Clinton Email Scandal Update

Today, we're recommending a new article on the Clinton email scandal. And given that that's our subject for the day, I almost feel compelled to begin this post with an apology. I know this issue has been in the news for what seems like forever. And, just as important, all the wrong people are talking about it. If Fox News and Congressional Republicans are both trying to make a big deal out of something, how important could it really be?* Is this just Benghazi 2.0?

I understand that sentiment entirely. But this is one of those rare cases where political opportunism happens to align with reality. The Clinton email scandal actually does matter. But it's not because it might tell us how she failed to micromanage security in Benghazi or whether it might reveal a previously undisclosed sense of humor. It matters because we now know, from the State Department itself, that she broke the law.

Near the end of January, the State Department requested an extension to delay releasing the final emails on account of snow storms on the East Coast. The goal was to delay the release to the end of February, coincidentally after many states in the Democratic Primary had already voted. Since this move was so obviously political, it seemed like kind of an odd move--an act of desperation.

Thankfully, the extension request was denied, and we learned that the State Department had saved the best for last. The State Department declared that it had to withhold some of these emails because they actually did contain confidential or top-secret information.

This is important because the US has zealously prosecuted cases involving the mishandling of classified materials. This was true in whistle-blowing cases like those of Private Manning (who got 35 years) or the lesser known Thomas Drake (who had his career ruined). But it's also been true of people who just downloaded files on to personal devices, for convenience, with no intent to distribute them. There was also the case of the Navy sailor who took pictures of classified areas on his submarine with a cell phone camera and now faces up to 10 years in prison.

Now the point here is not to defend the often harsh treatment meted out to the others. I don't think justice was served by sentencing Manning to 35 years, and I don't think it would be served if Hillary Clinton was assigned to the cell next door. But it now seems pretty explicit that she broke the law. And if the laws are going to be applied to ordinary people, they need to be applied to powerful people as well.

That's the reason the Clinton email server really matters. It's another test of whether America has the rule of law when it comes to the politically connected. And after the failure to prosecute anyone powerful for the torture program and the spate of police brutality cases that have gone unprosecuted, the rule of law could really use a win.

For more on the ins and outs of this story, check out the following write-ups from Judge Andrew Napolitano at Reason.com. He's more optimistic than I am about the prospect of an actual prosecution, but he does an excellent job laying out the relevant legal considerations.

https://reason.com/archives/2016/01/14/two-smoking-guns

https://reason.com/archives/2016/02/04/sources-methods-and-lives

*To be fair, I would also apply this general rule to the other side of the aisle as well. That is, if MSNBC and President Obama are both deeply focused on a cause, chances are it's not very worthwhile.

Towards a Peaceful Narrative in the War on ISIS

In modern politics, virtually every issue appears in a binary contrast. You are either for something or against it, yea or nay, up or down. This is a natural feature of a two-party system. To be sure, there are generally more than two relevant positions on each issue, but two narratives tend to dominate the discussion. We see this on all sorts of topics from gun control to abortion to gay marriage. Conservatives / Republicans tend to believe in one thing; liberals / Democrats tend to believe in the dominant alternative. Of course, all of the above issues actually have a considerable degree of nuance--if you support abortion, to what point in the cycle do you support it? Till the fetus leaves the womb, or some prior point? If you support gun control, does that mean you want Australian-style gun confiscation or just a modest expansion of background checks. You get my point.

Yet in spite of this nuance and lack of clear definitions, people still typically identify with the specific issue label, one broad set of positions or the other. That means labels and bumper-sticker narratives, however imprecise, really do matter.

Another interesting fact about our binary politics is that both issues are almost invariably framed in positive terms. On abortion, the debate is cast as pro-life vs. pro-choice; these are the labels the two camps have chosen for themselves, and they have stuck. For obvious reasons, calling yourself either anti-life or anti-choice would surely prove to be a disastrous PR decision. We see this on guns as well. People support either pro-gun control or pro-Second Amendment rights. The anti-Constitution and pro-gun chaos folks are nowhere to be found.

However, when it comes to issues of war and peace, this well-established trend of positive political messaging partially breaks down. The camp that supports war has adopted appropriately vague euphemisms. Virtually no one is "pro-war" as such but a great many are "strong on national security," "tough on terror," or else believe that America has a "responsibility to protect." But on the other side, we just find the antiwar movement--ever debunking justifications for intervention, accurately predicting disasters before everyone else, and yet somehow, still marginalized.

