State to permit collective bargaining by government employees
was Wisconsin in 1959, R. Kearney & P. Mareschal, Labor
Relations in the Public Sector 64 (5th ed. 2014), and public-sector
union membership remained relatively low until a “spurt” in the
late 1960’s and early 1970’s, shortly before Abood was
decided, Freeman, Unionism Comes to the Public Sector, 24 J. Econ.
Lit. 41, 45 (1986). Since then, public-sector union membership has
come to surpass private-sector union membership, even though there
are nearly four times as many total private-sector employees as
public-sector employees. B. Hirsch & D. Macpherson, Union
Membership and Earnings Data Book 9–10, 12, 16 (2013 ed.).

															This ascendance of public-sector unions has been
marked by a parallel increase in public spending. In 1970, total
state and local government expenditures amounted to $646 per capita
in nominal terms, or about $4,000 per capita in 2014 dollars. See
Dept. of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1972,
p. 419; CPI Inflation Calculator, BLS,
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl. By 2014, that figure had
ballooned to approximately $10,238 per capita. ProQuest,
Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2018, pp. 17, Table 14,
300, Table 469. Not all that increase can be attributed to
public-sector unions, of course, but the mounting costs of
public-employee wages, benefits, and pensions undoubtedly played a
substantial role. We are told, for example, that Illinois’ pension
funds are underfunded by $129 billion as a result of generous
public-employee retirement packages. Brief for Jason R. Barclay
et al. as Amici Curiae 9, 14. Unsustainable
collective-bargaining agreements have also been blamed for multiple
municipal bankruptcies. See Brief for State of Michigan et al.
as Amici Curiae 10–19. These developments, and the political
debate over public spending and debt they have spurred, have given
collective-bargaining issues a political valence that Abood did not fully appreciate.

															2 Abood is also an “anomaly” in our First
Amendment jurisprudence, as we recognized in Harris and Knox . Harris , supra , at ___ (slip op., at 8); Knox , 567 U. S., at 311. This is not an altogether new
observation. In Abood itself, Justice Powell faulted the
Court for failing to perform the “ ‘exacting scrutiny’ ”
applied in other cases involving significant impingements on First
Amendment rights. 431 U. S., at 259; see id. , at
259–260, and n. 14. Our later cases involving compelled speech
and association have also employed exacting scrutiny, if not a more
demanding standard. See, e.g. , Roberts , 468
U. S., at 623; United Foods , 533 U. S., at 414.
And we have more recently refused, even in agency-fee cases, to
extend Abood beyond circumstances where it directly
controls. See Knox , supra , at 314; Harris , supra , at ___–___ (slip op., at 28–29). Abood particularly sticks out when viewed
against our

															cases holding that public employees generally
may not be required to support a political party. See Elrod ,
427 U. S. 347; Branti , 445 U. S. 507; Rutan , 497 U. S. 62; O’Hare Truck Service, Inc. v. City of Northlake , 518 U. S. 712 (1996). The Court
reached that conclusion despite a “long tradition” of political
patronage in government. Rutan , supra , at 95 (Scalia,
J., dissenting); see also Elrod , 427 U. S., at 353
(plurality opinion); id. , at 377–378 (Powell, J.,
dissenting). It is an odd feature of our First Amendment cases that
political patronage has been deemed largely unconstitutional, while
forced subsidization of union speech (which has no such pedigree)
has been largely permitted. As Justice Powell observed: “I am at a
loss to understand why the State’s decision to adopt the agency
shop in the public sector should be worthy of greater deference, when challenged on First Amendment grounds, than its
decision to adhere to the tradition of political patronage.” Abood , supra , at 260, n. 14 (opinion concurring
in judgment) (citing Elrod , supra , at 376–380,
382–387 (Powell, J., dissenting); emphasis added). We have no
occasion here to reconsider our political patronage decisions, but
Justice Powell’s observation is sound as far as it goes. By
overruling Abood , we end the oddity of privileging compelled
union support over compelled party support and bring a measure of
greater coherence to our First Amendment law.

															D

															In some cases, reliance provides a strong
reason for adhering to established law, see, e.g. , Hilton v. South Carolina Public Railways Comm’n , 502
U. S. 197, 202–203 (1991), and this is the factor that is
stressed most strongly by respondents, their amici , and the
dissent. They contend that collective-bargaining agreements now in
effect were negotiated with agency fees in mind and that unions may
have given up other benefits in exchange for provisions granting
them such fees. Tr. of Oral Arg. 67–68; see Brief for State
Respondents 54; Brief for Union Respondent 50; post , at
22–26 (Kagan, J., dissenting). In this case, however, reliance does
not carry decisive weight.

															For one thing, it would be unconscionable to
permit free speech rights to be abridged in perpetuity in order to
preserve contract provisions that will expire on their own in a few
years’ time. “The fact that [public-sector unions] may view [agency
fees] as an entitlement does not establish the sort of reliance
interest that could outweigh the countervailing interest that
[nonmembers] share in having their constitutional rights fully
protected.” Arizona v. Gant , 556 U. S. 332, 349
(2009).

															For another, Abood does not provide “a
clear or easily applicable standard, so arguments for reliance
based on its clarity are misplaced.” South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. , ante , at 20; see supra , at
38–41.

															This is especially so because public-sector
unions have been on notice for years regarding this Court’s
misgivings about Abood . In Knox , decided in 2012, we
described Abood as a First Amendment “anomaly.” 567
U. S., at 311. Two years later in Harris , we were asked
to overrule Abood , and while we found it unnecessary to take
that step, we cataloged Abood ’s many weaknesses. In 2015, we
granted a petition for certiorari asking us to review a decision
that sustained an agency-fee arrangement under Abood . Friedrichs v. California Teachers Assn. , 576
U. S. ___. After exhaustive briefing and argument on the
question whether Abood should be overruled, we affirmed the
decision below by an equally divided vote. 578 U. S. ___
(2016) ( per curiam ). During this period of time, any
public-sector union seeking an agency-fee provision in a
collective-bargaining agreement must have understood that the
constitutionality of such a provision was uncertain.

															That is certainly true with respect to the
collective-bargaining agreement in the present case. That agreement
initially ran from July 1, 2012, until June 30, 2015. App. 331.
Since then, the agreement has been extended pursuant to a provision
providing for automatic renewal for an additional year unless
either party gives timely notice that it desires to amend or
terminate the contract. Ibid . Thus, for the past three
years, the Union could not have been confident about the
continuation of the agency-fee arrangement for more than a year at
a time.

															Because public-sector collective-bargaining
agreements are generally of rather short duration, a great many of
those now in effect probably began or were renewed since Knox (2012) or Harris (2014). But even if an
agreement antedates those decisions, the union was able to protect
itself if an agency-fee provision was essential to the overall
bargain. A union’s attorneys undoubtedly understand that if one
provision of a collective-bargaining agreement is found to be
unlawful, the remaining provisions are likely to remain in effect.
See NLRB v. Rockaway News Supply Co. , 345 U. S.
71, 76–79 (1953); see also 8 R. Lord, Williston on Contracts §19:70
(4th ed. 2010). Any union believing that an agency-fee provision
was essential to its bargain could have insisted on a provision
giving it greater protection. The agreement in the present case, by
contrast, provides expressly that the invalidation of any part of
the agreement “shall not invalidate the remaining portions,” which
“shall remain in full force and effect.” App. 328. Such
severability clauses ensure that “entire contracts” are not
“br[ought] down” by today’s ruling. Post , at 23, n. 5
(Kagan, J., dissenting).

															In short, the uncertain status of Abood ,
the lack of clarity it provides, the short-term nature of
collective-bargaining agreements, and the ability of unions to
protect themselves if an agency-fee provision was crucial to its
bargain all work to undermine the force of reliance as a factor
supporting Abood .[ 27 ]

															*  *  *

															We recognize that the loss of payments from
nonmembers may cause unions to experience unpleasant transition
costs in the short term, and may require unions to make adjustments
in order to attract and retain members. But we must weigh these
disadvantages against the considerable windfall that unions have
received under Abood for the past 41 years. It is hard to
estimate how many billions of dollars have been taken from
nonmembers and transferred to public-sector unions in violation of
the First Amendment. Those unconstitutional exactions cannot be
allowed to continue indefinitely.

