Bad News For Union Thugs

Well, this is good news:

In a unanimous ruling on Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court said labor unions may not spend union dues for political purposes without first getting consent from the people who paid those dues.

Anyone who has read much of my writing knows what I think of labor unions. They're not good for anything but keeping bad employees employed, in my experience.

JASmius adds: And that's just the first of a whole rafter of constitutionalist decisions coming down the pike this term. Or so writes SCOTUSblog's Tom Goldstein:

The consensus is that the Chief Justice is writing an opinion invalidating the school assignment programs. The federal campaign finance law at issue in Wisconsin Right to Life is likely to be struck down on the same voting alignment.

That would truly be an extraordinary Term, but I get the sense that there may still be more. The fact that Justices Ginsburg and Stevens dissented from the bench in three cases – twice in late May and early June after all the votes had been cast – strongly suggests an exceptionally high level of frustration on the left. (Neither does such a thing lightly.) It seems entirely possible that the remaining cases involving, for example, challenges to public funding of programs with religious components (Hein), search and seizure (Brendlin), and the environment (Defenders of Wildlife) all will be decided five to four, with Justice Kennedy siding with the conservatives.

If that happens - and I think it is likely that it (or something close to it) will - the President will have gotten with his appointments precisely the Court he sought and that liberals feared.

We can already count on conservative rulings on race, abortion, campaign finance, and the death penalty, and may be able to add to that religion, the Fourth Amendment, and the environment. It would be a memorable Term indeed.

Who woulda thunk that Justice Kennedy would swing back in the right direction? Guess all he needed was to have the bad influence of Sandra Day O'Connor removed.

As President Bush buries his own presidency and sends his party up in flames with this insane open borders-ism, let us count our blessings that he managed to move Olympus constitution-ward first. Because there isn't going to be another such chance for a loooooong time to come.

[h/t: Double H]