The problem is not the antiwar label. Given the alternatives--peace (hippies, Woodstock, etc.) or noninterventionism (7 syllables? Are you kidding me?)--I think antiwar is probably pretty solid. But it may be a problem that the antiwar movement is seen as advocating against war but for nothing. On this and many other issues, doing nothing is probably the best policy, but it's not an inspiring narrative.

Thus, the two narratives that dominate in the debate over Syria and Iraq is whether we need to bomb the whole region aggressively or just continue to gradually expand the war as Obama has done. Obviously, both narratives are decidedly pro-war. And while it is easy to rebut the arguments in favor of each, a negative narrative is not enough.

Enter, a great new piece at Antiwar.com by author Ira Chernus, which is aimed to change the dominant narratives. Just as the proponents of other causes have an affirmative story that explains their position, so the antiwar movement needs to tell a better story about the conflict in the Middle East.  In particular, Chernus argues that broad conflicts raging in the Middle East are part of a broad civil war in the Muslim world. There are bad guys and competing interests all around, and there's no compelling reason for the US to try to pick a winner. We have tried that many times before after all, and it never goes well.

Regardless of whether you agree on the particulars mentioned in the article, Chernus is certainly right that we need to tell a better story to effectively oppose war. And this article is a great first step.

The Peace Movement's War Story

One Subject at a Time Act Introduced in Congress

It's not often that we get to talk about good news happening in the US Congress, but today is one of those days. Recently, Congresswoman Mia Love (R-Utah) introduced the One Subject at a Time Act in the House. As the name implies, this legislation would require Congress to consider and vote on legislation that relates only to a single policy proposal and end the practice of bundling many unrelated ideas into a single bill. This is a big deal, and even though it was only introduced a few weeks ago, it already has 11 co-sponsors.

The two key provisions of this bill are as follows:

• Requires bills to be confined exclusively to one topic
• Requires bills to have an accurate and descriptive title, just like the One Subject at a Time Act itself.

On the surface, these may seem like pretty small changes, but the likely impact is considerable. Here, we'll discuss a few of the likely benefits.

Bundling and Accountability

As alluded to in the introduction, Congress has a habit of bundling many unlike ideas into a single all-encompassing vote. Partly, this is probably done for efficiency, given the procedural steps involved in introducing legislation. But the other key reason is that it allows Congresspeople to pass things into law that no one would vote for on its own. This is done by attaching unpopular legislation to things that people are afraid to oppose politically, like a vote on military spending or a vote to prevent a government shutdown.

There are many examples of this, but one recent horrible example was the attachment of a cybersecurity bill to the overall budget bill. The cybersecurity bill, known as CISA, sparked a public outcry when Congress tried to pass it in isolation in 2014. The bill was unpopular because it paves the way for further surveillance and data collection from ordinary Americans, and it failed due to the public opinion revolt against it. But then in late 2015, essentially the same legislation was appended to the must-pass $1.1 trillion budget deal, and it passed. Of course, no one is under any illusion that CISA had anything substantive to do with the budget; this was just the only way to get it passed into law.

The One Subject at a Time Act would make things like this illegal. Each bill would stand or fall on its own merits. Just as important, members of Congress would no longer able to explain away support for bad policy because it was attached to something decent. The vote on CISA and the budget would be separate. So if anyone voted for CISA, they would have to justify that directly instead of using the need to pass the budget as an excuse.

This is important when it comes to bad policies like CISA, but it might be even more important when it comes to so-called pork-spending. This refers to the practice where federal budgets contain specific provisions to spend money on certain districts or special interests. A large budget with special handouts for everyone's niche group might be able to pass, but it's unlikely someone could justify them in isolation. It's tough to know exactly what this would look like in practice, but it could play a major role in reducing this kind of waste.

Transparency

It's a well-known trend that the bills with the most innocent titles tend to contain the worst policies. Indeed frequently, the effect and the title of legislation are polar opposites. For instance, the recent USA Freedom Act codified government surveillance powers, thereby abridging freedom. The Bank Secrecy Act required banks to report more information to the government (thus making banking transactions less secretive or confidential). And the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act (also known as Sarbanes-Oxley) almost certainly made investors more vulnerable by forcing auditors to pay attention to things that do not matter.*

Under the One Subject at a Time Act, things like the above would not be permissible. The general public would not be deluded into thinking the USA Freedom Act had anything to do with freedom, and Congresspeople hopefully wouldn't have to explain that their opposition to the Patriot Act didn't mean they hated America.