															All these reasons—that Abood ’s proponents
have abandoned its reasoning, that the precedent has proved
unworkable, that it conflicts with other First Amendment decisions,
and that subsequent developments have eroded its
underpinnings—provide the “ ‘special justification[s]’ ”
for overruling Abood . Post , at 19 (Kagan, J.,
dissenting) (quoting Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment,
LLC , 576 U. S. ___, ___ (2015) (slip op., at 8)).[ 28 ]

															VII

															For these reasons, States and public-sector
unions may no longer extract agency fees from nonconsenting
employees. Under Illinois law, if a public-sector
collective-bargaining agreement includes an agency-fee provision
and the union certifies to the employer the amount of the fee, that
amount is automatically deducted from the nonmember’s wages.
§315/6(e). No form of employee consent is required.

															This procedure violates the First Amendment and
cannot continue. Neither an agency fee nor any other payment to the
union may be deducted from a nonmember’s wages, nor may any other
attempt be made to collect such a payment, unless the employee
affirmatively consents to pay. By agreeing to pay, nonmembers are
waiving their First Amendment rights, and such a waiver cannot be
presumed. Johnson v. Zerbst , 304 U. S. 458, 464
(1938); see also Knox , 567 U. S., at 312–313. Rather, to be
effective, the waiver must be freely given and shown by “clear and
compelling” evidence. Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts ,
388 U. S. 130, 145 (1967) (plurality opinion); see also College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Ed.
Expense Bd. , 527 U. S. 666, 680–682 (1999). Unless
employees clearly and affirmatively consent before any money is
taken from them, this standard cannot be met.

															*  *  * Abood was wrongly decided and is now
overruled. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for
the Seventh Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for
further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

															It is so ordered. Notes 1 See Bureau of Labor
Statistics (BLS), Labor Force Statistics From the Current
Population Survey (Table 42) (2017),
https://www.bls.gov/cps/tables.htm (all Internet materials as
visited June 26, 2018). 2 See Union Membership and
Coverage Database From the Current Population Survey (Jan. 21,
2018), unionstats.com. 3 See National Conference
of State Legislatures, Right-to-Work States (2018),
http://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/right-to-work-laws-and-bills.aspx#chart;
see also, e.g. , Brief for Mackinac Center for Public Policy
as Amicus Curiae 27–28, 34–36. 4 The collective-action
problem cited by the dissent, post , at 6, is not specific to
the agency-fee context. And contrary to the dissent’s suggestion,
it is often not practical for an entity that lobbies or advocates
on behalf of the members of a group to tailor its message so that
only its members benefit from its efforts. Consider how effective
it would be for a group that advocates on behalf of, say, seniors,
to argue that a new measure should apply only to its dues-paying
members. 5 In order to obtain that
status, a union must petition to be recognized and campaign to win
majority approval. Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 5, §315/9(a) (2016); see, e.g. , County of Du Page v. Illinois Labor
Relations Bd. , 231 Ill. 2d 593, 597–600, 900 N. E. 2d
1095, 1098–1099 (2008). And unions eagerly seek this support. See, e.g. , Brief for Employees of the State of Minnesota Court
System as Amici Curiae 9–17. 6 There is precedent for
such arrangements. Some States have laws providing that, if an
employee with a religious objection to paying an agency fee
“requests the [union] to use the grievance procedure or arbitration
procedure on the employee’s behalf, the [union] is authorized to
charge the employee for the reasonable cost of using such
procedure.” E.g. , Cal. Govt. Code Ann. §3546.3 (West 2010);
cf. Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 5, §315/6(g) (2016). This more tailored
alternative, if applied to other objectors, would prevent free
ridership while imposing a lesser burden on First Amendment
rights. 7 Indeed, under common law,
“collective bargaining was unlawful,” Teamsters v. Terry , 494 U. S. 558, 565–566 (1990) (plurality
opinion); see N. Citrine, Trade Union Law 4–7, 9–10 (2d ed. 1960);
Notes, Legal-ity of Trade Unions at Common Law, 25 Harv. L. Rev.
465, 466 (1912), and into the 20th century, every individual
employee had the “liberty of contract” to “sell his labor upon such
terms as he deem[ed] proper,” Adair v. United States ,
208 U. S. 161, 174–175 (1908); see R. Morris, Government and
Labor in Early America 208, 529 (1946). So even the concept of a
private third-party entity with the power to bind employees on the
terms of their employment likely would have been foreign to the
Founders. We note this only to show the problems inherent in the
Union respondent’s argument; we are not in any way questioning the
foundations of modern labor law. 8 See, e.g. ,
Ellsworth, The Landholder, VII (1787), in Essays on the
Constitution of the United States 167–171 (P. Ford ed. 1892);
Webster, On Test Laws, Oaths of Allegiance and Abjuration, and
Partial Exclusions from Office, in A Collection of Essays and
Fugitiv[e] Writings 151–153 (1790). 9 Justice Powell’s separate
opinion did invoke Pickering in a relevant sense, but he did
so only to acknowledge the State’s relatively greater interest in
regulating speech when it acts as employer than when it acts as
sovereign. Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed. , 431
U. S. 209, 259 (1977) (concurring in judgment). In the very
next sentence, he explained that “even in public employment, a
significant impairment of First Amendment rights must survive
exacting scrutiny.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks
omitted). That is the test we apply today. 10 See
Brief for State of Michigan et al. as Amici Curiae 9–24. Nationwide, the cost of state and local employees’ wages and
benefits, for example, is nearly $1.5 trillion—more than half of
those jurisdictions’ total expenditures. See Dept. of Commerce,
Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Data, GDP & Personal
Income, Table 6.2D, line 92 (Aug. 3, 2017), and Table 3.3, line 37
(May 30, 2018),
https://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?reqid=19&step=2#reqid=19&step=2&isuri=1&1921=survey.
And many States and cities struggle with unfunded pension and
retiree healthcare liabilities and other budget
issues. 11 PEW
Charitable Trusts, Fiscal 50: State Trends and Analysis (updated
May 17, 2016),
http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/data-visualizations/2014/fiscal-50#ind4. 12 See
Brief for Jason R. Barclay et al. as Amici Curiae 9; M.
Egan, How Illinois Became America’s Most Messed-Up State, CNN Money
(July 1, 2017), https://cnnmon.ie/2tp9NX5. 13 Brief
for Jason R. Barclay et al. as Amici Curiae 9. 14 E.
Campbell, S&P, Moody’s Downgrade Illinois to Near Junk, Lowest
Ever for a U. S. State, Bloomberg (June 1, 2017),
https://bloom.bg/2roEJUc. 15 See
National Association of State Budget Officers, Summary: Spring 2018
Fiscal Survey of States 2 (June 14, 2018), http://www.nasbo.org;
ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2018,
pp. 306, Table 476, 321, Table 489. 16 See
Rogers, School Districts ‘Race to the Top’ Despite Teacher Dispute,
Marin Independent J., June 19, 2010. 17 See
Sawchuk, Transferring Top Teachers Has Benefits: Study Probes
Moving Talent to Low-Performing Schools, Education Week, Nov. 13,
2013, pp. 1, 13. 18 See
Tucker, Textbooks Equivocate on Global Warming: Stanford Study
Finds Portrayal ‘Dishonest,’ San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 24,
2015, p. C1. 19 See
Reagan, Anti-Confederacy Movement Rekindles Texas Textbook
Controversy, San Antonio Current, Aug. 4, 2015. 20 See
Watanabe, How To Teach Gay Issues in 1st Grade? A New Law Requiring
California Schools To Have Lessons About LGBT Americans Raises
Tough Questions, L. A. Times, Oct. 16, 2011,
p. A1. 21 See
Goodstein, A Web of Faith, Law and Science in Evolution Suit,
N. Y. Times, Sept. 26, 2005, p. A1. 22 See
Golden, Defending the Faith: New Battleground in Textbook Wars:
Religion in History, Wall St. J., Jan. 25, 2006,
p. A1. 23 Claiming that our decision will
hobble government operations, the dissent asserts that it would
prevent a government employer from taking action against disruptive
non-unionized employees in two carefully constructed hypothetical
situations. See post , at 17–18. Both hypotheticals are short
on potentially important details, but in any event, neither would
be affected by our decision in this case. Rather, both would simply
call for the application of the standard Pickering test. In
one of the hypotheticals, teachers “protest merit pay in the school
cafeteria.” Post , at 17. If such a case actually arose, it
would be important to know, among other things, whether the
teachers involved were supposed to be teaching in their classrooms
at the time in question and whether the protest occurred in the
presence of students during the student lunch period. If both those
conditions were met, the teachers would presumably be violating
content-neutral rules regarding their duty to teach at specified
times and places, and their conduct might well have a disruptive
effect on the educational process. Thus, in the dissent’s
hypothetical, the school’s interests might well outweigh those of
the teachers, but in this hypothetical case, as in all Pickering cases, the particular facts would be very
important. In the other hypothetical, employees agitate for a
better health plan “at various inopportune times and places.” Post , at 17. Here, the lack of factual detail makes it
impossible to evaluate how the Pickering balance would come
out. The term “agitat[ion]” can encompass a wide range of conduct,
as well as speech. Post , at 17. And the time and place of
the agitation would also be important. 24 No
First Amendment issue could have properly arisen in those cases
unless Congress’s enactment of a provision allowing, but not
requiring, private parties to enter into union-shop arrangements
was sufficient to establish governmental action. That proposition
was debatable when Abood was decided, and is even more
questionable today. See American Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan , 526 U. S. 40, 53 (1999); Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co. , 419 U. S. 345, 357 (1974).
Compare, e.g. , White v. Communications Workers of
Am., AFL–CIO, Local 13000 , 370 F. 3d 346, 350 (CA3 2004)
(no state action), and Kolinske v. Lubbers , 712
F. 2d 471, 477–478 (CADC 1983) (same), with Beck v. Communications Workers of Am. , 776 F. 2d 1187, 1207
(CA4 1985) (state action), and Linscott v. Millers Falls
Co. , 440 F. 2d 14, 16, and n. 2 (CA1 1971) (same). We
reserved decision on this question in Communications Workers v. Beck , 487 U. S. 735, 761 (1988), and do not resolve
it here. 25 Contrary to the dissent’s claim, see post , at 19, and n. 4, the fact that “[t]he rationale
of [ Abood ] does not withstand careful analysis” is a
reason to overrule it, e.g. , Lawrence v. Texas , 539 U. S. 558, 577 (2003). And that is even
truer when, as here, the defenders of the precedent do not attempt
to “defend [its actual] reasoning.” Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm’n , 558 U. S. 310, 363 (2010); id. , at 382–385 (Roberts, C. J.,
concurring). 26 For
this reason, it is hardly surprising that chargeability issues have
not arisen in many Court of Appeals cases. See post , at 22
(Kagan, J., dissenting). 27 The
dissent emphasizes another type of reliance, namely, that “[o]ver
20 States have by now enacted statutes authorizing [agency-fee]
provisions.” Post , at 23. But as we explained in Citizens
United , “[t]his is not a compelling interest for stare
decisis . If it were, legislative acts could prevent us from
overruling our own precedents, thereby interfering with our duty
‘to say what the law is.’ ” 558 U. S., at 365 (quoting Marbury v. Madison , 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803)). Nor
does our decision “ ‘require an extensive legislative
response.’ ” Post , at 23. States can keep their
labor-relations systems exactly as they are—only they cannot force
nonmembers to subsidize public-sector unions. In this way, these
States can follow the model of the federal government and 28 other
States. 28 Unfortunately, the dissent sees the
need to resort to accusations that we are acting like “black-robed
rulers” who have shut down an “energetic policy debate.” Post , at 27–28. We certainly agree that judges should not
“overrid[e] citizens’ choices” or “pick the winning side,” ibid. —unless the Constitution commands that they do so. But
when a federal or state law violates the Constitution, the American
doctrine of judicial review requires us to enforce the
Constitution. Here, States with agency-fee laws have abridged
fundamental free speech rights. In holding that these laws violate
the Constitution, we are simply enforcing the First Amendment as
properly understood, “[t]he very purpose of [which] was to withdraw
certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to
place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to
establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts.” West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette , 319 U. S.
624, 638 (1943). SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 16–1466

