Ban on union political deductions undone

BOISE – A federal appeals court on Friday ruled unconstitutional an Idaho law that forbids payroll deductions by teachers, firefighters and other local government employees to pay for political activities by their unions.

The law was passed in 2003 by the Legislature over the objection of the Idaho Education Association teachers union, which called it a mean-spirited attempt to silence labor organizations. The IEA sued, prompting a federal judge to issue an injunction almost immediately against enforcing the law.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in San Francisco affirmed a ruling by U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill that the 2003 law violates First Amendment protections of free speech. It hampers the ability of teachers and their unions to conduct First Amendment-protected political activities by making it tougher to collect money to do so, the judges agreed.

“The unique nature of the state’s intervention therefore strongly suggests that the state’s purpose here is exactly that against which the First Amendment protects – the denial of payroll deductions for the purpose of stifling political speech,” wrote Judge A. Wallace Tashima.

A similar law in Utah has also been struck down.

Gayle Moore, an IEA spokeswoman, said Republican leaders in 2003 in the state House and Senate drafted the legislation in hopes of trimming the teachers union’s power – a year after some 5,000 teachers rallied on the steps of the Idaho Capitol building to call for more education funding.

“What the ruling says is, there are constitutional limitations of the ability of a Legislature to go after specific groups or organizations and curtail their ability to be a full participant in the political process,” said John Rumel, IEA general counsel.

When it passed, backers of the law. including former Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, current House Speaker Lawerence Denney, R-Midvale, and Senate President Pro Tem Bob Geddes, R-Soda Springs, said the ban on political payroll deductions would actually empower those teachers who wanted to become active in their labor groups by sending separate political contributions.

Neither Denney nor Geddes returned phone calls Friday seeking comment. But Olympia-based Evergreen Freedom Foundation, which has been fighting the Washington Education Association’s political funding and had filed a court brief supporting Idaho’s law, said it was disappointed.

“If unions want to engage in political activity they should collect contributions from individual donors just like any other political candidate or entity,” said Michael Reitz, a spokesman.

The appeals court disagreed, ruling that banning payroll deductions would have the effect of trimming funding – resulting in an unconstitutional free-speech burden on public-sector unions that represent teachers and also firefighters.

“The law does not prohibit plaintiffs from participating in political activities, but it hampers their ability to do so by making the collection of funds for that purpose more difficult,” Tashima wrote. “The district court found that unions face substantial difficulties in collecting funds for political speech without using payroll deductions because of their members’ concerns over identity theft associated with other electronic transactions, as well as the time-consuming nature of face-to-face solicitation.”