Easy to Sell

One of the best things about this legislation is that it is very difficult to make a legitimate argument against it. What Congressperson is going to legitimately tell their constituents they advocate for a convoluted process where 1,000 page bills get passed with no one reading them? Similarly, what argument could you publicly give in support of having misleading titles? Obviously, these are rhetorical questions. And that's the genius of this type of procedural legislation. There are many ulterior motives one might have for opposing this kind of reform, but they're all but impossible to defend. That means it has a real chance of passing because opposing it would be very difficult politically for members of either party.

This particular legislation was authored by DownsizeDC.org, which also advocates for a few other smart procedural reforms. So far as I can tell, they're basically masters of crafting nonpartisan legislation that would be both impactful and very difficult to argue against. Their political philosophy is libertarian in nature, but their legislative agenda definitely has something for everyone (antiwar, anti-drug war, anti-Fed, pro-immigration, pro-Internet privacy, etc.). I'd encourage you to check them out.

We'll keep an eye on this legislation, and let you know when there are any major developments. But for now, it's nice to know that at least some members of Congress are trying to make constructive changes.

*In case anyone is curious about the details, basically Sarbanes-Oxley meant that public accountants had to pay more attention to company's internal accounting processes and thus less attention to the financial statements themselves. Effectively, the bill made auditors rely on the company's own due diligence to catch mistakes and less on third-party evidence. It was great for the accounting industry because it meant a lot more audit fees, but in my experience as a former auditor, it made audits less reliable for investors.

The Senate Nears Vote on Open-ended War Authorization

While most of the US is focused on the early primaries and caucuses, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been quietly working to introduce an open-ended war authorization bill. The proposed war-making powers would be essentially unlimited, with no restrictions on where war can be waged, how long it can be waged, or whether ground troops can be used. In other words, the same Republicans that occasionally criticize Obama's excessive use of Executive Power, are trying to give him complete discretion on the most important issue of all: war.

Of course, it's not like the absence of any authorization for the war against ISIS has had much effect on President Obama's actions thus far. To name just a few examples, we have ground troops in Iraq already, special forces in Syria, and some special forces in Libya, with open talk of a larger escalation coming soon. We also regularly conduct airstrikes in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and conduct drone assassinations in other countries. And most of this, particularly the strikes in Iraq and Syria, is being without any plausible legal justification, as commentators on both sides of the political spectrum acknowledge.

All of this points to the convoluted nature of partisan politics on foreign policy. Like any other issue, the Republican opposition will always try their best to criticize a Democratic president on foreign policy. Prior to 9/11, that often (though not exclusively) meant complaining about efforts to nation-build or police the world. Indeed, even that well-known peacenik George W. Bush, initially campaigned on a "humble foreign policy" back in 2000. But after 9/11 and the Iraq invasion of 2003, the dynamic was flipped. Suddenly, the Republicans hadn't met a war they didn't like, and it was left to the Democrats to be the opposing antiwar voice. As mentioned in yesterday's post, President Obama's campaign was successful in large part because he was the relatively antiwar candidate in the Democratic primary, and again in the general election against Senator McCain.

But President Obama disrupted the partisan status quo once more on foreign policy. Despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize early in his first term, his Presidency has been anything but peaceful. Indeed, he even openly bragged about using military force in seven different countries. This naturally left the hawkish Republicans in a tough predicament. On the one hand, they needed to find a way to criticize President Obama, and the obvious option would have been to show how counterproductive Obama's military interventions have been. Remember when we won the War on Terror by drone striking civilians, everyone? Nope, me neither. But on the other hand, Republicans had made supporting war an essential part of their brand. Given the choice between rebranding the Republican Party as the party of peace and shameless nationalistic fear-mongering, most politicians in the GOP unfortunately chose the latter.

And that's what explains the bizarre circumstances in which we find ourselves. President Obama has been waging an indisputably illegal war in Syria for over a year with barely a whimper of protest from the Republicans. And now, the leading members of the Republican Party are trying to grant him (and his successor) even more power to wage war. These days many people complain about the lack of bipartisanship in Washington DC. But when it comes to matters of war and peace, both parties have been on the same disastrous page for the last seven years: more war, less peace.