															_________________

															MARK JANUS, PETITIONER v. AMERICAN
FEDER- ATION OF STATE, COUNTY, AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES, COUNCIL 31,
et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the seventh circuit

															[June 27, 2018]

															Justice Sotomayor, dissenting.

															I join Justice Kagan’s dissent in full. Although
I joined the majority in Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc. ,
564 U. S. 552 (2011), I disagree with the way that this Court
has since interpreted and applied that opinion. See, e.g., National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra , ante, p. ___. Having seen the troubling
development in First Amendment jurisprudence over the years, both
in this Court and in lower courts, I agree fully with Justice Kagan
that Sorrell —in the way it has been read by this Court—has
allowed courts to “wiel[d] the First Amendment in . . .
an aggressive way” just as the majority does today. Post, at
27. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 16–1466

															_________________

															MARK JANUS, PETITIONER v. AMERICAN
FEDER- ATION OF STATE, COUNTY, AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES, COUNCIL 31,
et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the seventh circuit

															[June 27, 2018]

															Justice Kagan, with whom Justice Ginsburg,
Justice Breyer, and Justice Sotomayor join, dissenting.

															For over 40 years, Abood v. Detroit
Bd. of Ed. , 431 U. S. 209 (1977), struck a stable balance
between public employees’ First Amendment rights and government
entities’ interests in running their workforces as they thought
proper. Under that decision, a government entity could require
public employees to pay a fair share of the cost that a union
incurs when negotiating on their behalf over terms of employment.
But no part of that fair-share payment could go to any of the
union’s political or ideological activities.

															That holding fit comfortably with this Court’s
general framework for evaluating claims that a condition of public
employment violates the First Amendment. The Court’s decisions have
long made plain that government entities have substantial latitude
to regulate their employees’ speech—especially about terms of
employment—in the interest of operating their workplaces
effectively. Abood allowed governments to do just that.
While protecting public employees’ expression about non-workplace
matters, the decision enabled a government to advance important
managerial interests—by ensuring the presence of an exclusive
employee representative to bargain with. Far from an “anomaly,” ante, at 7, the Abood regime was a paradigmatic
example of how the government can regulate speech in its capacity
as an employer.

															Not any longer. Today, the Court succeeds in its
6-year campaign to reverse Abood . See Friedrichs v. California Teachers Assn. , 578 U. S. ___ (2016) ( per
curiam ); Harris v. Quinn , 573 U. S. ___
(2014); Knox v. Service Employees , 567 U. S. 298
(2012). Its decision will have large-scale consequences. Public
employee unions will lose a secure source of financial support.
State and local governments that thought fair-share provisions
furthered their interests will need to find new ways of managing
their workforces. Across the country, the relationships of public
employees and employers will alter in both predictable and wholly
unexpected ways.

															Rarely if ever has the Court overruled a
decision—let alone one of this import—with so little regard for the
usual principles of stare decisis . There are no special
justifications for reversing Abood. It has proved workable.
No recent developments have eroded its underpinnings. And it is
deeply entrenched, in both the law and the real world. More than 20
States have statutory schemes built on the decision. Those laws
underpin thousands of ongoing contracts involving millions of
employees. Reliance interests do not come any stronger than those
surrounding Abood . And likewise, judicial disruption does
not get any greater than what the Court does today. I respectfully
dissent.

															I

															I begin with Abood , the 41-year-old
precedent the majority overrules. That case involved a union that
had been certified as the exclusive representative of Detroit’s
public school teachers. The union’s collective-bargaining agreement
with the city included an “agency shop” clause, which required
teachers who had not joined the union to pay it “a service charge
equal to the regular dues required of [u]nion members.” Abood , 431 U. S., at 212. A group of non-union members
sued over that clause, arguing that it violated the First
Amendment.

															In considering their challenge, the Court
canvassed the purposes of the “agency shop” clause. It was rooted,
the Court understood, in the “principle of exclusive union
representation”—a “central element” in “industrial relations” since
the New Deal. Id., at 220. Significant benefits, the Court
explained, could derive from the “designation of a single [union]
representative” for all similarly situated employees in a
workplace. Ibid. In particular, such arrangements:
“avoid[ ] the confusion that would result from attempting to
enforce two or more agreements specifying different terms and
conditions of employment”; “prevent[ ] inter-union rivalries
from creating dissension within the work force”; “free[ ] the
employer from the possibility of facing conflicting demands from
different unions”; and “permit[ ] the employer and a single
union to reach agreements and settlements that are not subject to
attack from rival labor organizations.” Id., at 220–221. As
proof, the Court pointed to the example of exclusive-representation
arrangements in the private-employment sphere: There, Congress had
long thought that such schemes would promote “peaceful labor
relations” and “labor stability.” Id., at 219, 229. A public
employer like Detroit, the Court believed, could reasonably make
the same calculation.

