Washington, DC – Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a member of the Senator Judiciary Committee, released the following statement on the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME today:
“We appear to have reached a point where litigants appearing before the Supreme Court in certain matters can anticipate victory or defeat because of the identity of the parties, not the merits of the case. The solicitation of this case by one of the right-wing Justices, the special-interest-funded ‘faux litigation’ that brought it to the Court, and the special-interest-funded ‘amici’ who clamored for this result, all make the integrity of the Court look even worse. The predictability of these 5-4 partisan decisions by the Republican majority, and the alignment of the outcomes with the interests of the Republican donors, is a cancer on the credibility of the Court. Celebratory tweets by Republican political leaders embracing members of the Court provide a telling symbol of this breakdown.”
Whitehouse and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court in Janus. They argued that unions’ authority to require fees from those who benefit from union-negotiated benefits is well established in Supreme Court precedent. They also highlighted the array of powerful, sophisticated, and highly partisan interests attempting to achieve their goals through the courts. Read the senators’ brief here.
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