For more on the details of this new story, check out this write-up on the bill from former Congressman Ron Paul:

Congress is Writing the President a Blank Check for War

The Flint Water Crisis and Accountability

There is no question that the Flint Water Crisis is a human tragedy. The city of Flint, Michigan decided to switch its water supply from the Detroit municipal water supply to the contaminated Flint River as part of a purported desire to cut costs. The end result was that the water delivered to Flint residents became contaminated with lead, leading to a myriad of health problems.

In response to this crisis, many people are understandably demanding accountability. Most of these calls are directed at the Republican governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, and the emergency city manager he appointed. This is entirely appropriate. However, this is not primarily because Snyder's "private-sector theology" put profits over people, as the issue is commonly framed. On the contrary, it now appears that the decision to switch Flint's water supply was terrible on the basis of both financial and public safety considerations. New evidence indicates that the governor had reason to know that keeping Flint on the existing Detroit system was less expensive and had fewer risks associated with it. Apparently, Snyder's administration decided to switch Flint's water system as a kind of public infrastructure project and stimulate the Flint economy. Based on this reporting, it appears the decision on primarily political, not fiscal considerations.

But whether you believe that reporting or not, the basic facts of the case remain unchanged. The government made an awful decision that potentially jeopardized the health of Flint residents; the new water system was online as of April 2014. When residents immediately complained about the quality of the new water in May 2014, the government ignored the problem, and the mayor insisted there was nothing to worry about. In October of 2014, General Motors announced that it had switched back to the Detroit water system because the Flint River water was too corrosive to use even for industrial purposes. The government still failed to take any action to fix the water quality of the city's residents. And when other evidence emerged throughout 2015 that the water was indeed unsafe, months passed before any corrective action was finally taken, in October 2015. Ultimately, the solution was to switch Flint back to the Detroit water system, where it probably should have been all along.

It is indeed difficult to overstate the magnitude of the failure that took place here. And it occurred at many different levels of government, including the governor, the city, the EPA, and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. We should hope for accountability--that the individuals that were negligent at least lose their jobs and perhaps get prosecuted if the details of their actions warrant it.

But we probably should not get our hopes up. The government isn't good at prosecuting itself, and there's no reason to think it will be different in this case. Maybe the outrage will prove sufficient to force a recall election or a few more resignations. But it would be shocking if anything more substantial than that occurred.

Which actually brings us to what should be the most important lesson of Flint. The government is never going to be as accountable* as a private enterprise, and thus, we should want the government to do as few things as possible.

I realize this may seem counterintuitive at first. We vote for politicians that control our government, but we don't have any say in who runs local businesses. This is true, but it's not as important as you might think. Common sense tells us that accountability only works if it is timely and clearly linked to a particular action. If you reward a dog immediately after it does a trick, there's a good chance it will get the message. If you commence punishing it while it is chewing on your shoe, it is likely to understand that shoe-chewing is frowned upon. But if you give the dog a reward at the end of the week, after netting all the dog's positive actions against its negative ones, it will have no idea what is going on.

The same basic theory holds true for politics and economics as well. Voting every couple of years for a politician that controls many different things, is a little like sitting your poodle down for a weekly performance review. It doesn't work because it doesn't convey much useful information. Yes, a common language and a mass of polling data might help us determine the main reasons a particular candidate wins or loses. But even if we can successfully figure that out, it would still tell us nothing about how people feel about the other issues. For example in 2008, it is widely believed that then-Senator Obama won the Democratic Primary over Hillary Clinton because he opposed the unpopular Iraq War and she voted in favor of it. But did Democratic voters also prefer Obama's stance on healthcare, gun control, the economy, etc.? We don't really know. 

Similarly, voting for a mayor or governor is generally going to be a pretty useless way of communicating your thoughts about the city's water management practices. In most cases, other issues will take precedent. In Flint, the incumbent mayor Dayne Walling of Flint actually did get voted out in 2015 because this crisis was such a scandal. But it took a year and a half, people got poisoned in the process, and we don't know if other programs sponsored by Mayor Walling might actually have been effective.

In other words, our periodic voting system suffers from two key limitations. It's not timely at all, and it bundles many unlike things together into one all-encompassing decision. It's no stretch of the imagination to say that such a system isn't usually going to produce good outcomes.