															But for an exclusive-bargaining arrangement to
work, such an employer often thought, the union needed adequate
funding. Because the “designation of a union as exclusive
representative carries with it great responsibilities,” the Court
reasoned, it inevitably also entails substantial costs. Id., at 221. “The tasks of negotiating and administering a
collective-bargaining agreement and representing the interests of
employees in settling disputes and processing grievances are
continuing and difficult ones.” Ibid. Those activities, the
Court noted, require the “expenditure of much time and money”—for
example, payment for the “services of lawyers, expert negotiators,
economists, and a research staff.” Ibid. And there is no way
to confine the union’s services to union members alone (and thus to
trim costs) because unions must by law fairly represent all
employees in a given bargaining unit—union members and non-members
alike. See ibid. With all that in mind, the Court recognized why
both a government entity and its union bargaining partner would
gravitate toward an agency-fee clause. Those fees, the Court
reasoned, “distribute fairly the cost” of collective bargaining
“among those who benefit”—that is, all employees in the work
unit. Id., at 222. And they “counteract[ ] the
incentive that employees might otherwise have to become ‘free
riders.’ ” Ibid. In other words, an agency-fee
provision prevents employees from reaping all the “benefits of
union representation”—higher pay, a better retirement plan, and so
forth—while leaving it to others to bear the costs. Ibid. To
the Court, the upshot was clear: A government entity could
reasonably conclude that such a clause was needed to maintain the
kind of exclusive bargaining arrangement that would facilitate
peaceful and stable labor relations.

															But the Court acknowledged as well the “ First
Amendment interests” of dissenting employees. Ibid. It
recognized that some workers might oppose positions the union takes
in collective bargaining, or even “unionism itself.” Ibid. And still more, it understood that unions often advance “political
and ideological” views outside the collective-bargaining context—as
when they “contribute to political candidates.” Id., at 232,
234. Employees might well object to the use of their money to
support such “ideological causes.” Id., at 235.

															So the Court struck a balance, which has
governed this area ever since. On the one hand, employees could be
required to pay fees to support the union in “collective
bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment.” Id., at 225–226. There, the Court held, the “important
government interests” in having a stably funded bargaining partner
justify “the impingement upon” public employees’ expression. Id., at 225. But on the other hand, employees could not be
compelled to fund the union’s political and ideological activities.
Outside the collective-bargaining sphere, the Court determined, an
employee’s First Amendment rights defeated any conflicting
government interest. See id., at 234–235.

															II

															Unlike the majority, I see nothing
“questionable” about Abood ’s analysis. Ante, at 7
(quoting Harris , 573 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 17)).
The decision’s account of why some government entities have a
strong interest in agency fees (now often called fair-share fees)
is fundamentally sound. And the balance Abood struck between
public employers’ interests and public employees’ expression is
right at home in First Amendment doctrine.

															A Abood ’s reasoning about governmental
interests has three connected parts. First, exclusive
representation arrangements benefit some government entities
because they can facilitate stable labor relations. In particular,
such arrangements eliminate the potential for inter-union conflict
and streamline the process of negotiating terms of employment. See
431 U. S., at 220–221. Second, the government may be unable to
avail itself of those benefits unless the single union has a secure
source of funding. The various tasks involved in representing
employees cost money; if the union doesn’t have enough, it can’t be
an effective employee representative and bargaining partner. See id. , at 221. And third, agency fees are often needed to
ensure such stable funding. That is because without those fees,
employees have every incentive to free ride on the union dues paid
by others. See id. , at 222.

															The majority does not take issue with the first
point. See ante, at 33 (It is “not disputed that the State
may require that a union serve as exclusive bargaining agent for
its employees” in order to advance the State’s “interests as an
employer”). The majority claims that the second point never appears
in Abood , but is willing to assume it for the sake of
argument. See ante, at 31–32; but see Abood , 431
U. S., at 221 (The tasks of an exclusive representative “often
entail expenditure of much time and money”). So the majority stakes
everything on the third point—the conclusion that maintaining an
effective system of exclusive representation often entails agency
fees. Ante , at 12 (It “is simply not true” that exclusive
representation and agency fees are “inextricably linked”); see ante, at 14.

															But basic economic theory shows why a government
would think that agency fees are necessary for exclusive
representation to work. What ties the two together, as Abood recognized, is the likelihood of free-riding when fees are absent.
Remember that once a union achieves exclusive-representation
status, the law compels it to fairly represent all workers in the
bargaining unit, whether or not they join or contribute to the
union. See supra, at 4. Because of that legal duty, the
union cannot give special advantages to its own members. And that
in turn creates a collective action problem of nightmarish
proportions. Everyone—not just those who oppose the union, but also
those who back it—has an economic incentive to withhold dues; only
altruism or loyalty—as against financial self-interest—can
explain why an employee would pay the union for its services. And
so emerged Abood ’s rule allowing fair-share agreements: That
rule ensured that a union would receive sufficient funds, despite
its legally imposed disability, to effectively carry out its duties
as exclusive representative of the government’s employees.

															The majority’s initial response to this
reasoning is simply to dismiss it. “[F]ree rider arguments,” the
majority pronounces, “are generally insufficient to overcome First
Amendment objections.” Ante, at 13 (quoting Knox , 567
U. S., at 311). “To hold otherwise,” it continues, “would have
startling consequences” because “[m]any private groups speak out”
in ways that will “benefit[ ] nonmembers.” Ante, at
13 . But that disregards the defining characteristic of this free-rider argument—that unions, unlike those many
other private groups, must serve members and non-members alike.
Groups advocating for “senior citizens or veterans” (to use the
majority’s examples) have no legal duty to provide benefits to all
those individuals: They can spur people to pay dues by conferring
all kinds of special advantages on their dues-paying members.
Unions are—by law—in a different position, as this Court has long
recognized. See, e.g., Machinists v. Street , 367
U. S. 740, 762 (1961). Justice Scalia, responding to the same
argument as the majority’s, may have put the point best. In a way
that is true of no other private group, the “law requires the union to carry” non-members—“indeed, requires the union to go out of its way to benefit [them], even at the expense of
its other interests.” Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty
Assn. , 500 U. S. 507, 556 (1991) (opinion concurring in
part and dissenting in part). That special feature was what
justified Abood : “Where the state imposes upon the union a
duty to deliver services, it may permit the union to demand
reimbursement for them.” 500 U. S., at 556.

															The majority’s fallback argument purports to
respond to the distinctive position of unions, but still misses Abood ’s economic insight. Here, the majority delivers a
four-page exegesis on why unions will seek to serve as an exclusive
bargaining representative even “if they are not given agency fees.” Ante, at 14; see ante, at 14–17. The gist of the
account is that “designation as the exclusive representative
confers many benefits,” which outweigh the costs of providing
services to non-members. Ante, at 15. But that response
avoids the key question, which is whether unions without agency
fees will be able to (not whether they will want to )
carry on as an effective exclusive representative. And as to that
question, the majority again fails to reckon with how economically
rational actors behave—in public as well as private workplaces.
Without a fair-share agreement, the class of union non-members
spirals upward. Employees (including those who love the union)
realize that they can get the same benefits even if they let their
memberships expire. And as more and more stop paying dues, those
left must take up the financial slack (and anyway, begin to feel
like suckers)—so they too quit the union. See Ichniowski & Zax,
Right-to-Work Laws, Free Riders, and Unionization in the Local
Public Sector, 9 J. Labor Economics 255, 257 (1991).[ 1 ] And when the vicious cycle finally ends,
chances are that the union will lack the resources to effectively
perform the responsibilities of an exclusive representative—or, in
the worst case, to perform them at all. The result is to frustrate
the interests of every government entity that thinks a strong
exclusive-representation scheme will promote stable labor
relations.

