Editorial:
It was a tumultuous week starting with two significant Supreme Court decisions, Superintendent Brand of Sweetwater High School District begin released from his job, and of course the loss by both the United States and Mexico in the World Cup!
This week marked the final week of the Supreme Court’s session before their summer break. During the week, the Court made two rulings: the Hobby Lobby ruling and the Harris v. Quinn ruling. The conservative-majority Court’s decision on these two cases were both conservative in nature.
A couple of years ago the Supreme Court ruled that corporations had the same rights as people do when it comes to free speech. The Court declared that corporations’ rights to free speech were being denied when campaign contributions to Political Action Committees were limited.
The idea that corporations have the same rights as people was further applied in the Hobby Lobby ruling. The Hobby Lobby case was about a corporation not paying for contraceptive-related coverage under Obamacare, based on the religious beliefs of the owners. This marks the first time that the Supreme Court has allowed companies the ability to declare a religious belief.
This is a blow to woman’s rights, where their personal healthcare choices can now be limited, based on another’s rights.
The second Supreme case ruled on this past week was the Harris v Quinn case. The court ruled that requiring home health care workers in Illinois to pay union dues violated the workers’ First Amendment rights.
In essence the court stated that home health care workers, while paid by the State via Medicaid dollars, were hired as “personal assistants” by a family, and as such were exempt from being forced to pay union dues. At the heart of the argument was that some home-care workers disagreed with the political action of the union. Although those workers had the right to opt out of payments going toward politics, the court found that requiring those union workers to pay any dues at all violated their Free Speech.
In 2013, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich had unionized the home-care workers via executive order, thus forcing all workers to pay union dues. Prior to this the workers had the option of joining the union, and if a worker did not join they still enjoyed the benefits of the union, including pay raises and health benefits.
The Supreme Court could have made a broad stroke with this ruling by simply stating all public unions could not request “fair-share fees” or “agency fees”, but instead limited the scope of the ruling to exempt a new category of worker, the “partial public employee.” Because these workers are paid by the government but hired, fired, and managed by individual clients they are neither fully of the public sphere, nor fully of the private, but are now considered a new, unprotected, class of workers.
Though limited in scope this ruling will have long term ramifications for unions moving forward.
On June 30 Sweetwater Union High School District Board terminated the contract of Ed Brand. He will be paid his full contract until October 1, but as of July 3 he is out of office. This is the final clean sweep for a school district that has been topsy-turvy for several years now. Dr. Brand had led the parade with several questionable deals such as his on-campus association with a private college.
What can you say about the World Cup, so far, as it continues down the road to a champion?
Both the United States and Mexico national teams made it to the round of 16, the 16 best teams in the world, only to get bounced out yet again.
The United States played admirably in the round-robin round, finishing second to the German team and moving on to the next round.
In the round of 16, U.S. fans were shown the difference between an excellent team, Belgium, and an up-an-coming team like the United States. The Belgians clearly outplayed the U.S. team, but the United States played with heart and gumption and goalie Tim Howard was extraordinary. It was exciting to the very end. We will do better the next time around.
For the Mexican team it was a different story. Mexico outplayed the Netherlands for close to 90 minutes giving up the tying goal in the 89th minute and the winning goal in extra time.
The winning goal came on a questionable penalty in the box that afforded the Netherlands to take the shot on goal. It was a heartbreaking defeat for the Mexican team and their fans. The game should have gone to overtime with the players deciding the outcome without unwarranted referee interference. Que lastima!