Wisconsin Education Association Council v. Walker

After Scott Walker, a Republican, was elected its governor, Wisconsin enacted Act 10, which overhauled the rights of public-sector unions. The act created two classes of public-sector employees: public-safety employees, which included many of the state’s law-enforcement workers, and general employees, which comprised all other public employees. Employees of every union that endorsed Walker in the gubernatorial race were categorized as public-safety employees. Some categories of law-enforcement employees, such as corrections officers, whose unions did not endorse Walker, were included as general employees. Prior to the act, all public-sector unions enjoyed collective-bargaining rights and were authorized to deduct union dues directly from employees’ paychecks. Act 10 left those powers intact for public-safety employees but substantially curtailed them for general employees. General employees could now collectively bargain only for base wages and could not have union dues collected through the state payroll system. While Act 10 was working its way through the state legislature, the Senate majority leader, also a Republican, promoted the act during public debate by arguing that a benefit of its passage would be to limit public-sector unions’ abilities to campaign for Barack Obama, thus making it harder for Obama to win Wisconsin in the presidential election. A coalition of some of the largest public unions in the state (plaintiffs), all of whose members were classified as general employees under the act, sued the state (defendant) in district court, seeking a judgment striking down the act as unconstitutional. Among the coalition’s claims was that the disparate treatment of payroll deductions among the two categories of employees violated the First Amendment. On this claim, the district court ruled in favor of the unions, and the state appealed.