															Of course, not all public employers will share
that view. Some would rather not bargain with an exclusive
representative. Others would prefer that representative to be
poorly funded—to serve more as a front than an effectual bargaining
partner. But as reflected in the number of fair-share statutes and
contracts across the Nation, see supra, at 2, many
government entities think that effective exclusive representation
makes for good labor relations—and recognize, just as Abood did, that representation of that kind often depends on agency fees.
See, e.g., Harris , 573 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 24)
(Kagan, J., dissenting) (describing why Illinois thought that
bargaining with an adequately funded exclusive representative of
in-home caregivers would enable the State to better serve its dis-
abled citizens). Abood respected that state interest;
today’s majority fails even to understand it. Little wonder that
the majority’s First Amendment analysis, which involves assessing
the government’s reasons for imposing agency fees, also comes up
short.

															B

															1

															In many cases over many decades, this Court
has addressed how the First Amendment applies when the government,
acting not as sovereign but as employer, limits its workers’
speech. Those decisions have granted substantial latitude to the
government, in recognition of its significant interests in managing
its workforce so as to best serve the public. Abood fit
neatly with that caselaw, in both reasoning and result. Indeed, its
reversal today creates a significant anomaly—an exception, applying
to union fees alone, from the usual rules governing public
employees’ speech.

															“Time and again our cases have recognized that
the Government has a much freer hand” in dealing with its employees
than with “citizens at large.” NASA v. Nelson , 562
U. S. 134, 148 (2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). The
government, we have stated, needs to run “as effectively and
efficiently as possible.” Engquist v. Oregon Dept. of
Agriculture , 553 U. S. 591, 598 (2008) (internal quotation
marks omitted). That means it must be able, much as a private
employer is, to manage its workforce as it thinks fit. A public
employee thus must submit to “certain limitations on his or her
freedom.” Garcetti v. Ceballos , 547 U. S. 410,
418 (2006). Government workers, of course, do not wholly “lose
their constitutional rights when they accept their positions.” Engquist , 553 U. S., at 600. But under our precedent,
their rights often yield when weighed “against the realities of the
employment context.” Ibid. If it were otherwise—if every
employment decision were to “bec[o]me a constitutional matter”—“the
Government could not function.” NASA , 562 U. S., at 149
(internal quotation marks omitted).

															Those principles apply with full force when
public employees’ expressive rights are at issue. As we have
explained: “Government employers, like private employers, need a
significant degree of control over their employees’ words” in order
to “efficient[ly] provi[de] public services.” Garcetti , 547
U. S., at 418. Again, significant control does not mean
absolute authority. In particular, the Court has guarded against
government efforts to “leverage the employment relationship” to
shut down its employees’ speech as private citizens. Id., at
419. But when the government imposes speech restrictions relating
to workplace operations, of the kind a private employer also would,
the Court reliably upholds them. See, e.g., id. , at 426; Connick v. Myers , 461 U. S. 138, 154 (1983).

															In striking the proper balance between employee
speech rights and managerial interests, the Court has long applied
a test originating in Pickering v. Board of Ed. of
Township High School Dist. 205, Will Cty. , 391 U. S. 563
(1968). That case arose out of an individual employment action: the
firing of a public school teacher. As we later described the Pickering inquiry , the Court first asks whether the
employee “spoke as a citizen on a matter of public concern.” Garcetti , 547 U. S., at 418. If she did not—but rather
spoke as an employee on a workplace matter—she has no “possibility
of a First Amendment claim”: A public employer can curtail her
speech just as a private one could. Ibid. But if she did
speak as a citizen on a public matter, the public employer must
demonstrate “an adequate justification for treating the employee
differently from any other member of the general public.” Ibid. The government, that is, needs to show that legitimate
workplace interests lay behind the speech regulation. Abood coheres with that framework. The
point here is not, as the majority suggests, that Abood is
an overt, one-to-one “application of Pickering .” Ante, at 26. It is not. Abood related to a
municipality’s labor policy, and so the Court looked to prior cases
about unions, not to Pickering ’s analysis of an employee’s
dismissal. (And truth be told, Pickering was not at that
time much to look at: What the Court now thinks of as the two-step Pickering test, as the majority’s own citations show, really
emerged from Garcetti and Connick —two cases
post-dating Abood . See ante, at 22.)[ 2 ] But Abood and Pickering raised variants of the same basic issue: the extent of the
government’s authority to make employment decisions affecting
expression. And in both, the Court struck the same basic balance,
enabling the government to curb speech when—but only when—the
regulation was designed to protect its managerial interests.
Consider the parallels:

															Like Pickering , Abood drew the
constitutional line by analyzing the connection between the
government’s managerial interests and different kinds of
expression. The Court first discussed the use of agency fees to
subsidize the speech involved in “collective bargaining, contract
administration, and grievance adjustment.” 431 U. S., at
225–226. It understood that expression (really, who would not?) as
intimately tied to the workplace and employment relationship. The
speech was about “working conditions, pay, discipline, promotions,
leave, vacations, and terminations,” Borough of Duryea v. Guarnieri , 564 U. S. 379, 391 (2011); the speech
occurred (almost always) in the workplace; and the speech was
directed (at least mainly) to the employer. As noted earlier, Abood described the managerial interests of employers in
channeling all that speech through a single union. See 431
U. S., at 220–222, 224–226; supra, at 3. And so Abood allowed the government to mandate fees for collective
bargaining—just as Pickering permits the government to
regulate employees’ speech on similar workplace matters. But still, Abood realized that compulsion could go too far. The Court
barred the use of fees for union speech supporting political
candidates or “ideological causes.” 431 U. S., at 235. That
speech, it understood, was “unrelated to [the union’s] duties as
exclusive bargaining representative,” but instead was directed at
the broader public sphere. Id., at 234. And for that reason,
the Court saw no legitimate managerial interests in compelling its
subsidization. The employees’ First Amendment claims would thus
prevail—as, again, they would have under Pickering . Abood thus dovetailed with the Court’s
usual attitude in First Amendment cases toward the regulation of
public employees’ speech. That attitude is one of respect—even
solicitude—for the government’s prerogatives as an employer. So
long as the government is acting as an employer—rather than
exploiting the employment relationship for other ends—it has a wide
berth, comparable to that of a private employer. And when the
regulated expression concerns the terms and conditions of
employment—the very stuff of the employment relationship—the
government really cannot lose. There, managerial interests are
obvious and strong. And so government employees are . . .
just employees, even though they work for the government. Except
that today the government does lose, in a first for the law. Now,
the government can constitutionally adopt all policies regulating
core workplace speech in pursuit of managerial goals—save this
single one.

															2

															The majority claims it is not making a special
and unjustified exception. It offers two main reasons for declining
to apply here our usual deferential approach, as exemplified in Pickering , to the regulation of public employee speech.
First, the majority says, this case involves a “blanket” policy
rather than an individualized employment decision, so Pickering is a “painful fit.” Ante, at 23. Second,
the majority asserts, the regulation here involves compelling
rather than restricting speech, so the pain gets sharper still. See ante , at 24–25. And finally, the majority claims that even
under the solicitous Pickering standard, the government
should lose, because the speech here involves a matter of public
concern and the government’s managerial interests do not justify
its regulation. See ante, at 27–31. The majority goes wrong
at every turn.

															First, this Court has applied the same basic
approach whether a public employee challenges a general policy or
an individualized decision. Even the majority must concede that “we
have sometimes looked to Pickering in considering general
rules that affect broad categories of employees.” Ante, at
23. In fact, the majority cannot come up with any case in which we
have not done so. All it can muster is one case in which while applying the Pickering test to a broad
rule—barring any federal employee from accepting any payment for
any speech or article on any topic—the Court noted that the
policy’s breadth would count against the government at the test’s
second step. See United States v. Treasury Employees ,
513 U. S. 454 (1995). Which is completely predictable. The
inquiry at that stage, after all, is whether the government has an
employment-related interest in going however far it has gone—and in Treasury Employees , the government had indeed gone far. (The
Court ultimately struck down the rule because it applied to speech
in which the government had no identifiable managerial interest.
See id., at 470, 477.) Nothing in Treasury Employees suggests that the Court defers only to ad hoc actions, and not
to general rules, about public employee speech. That would be a
perverse regime, given the greater regularity of rulemaking and the
lesser danger of its abuse. So I would wager a small fortune that
the next time a general rule governing public employee speech comes
before us, we will dust off Pickering .