Now, let us briefly contrast that with how it works for private enterprises. If Pepsi had a water supply problem and started selling yellow-tinted Aquafina bottled water, the feedback in the market would be swift. No one would tolerate patronizing assurances from Pepsi's management that the Aquafina water quality was perfectly fine. Customers would just stop buying the water immediately and get it from a competitor instead. Pepsi would begin losing money and would either make the corrections it needed to or else discontinue selling bottled water altogether. Either way, the customers would be able to have clean drinking water with limited interruptions throughout.

The market's feedback mechanism works more effectively because it is both timely and specific. If people stop buying Aquafina but continue buying Pepsi's other products, Pepsi will quickly know that there's some sort of problem with its bottled water. The workers and managers at Pepsi will have a clear incentive to solve the problem because they risk losing their jobs if they do not. But in government, people rarely get fired and politicians know that most elections don't hinge on water quality. The workers' only incentive to care is their own work ethic and personal integrity or compassion, all of which clearly proved insufficient to the task in the Flint case.

Of course, it's tough to know exactly what a more privatized solution to municipal water service would look like in the US setting. Would there be two or three sets of competing companies' pipes underneath every city's roads? Would there be water tanker trucks delivering water in cities where the existing provider increased rates too much? Would private companies forsake all water conservation efforts in an effort to maximize short-term profits?

We can't know the answers to those questions in the abstract. But we do know, from theory and history, that the feedback mechanisms in a competitive market are more effective at producing positive outcomes than the mechanisms in the government. Private companies have mostly satisfied customers, and governments have mostly dissatisfied constituents. There's a reason for that: one group is accountable, and the other is not.

* It's worth clarifying here that I'm not suggesting private companies never do bad things. Obviously, there are plenty of examples of that. But in general, I'm suggesting that issues that occur in a competitive private sector will be remedied more rapidly for the customer.

Iraqi Kurds Move One Step Closer to Secession

As the Republican Debate last night proved sadly uneventful, we'll be discussing a different topic today. The Iraqi Kurds have decided to hold a referendum on seceding from Iraq and becoming an independent state. Of course, it's big news any time a group is attempting to declare independence, but it's especially important in this case. If the Iraqi Kurds do in fact secede, it will have major implications for the US's undeclared war on ISIS, the stability of the Iraqi government, and several neighboring countries. But before we get there, first some context.

Background
The Kurds are a distinct ethnic group of people that reside mostly in adjacent areas of present-day northeastern Iraq, northwestern Iran, southeastern Turkey, and northeastern Syria. In case your geography is a little rusty, here's a slightly dated map that shows the region we're talking about:

At present, some of the highlighted region, especially in northern Iraq is under the control of ISIS, but it still gives you the general idea. The only Kurds that will be participating in the referendum on independence are the ones located inside Iraq. The Iraqi Kurds have had significant autonomy within Iraq for a long time, but they have also aspired for outright independence. Many of the Kurds living in the other countries also aspire to independence. Thus, there is a legitimate possibility that if the Iraqi Kurds successfully secede from Iraq, that will fuel similar secession movements in the adjacent countries in an attempt to create a united Kurdistan. In the short-run, this could potentially lead to further instability in a region that has plenty already.

Adding to these general complications is the fact that the Iraqi and Syrian Kurds are viewed as some of the most reliable allies on the ground in the fight against ISIS. Indeed, many of the high profile victories against the Islamic State have been won by the Kurds--including at Kobani in Syria and Kirkuk in Iraq. But when we use the term reliable here, it's important to note that we're using a pretty low standard. We basically mean, least likely to give their weapons to Al Qaeda or commit obvious atrocities; two things we can't say for most of the other rebel groups in Syria (or in Libya before that).

And yet, recent evidence has emerged that casts some doubt on the Kurds' reputation for being reasonable partners in the region. Specifically, a new report from Amnesty International indicates that the Iraqi Kurds have had a policy of expelling Arab residents and deliberately burning down the towns that they liberate from ISIS. This, in turn, creates more suffering in Iraq and likely increases the appeal of ISIS for people in the region. It also helps illustrate just how convoluted the broad civil war in Iraq and Syria truly is. 

