If most Americans were told they were required to contribute to a political organization to keep their job they would be astonished and probably outraged.  Yet for more than 40 years that has been the law for public employees in 22 states and several territories.  That requirement ended when the Supreme Court issued its 5-4 decision in Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees on June 27. Janus was one of the most watched decisions of the Supreme Court term although the result had been foreshadowed for at least a decade.

The plaintiff, Mark Janus, a public employee in Illinois, argued that agency fees, which unions charge nonmembers, ostensibly for representing them in collective bargaining, essentially forced him to support the union’s political advocacy.  He said such a compulsion violated his First Amendment rights.  The Supreme Court agreed and reversed its earlier decision in Abood v.  Detroit Board of Education.

Decided in 1977 when public employee unions were relatively new, the Abood decision, citing no actual evidence and relying on an untested assumption, justified forcing nonmember employees to subsidize objectionable political activity with a two-pronged rationale.  First, the court surmised exclusive representation and agency fees must rise...