															Second, the majority’s distinction between
compelling and restricting speech also lacks force. The majority
posits that compelling speech always works a greater injury, and so
always requires a greater justification. See ante, at 8. But
the only case the majority cites for that reading of our precedent
is possibly (thankfully) the most exceptional in our First
Amendment annals: It involved the state forcing children to swear
an oath contrary to their religious beliefs. See ibid. (quoting West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette , 319
U. S. 624 (1943)). Regulations challenged as compelling
expression do not usually look anything like that—and for that
reason, the standard First Amendment rule is that the “difference
between compelled speech and compelled silence” is “without
constitutional significance.” Riley v. National
Federation of Blind of N. C., Inc. , 487 U. S. 781, 796
(1988); see Wooley v. Maynard , 430 U. S. 705,
714 (1977) (referring to “[t]he right to speak and the right to
refrain from speaking” as “complementary components” of the First
Amendment). And if anything, the First Amendment scales tip the
opposite way when (as here) the government is not compelling actual
speech, but instead compelling a subsidy that others will use for
expression. See Brief for Eugene Volokh et al. as Amici
Curiae 4–5 (offering many examples to show that the First
Amendment “simply do[es] not guarantee that one’s hard-earned
dollars will never be spent on speech one disapproves
of”).[ 3 ] So when a government
mandates a speech subsidy from a public employee—here, we might
think of it as levying a tax to support collective bargaining—it
should get at least as much deference as when it restricts the
employee’s speech. As this case shows, the former may advance a
managerial interest as well as the latter—in which case the
government’s “freer hand” in dealing with its employees should
apply with equal (if not greater) force. NASA , 562
U. S., at 148.

															Third and finally, the majority errs in thinking
that under the usual deferential approach, the government should
lose this case. The majority mainly argues here that, at Pickering ’s first step, “union speech in collective
bargaining” is a “matter of great public concern” because it
“affect[s] how public money is spent” and addresses “other
important matters” like teacher merit pay or tenure. Ante, at 27, 29 (internal quotation marks omitted). But to start, the
majority misunderstands the threshold inquiry set out in Pickering and later cases. The question is not, as the
majority seems to think, whether the public is, or should be,
interested in a government employee’s speech. Instead, the question
is whether that speech is about and directed to the workplace—as
contrasted with the broader public square. Treasury
Employees offers the Court’s fullest explanation. The Court
held there that the government’s policy prevented employees from
speaking as “citizen[s]” on “matters of public concern.” 513
U. S., at 466 (quoting Pickering , 391 U. S., at
568). Why? Because the speeches and articles “were addressed to a
public audience, were made outside the workplace, and involved
content largely unrelated to their Government employment.” 513
U. S., at 466; see id., at 465, 470 (repeating that
analysis twice more). The Court could not have cared less whether
the speech at issue was “important.” Ante, at 29. It instead
asked whether the speech was truly of the
workplace—addressed to it, made in it, and (most of
all) about it.

															Consistent with that focus, speech about the
terms and conditions of employment—the essential stuff of
collective bargaining—has never survived Pickering ’s first
step. This Court has rejected all attempts by employees to make a
“federal constitutional issue” out of basic “employment matters,
including working conditions, pay, discipline, promotions, leave,
vacations, and terminations.” Guarnieri , 564 U. S., at
391; see Board of Comm’rs, Wabaunsee Cty. v. Umbehr ,
518 U. S. 668, 675 (1996) (stating that public employees’
“speech on merely private employment matters is unprotected”). For
that reason, even the Justices who originally objected to Abood conceded that the use of agency fees for bargaining on
“economic issues” like “salaries and pension benefits” would not
raise significant First Amendment questions. 431 U. S., at
263, n. 16 (Powell, J., concurring in judgment). Of course,
most of those issues have budgetary consequences: They
“affect[ ] how public money is spent.” Ante, at 29. And
some raise important non-budgetary disputes; teacher merit pay is a
good example, see ante, at 30. But arguing about the terms
of employment is still arguing about the terms of employment: The
workplace remains both the context and the subject matter of the
expression. If all that speech really counted as “of public
concern,” as the majority suggests, the mass of public employees’
complaints (about pay and benefits and workplace policy and such) would become “federal constitutional issue[s].” Guarnieri , 564 U. S., at 391. And contrary to decades’
worth of precedent, government employers would then have far less
control over their workforces than private employers do. See supra, at 9–11.

															Consider an analogy, not involving union fees:
Suppose a government entity disciplines a group of (non-unionized)
employees for agitating for a better health plan at various
inopportune times and places. The better health plan will of course
drive up public spending; so according to the majority’s analysis,
the employees’ speech satisfies Pickering ’s “public concern”
test. Or similarly, suppose a public employer penalizes a group of
(non-unionized) teachers who protest merit pay in the school
cafeteria. Once again, the majority’s logic runs, the speech is of
“public concern,” so the employees have a plausible First Amendment
claim. (And indeed, the majority appears to concede as much, by
asserting that the results in these hypotheticals should turn on
various “factual detail[s]” relevant to the interest balancing that
occurs at the Pickering test’s second step. Ante, at 32, n. 23.) But in fact, this Court has always
understood such cases to end at Pickering ’s first step: If an employee’s speech is about, in, and directed to the
workplace, she has no “possibility of a First Amendment claim.” Garcetti , 547 U. S., at 418; see supra, at 11.
So take your pick. Either the majority is exposing government
entities across the country to increased First Amendment litigation
and liability—and thus preventing them from regulating their
workforces as private employers could. Or else, when actual cases
of this kind come around, we will discover that today’s majority
has crafted a “unions only” carve-out to our employee-speech
law.

															What’s more, the government should prevail even
if the speech involved in collective bargaining satisfies Pickering ’s first part. Recall that the next question is
whether the government has shown “an adequate justification for
treating the employee differently from any other member of the
general public.” Garcetti , 547 U. S., at 418; supra, at 11. That inquiry is itself famously respectful of
government interests. This Court has reversed the government only
when it has tried to “leverage the employment relationship” to
achieve an outcome unrelated to the workplace’s “effective
functioning.” Garcetti , 547 U. S., at 419; Rankin v. McPherson , 483 U. S. 378, 388 (1987).
Nothing like that is true here. As Abood described, many
government entities have found agency fees the best way to ensure a
stable and productive relationship with an exclusive bargaining
agent. See 431 U. S., at 220–221, 224–226; supra, at
3–4. And here, Illinois and many governmental amici have
explained again how agency fees advance their workplace goals. See
Brief for State Respondents 12, 36; Brief for Governor Tom Wolf
et al. as Amici Curiae 21–33. In no other
employee-speech case has this Court dismissed such work-related
interests, as the majority does here. See supra, at 6–9
(discussing the majority’s refusal to engage with the logic of the
State’s position). Time and again, the Court has instead respected
and acceded to those interests—just as Abood did.

															The key point about Abood is that it fit
naturally with this Court’s consistent teaching about the
permissibility of regulating public employees’ speech. The Court
allows a government entity to regulate that expression in aid of
managing its workforce to effectively provide public services. That
is just what a government aims to do when it enforces a fair-share
agreement. And so, the key point about today’s decision is that it
creates an unjustified hole in the law, applicable to union fees
alone. This case is sui generis among those addressing
public employee speech—and will almost surely remain so.

															III

															But the worse part of today’s opinion is where
the majority subverts all known principles of stare decisis .
The majority makes plain, in the first 33 pages of its decision,
that it believes Abood was wrong.[ 4 ] But even if that were true (which it is not), it is
not enough. “Respecting stare decisis means sticking to some
wrong decisions.” Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment,
LLC , 576 U. S. ___, ___ (2015) (slip op., at 7). Any
departure from settled precedent (so the Court has often stated)
demands a “special justification—over and above the belief that the
precedent was wrongly decided.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 8)
(internal quotation marks omitted); see, e.g., Arizona v. Rumsey , 467 U. S. 203, 212 (1984).
And the majority does not have anything close. To the contrary: all
that is “special” in this case—especially the massive reliance
interests at stake—demands retaining Abood , beyond even the
normal precedent.

															Consider first why these principles about
precedent are so important. Stare decisis —“the idea that
today’s Court should stand by yesterday’s decisions”—is “a
foundation stone of the rule of law.” Kimble, 576
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7) (quoting Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community , 572 U. S. ___, ___ (2014)
(slip op., at 15)). It “promotes the evenhanded, predictable, and
consistent development” of legal doctrine. Payne v. Tennessee , 501 U. S. 808, 827 (1991). It fosters
respect for and reliance on judicial decisions. See ibid. And it “contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the
judicial process,” ibid. , by ensuring that decisions are
“founded in the law rather than in the proclivities of
individuals,” Vasquez v. Hillery , 474 U. S. 254,
265 (1986).

															And Abood is not just any precedent: It
is embedded in the law (not to mention, as I’ll later address, in
the world) in a way not many decisions are. Over four decades, this
Court has cited Abood favorably many times, and has affirmed
and applied its central distinction between the costs of collective
bargaining (which the government can charge to all employees) and
those of political activities (which it cannot). See, e.g.,
Locke v. Karass , 555 U. S. 207, 213–214 (2009); Lehnert , 500 U. S., at 519; Teachers v. Hudson , 475 U. S. 292, 301–302 (1986); Ellis v. Railway Clerks , 466 U. S. 435, 455–457 (1984).
Reviewing those decisions not a decade ago, this
Court—unanimously—called the Abood rule “a general First
Amendment principle.” Locke , 555 U. S., at 213. And
indeed, the Court has relied on that rule when deciding cases
involving compelled speech subsidies outside the labor sphere—cases
today’s decision does not question. See, e.g., Keller v. State Bar of Cal. , 496 U. S. 1, 9–17 (1990) (state bar
fees); Board of Regents of Univ. of Wis. System v. Southworth , 529 U. S. 217, 230–232 (2000) (public
university student fees); Glickman v. Wileman Brothers
& Elliott, Inc. , 521 U. S. 457, 471–473 (1997)
(commercial advertising assessments); see also n. 3, supra .

															Ignoring our repeated validation of Abood , the majority claims it has become “an outlier among
our First Amendment cases.” Ante, at 42. That claim fails
most spectacularly for reasons already discussed: Abood coheres with the Pickering approach to reviewing regulation
of public employees’ speech. See supra, at 11–13. Needing to
stretch further, the majority suggests that Abood conflicts
with “our political patronage decisions.” Ante, at 44. But
in fact those decisions strike a balance much like Abood ’s.
On the one hand, the Court has enabled governments to compel
policymakers to support a political party, because that requirement
(like fees for collective bargaining) can reasonably be thought to
advance the interest in workplace effectiveness. See Elrod v. Burns , 427 U. S. 347, 366–367 (1976); Branti v. Finkel , 445 U. S. 507, 517 (1980). On the other
hand, the Court has barred governments from extending that rule to
non-policymaking employees because that application (like fees for
political campaigns) can’t be thought to promote that interest, see Elrod, 427 U. S., at 366; the government is instead
trying to “leverage the employment relationship” to achieve other
goals, Garcetti , 547 U. S., at 419. So all that the
majority has left is Knox and Harris . See ante, at 43. Dicta in those recent decisions indeed began
the assault on Abood that has culminated today. But neither
actually addressed the extent to which a public employer may
regulate its own employees’ speech. Relying on them is
bootstrapping—and mocking stare decisis . Don’t like a
decision? Just throw some gratuitous criticisms into a couple of
opinions and a few years later point to them as “special
justifications.”

															The majority is likewise wrong to invoke
“workability” as a reason for overruling Abood . Ante, at 38. Does Abood require drawing a line? Yes, between a
union’s collective-bargaining activities and its political
activities. Is that line perfectly and pristinely “precis[e],” as
the majority demands? Ante, at 38. Well, not quite that—but
as exercises of constitutional linedrawing go, Abood stands
well above average. In the 40 years since Abood , this Court
has had to resolve only a handful of cases raising questions about
the distinction. To my knowledge, the circuit courts are not
divided on any classification issue; neither are they issuing
distress signals of the kind that sometimes prompt the Court to
reverse a decision. See, e.g., Johnson v. United
States, 576 U. S. ___ (2015) (overruling precedent because
of frequent splits and mass confusion). And that tranquility is
unsurprising: There may be some gray areas (there always are), but
in the mine run of cases, everyone knows the difference between
politicking and collective bargaining. The majority cites some
disagreement in two of the classification cases this Court
decided—as if non-unanimity among Justices were something
startling. And it notes that a dissenter in one of those cases
called the Court’s approach “malleable” and “not principled,” ante, at 39—as though those weren’t stock terms in
dissenting vocabulary. See, e.g., Murr v. Wisconsin ,
582 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) (Roberts, C. J., dissenting)
(slip op., at 2); Dietz v. Bouldin , 579 U. S.
___, ___ (2016) (Thomas, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 1); Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama , 575
U. S. ___, ___ (2015) (slip op., at 13) (Scalia, J.,
dissenting). As I wrote in Harris a few Terms ago: “If the
kind of hand-wringing about blurry lines that the majority offers
were enough to justify breaking with precedent, we might have to
discard whole volumes of the U. S. Reports.” 573 U. S.,
at ___ (slip op., at 15).

															And in any event, one stare decisis factor—reliance—dominates all others here and demands keeping Abood . Stare decisis , this Court has held, “has added
force when the legislature, in the public sphere, and citizens, in
the private realm, have acted in reliance on a previous decision.” Hilton v. South Carolina Public Railways Comm’n , 502
U. S. 197, 202 (1991). That is because overruling a decision
would then “require an extensive legislative response” or “dislodge
settled rights and expectations.” Ibid. Both will happen
here: The Court today wreaks havoc on entrenched legislative and
contractual arrangements.

															Over 20 States have by now enacted statutes
authorizing fair-share provisions. To be precise, 22 States, the
District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico—plus another two States for
police and firefighter unions. Many of those States have multiple
statutory provisions, with variations for different categories of
public employees. See, e.g., Brief for State of California
as Amicus Curiae 24–25. Every one of them will now need to
come up with new ways—elaborated in new statutes—to structure
relations between government employers and their workers. The
majority responds, in a footnote no less, that this is of no proper
concern to the Court. See ante, at 47, n. 27. But in fact,
we have weighed heavily against “abandon[ing] our settled
jurisprudence” that “[s]tate legislatures have relied upon” it and
would have to “reexamine [and amend] their statutes” if it were
overruled. Allied-Signal, Inc. v. Director, Div. of
Taxation , 504 U. S. 768, 785 (1992); Hilton , 502
U. S., at 203.

															Still more, thousands of current contracts
covering millions of workers provide for agency fees. Usually, this
Court recognizes that “[c]onsiderations in favor of stare
decisis are at their acme in cases involving property and
contract rights.” Payne , 501 U. S., at 828. Not today.
The majority undoes bargains reached all over the country.[ 5 ] It prevents the parties from
fulfilling other commitments they have made based on those
agreements. It forces the parties—immediately—to renegotiate
once-settled terms and create new tradeoffs. It does so knowing
that many of the parties will have to revise (or redo) multiple
contracts simultaneously. (New York City, for example, has agreed
to agency fees in 144 contracts with 97 public-sector unions. See
Brief for New York City Municipal Labor Committee as Amicus
Curiae 4.) It does so knowing that those renegotiations will
occur in an environment of legal uncertainty, as state governments
scramble to enact new labor legislation. See supra, at 23.
It does so with no real clue of what will happen next—of how its
action will alter public-sector labor relations. It does so even
though the government services affected—policing, firefighting,
teaching, transportation, sanitation (and more)—affect the quality
of life of tens of millions of Americans.

															The majority asserts that no one should care
much because the canceled agreements are “of rather short duration”
and would “expire on their own in a few years’ time.” Ante, at 45, 46. But to begin with, that response ignores the substantial
time and effort that state legislatures will have to devote to
revamping their statutory schemes. See supra, at 23. And
anyway, it misunderstands the nature of contract negotiations when
the parties have a continuing relationship. The parties, in
renewing an old collective-bargaining agreement, don’t start on an
empty page. Instead, various “long-settled” terms—like fair-share
provisions—are taken as a given. Brief for Governor Tom Wolf
et al. 11; see Brief for New York City Sergeants Benevolent
Assn. as Amicus Curiae 18. So the majority’s ruling does
more than advance by a few years a future renegotiation (though
even that would be significant). In most cases, it commands new
bargaining over how to replace a term that the parties never
expected to change. And not just new bargaining; given the
interests at stake, complicated and possibly contentious bargaining
as well. See Brief for Governor Tom Wolf et al. 11.[ 6 ]

															The majority, though, offers another reason for
not worrying about reliance: The parties, it says, “have been on
notice for years regarding this Court’s misgivings about Abood. ” Ante, at 45. Here, the majority proudly lays
claim to its 6-year crusade to ban agency fees. In Knox , the
majority relates, it described Abood as an “anomaly.” Ante, at 45 (quoting 567 U. S., at 311). Then, in Harris , it “cataloged Abood ’s many weaknesses.” Ante, at 45. Finally, in Friedrichs , “we granted a
petition for certiorari asking us to” reverse Abood , but
found ourselves equally divided. Ante, at 45. “During this
period of time,” the majority concludes, public-sector unions “must
have understood that the constitutionality of [an agency-fee]
provision was uncertain.” Ibid . And so, says the majority,
they should have structured their affairs accordingly.

															But that argument reflects a radically wrong
understanding of how stare decisis operates. Justice Scalia
once confronted a similar argument for “disregard[ing] reliance
interests” and showed how antithetical it was to rule-of-law
principles. Quill Corp. v. North Dakota , 504
U. S. 298, 320 (1992) (concurring opinion). He noted first
what we always tell lower courts: “If a precedent of this Court has
direct application in a case, yet appears to rest on reasons
rejected in some other line of decisions, [they] should follow the
case which directly controls, leaving to this Court the prerogative
of overruling its own decisions.” Id., at 321 (quoting Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/ American Express,
Inc. , 490 U. S. 477, 484 (1989); some alterations
omitted). That instruction, Justice Scalia explained, was
“incompatible” with an expectation that “private parties anticipate
our overrulings.” 406 U. S., at 320. He concluded: “[R]eliance
upon a square, unabandoned holding of the Supreme Court is always justifiable reliance.” Ibid. Abood ’s holding
was square. It was unabandoned before today. It was, in other
words, the law—however much some were working overtime to make it
not. Parties, both unions and governments, were thus justified in
relying on it. And they did rely, to an extent rare among our
decisions. To dismiss the overthrowing of their settled
expectations as entailing no more than some “adjustments” and
“unpleasant transition costs,” ante, at 47, is to trivialize stare decisis. IV

															There is no sugarcoating today’s opinion. The
majority overthrows a decision entrenched in this Nation’s law—and
in its economic life—for over 40 years. As a result, it prevents
the American people, acting through their state and local
officials, from making important choices about workplace
governance. And it does so by weaponizing the First Amendment, in a
way that unleashes judges, now and in the future, to intervene in
economic and regulatory policy.

															Departures from stare decisis are
supposed to be “exceptional action[s]” demanding “special
justification,” Rumsey , 467 U. S., at 212—but the
majority offers nothing like that here. In contrast to the vigor of
its attack on Abood , the majority’s discussion of stare
decisis barely limps to the finish line. And no wonder: The
standard factors this Court considers when deciding to overrule a
decision all cut one way. Abood ’s legal underpinnings have
not eroded over time: Abood is now, as it was when issued,
consistent with this Court’s First Amendment law. Abood provided a workable standard for courts to apply. And Abood has generated enormous reliance interests. The majority has
overruled Abood for no exceptional or special reason, but
because it never liked the decision. It has overruled Abood because it wanted to.

															Because, that is, it wanted to pick the winning
side in what should be—and until now, has been—an energetic policy
debate. Some state and local governments (and the constituents they
serve) think that stable unions promote healthy labor relations and
thereby improve the provision of services to the public. Other
state and local governments (and their constituents) think, to the
contrary, that strong unions impose excessive costs and impair
those services. Americans have debated the pros and cons for many
decades—in large part, by deciding whether to use fair-share
arrangements. Yesterday, 22 States were on one side, 28 on the
other (ignoring a couple of in-betweeners). Today, that
healthy—that democratic—debate ends. The majority has adjudged who
should prevail. Indeed, the majority is bursting with pride over
what it has accomplished: Now those 22 States, it crows, “can
follow the model of the federal government and 28 other States.” Ante, at 47, n. 27.

															And maybe most alarming, the majority has chosen
the winners by turning the First Amendment into a sword, and using
it against workaday economic and regulatory policy. Today is not
the first time the Court has wielded the First Amendment in such an
aggressive way. See, e.g., National Institute of Family and Life
Advocates v. Becerra , ante, p. ___ (invalidating
a law requiring medical and counseling facilities to provide
relevant information to users); Sorrell v. IMS Health
Inc., 564 U. S. 552 (2011) (striking down a law that
restricted pharmacies from selling various data). And it threatens
not to be the last. Speech is everywhere—a part of every human
activity (employment, health care, securities trading, you name
it). For that reason, almost all economic and regulatory policy
affects or touches speech. So the majority’s road runs long. And at
every stop are black-robed rulers overriding citizens’ choices. The
First Amendment was meant for better things. It was meant not to
undermine but to protect democratic governance—including over the
role of public-sector unions. Notes 1 The majority relies on
statistics from the federal workforce (where agency fees are
unlawful) to suggest that public employees do not act in accord
with economic logic. See ante, at 12. But first, many fewer
federal employees pay dues than have voted for a union to represent
them, indicating that free-riding in fact pervades the federal
sector. See, e.g., R. Kearney & P. Mareschal, Labor
Relations in the Public Sector 26 (5th ed. 2014). And second, that
sector is not typical of other public workforces. Bargaining in the
federal sphere is limited; most notably, it does not extend to
wages and benefits. See Fort Stewart Schools v. FLRA ,
495 U. S. 641, 649 (1990). That means union operating expenses
are lower than they are elsewhere. And the gap further widens
because the federal sector uses large, often national, bargaining
units that provide unions with economies of scale. See Brief for
International Brotherhood of Teamsters as Amicus Curiae 7.
For those reasons, the federal workforce is the wrong place to look
for meaningful empirical evidence on the issues here. 2 For those reasons, it is
not surprising that the “categorization schemes” in Abood and Pickering are not precisely coterminous. Ante, at
25. The two cases are fraternal rather than identical twins—both
standing for the proposition that the government receives great
deference when it regulates speech as an employer rather than as a
sovereign. See infra this page and 12–13. 3 That’s why this Court has
blessed the constitutionality of compelled speech subsidies in a
variety of cases beyond Abood , involving a variety of
contexts beyond labor relations. The list includes mandatory fees
imposed on state bar members (for professional expression);
university students (for campus events); and fruit processors (for
generic advertising). See Keller v. State Bar of
Cal. , 496 U. S. 1, 14 (1990); Board of Regents of Univ.
of Wis. System v. Southworth , 529 U. S. 217, 233
(2000); Glickman v. Wileman Brothers & Elliott,
Inc. , 521 U. S. 457, 474 (1997); see also infra , at
20. 4 And then, after
ostensibly turning to stare decisis , the majority spends
another four pages insisting that Abood was “not well
reasoned,” which is just more of the same. Ante, at 38; see ante, at 35–38. 5 Indeed, some agency-fee
provisions, if canceled, could bring down entire contracts because
they lack severability clauses. See ante, at 46 (noting that
unions could have negotiated for that result); Brief for Governor
Tom Wolf et al. as Amici Curiae 11. 6 In a single, cryptic
sentence, the majority also claims that arguments about reliance
“based on [ Abood ’s] clarity are misplaced” because Abood did not provide a “clear or easily applicable
standard” to separate fees for collective bargaining from those for
political activities. Ante, at 45. But to begin, the
standard for separating those activities was clear and workable, as
I have already shown. See supra, at 21–22. And in any event,
the reliance Abood engendered was based not on the clarity
of that line, but on the clarity of its holding that governments
and unions could generally agree to fair-share
arrangements.

Summary: The Supreme Court ruled that Illinois law, which forced public employees to subsidize a union even if they were not members, violated the free speech rights of non-members. The Court overruled a previous decision, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, which allowed similar laws. The Court found that fundamental free speech rights were at stake and that Abood was poorly reasoned, leading to practical problems and abuse. The Court also noted that Abood was inconsistent with other First Amendment cases and had been undermined by more recent decisions.