Our Take
Returning to the question of secession, some US politicians anticipated this move and have called for the US to openly support Kurdish independence. Others see the "territorial integrity" of Iraq as sacrosanct and believe the US should focus on trying to restore Iraq to its initial borders.

But ultimately, the answer is that the US should do neither. Like all people, we can privately hope that the Kurds get the chance to exercise self-determination, which may mean they decide to stay in Iraq or formally secede. But given the aspirations of adjacent Kurdish groups for independence of their own, it would be irresponsible to openly back the broader movement for independence with anything more than rhetoric. What if the Kurds in Turkey want to secede as well and Turkey objects? Should the US be committed to waging a war against its ally to enforce our position? Clearly, this is absurd, and such a policy is likely to lead to more tension in the region, not less.

That said, this does not mean we should be backing the Iraqi government's objections to Kurdish independence either. We already support government oppression in several other Middle Eastern nations; we don't need to formally add another. In addition, we happen to have a history of supporting the Iraqi government against the Kurds back when Saddam was a US ally. It did not turn out well.

In short, this is the perfect example of a complicated regional dispute that the US should not be involved in. It's not at all clear how we could make the situation better, but there are many ways we could make it worse. So instead of picking sides, the US should employ the Hippocratic Oath: First do no harm.

The Supreme Court Could Severely Damage Public Unions This Term

The Supreme Court is considering a very important case this term called Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. In California, public employee unions like teachers unions require all government employees to contribute dues by all. Now, a teacher in California, Rebecca Friedrichs, has sued the teachers union over this. She is arguing that being compelled to support a union she disagrees with is a violation of her First Amendment rights.

On its face, this could seem like a slight stretch. What does a union have to do with free speech? Well, when that union is a public union, it turns out the answer is everything. Essentially everything a public union does is political in nature. If it's negotiating for higher wages and benefits, that might require the government to raise taxes or shift resources from other priorities. If the union is supporting certain political candidates that it perceives to be supportive of its cause, that obviously has a political agenda as well. Thus, in effect, public employees are being required to financially support these political moves regardless of whether they actually believe in them.

As an extreme example to drive the point home, imagine that a portion of your wages was automatically deducted and sent to the Clinton or Trump campaigns (or whichever candidate you love to hate right now). Obviously, that would be an infringement on your free speech. The same principle applies to the public employee union.* That's the essence of the argument being made in the Friedrichs case, and, happily, it appears to have a real chance at victory.

It's important not to think of this in the standard pro-union vs. pro-business dichotomy. For one thing, there's no business involved so it makes no sense. The question here is not whether unions should exist, whether they are a positive force on society, or whether we want public employees to make a decent living. The question at hand is whether a union should be allowed to compel an employee to give them money against their will. So if we still want to reduce public unions to a binary question, either of these might be better suited to the task:

Pro-coercion vs. Pro-worker
Pro-union vs. Anti-coercion

I mention this because we are all conditioned to have knee-jerk reactions based on whatever political tribe we happen to subscribe to. If you're a liberal, you might assume the pro-union position is correct; if you're a conservative, then you probably default to the opposite. But one of the things that's so great about this particular issue is that it mixes up all the usual messaging. Here's how the standard thinking would apply to this particular issue:

Liberals: We need to support the unions so we can protect those workers from being underpaid by those greedy bastards...in the government?

Conservatives: We need to oppose the unions to preserve freedom of contract and give the employers more latitude to innovate and create efficiency... in the government?

Both: Aw hell.

See it all works out until you get to that last part. When the employer is the government, the conventional arguments break down. This is particularly true on the pro-union side, and it's worth exploring briefly before we close.

As I understand it, the general argument in favor of strong union legislation (including mandatory membership requirements), is to protect workers from the greed of profit-seeking employers. The idea seems to be that those heartless capitalists will stop at nothing to increase their own wealth, and thus unions need to exist as a counterweight to ensure workers can get treated fairly. Regardless of how you feel about that argument, we should all agree that it doesn't apply here. In the conventional understanding, the government's leadership has no clear incentive to underpay or mistreat its workers. They're paying them with tax dollars so it's not like they stand to earn less money as a result. Arguably, they have an incentive to avoid raising taxes during their term, but that's the only plausible financial constraint facing them. (And it's readily overcome by just promising long-term pension benefits instead of pay increases that might take effect this term.) This is clearly a much different environment than a private company that is faced with competitive threats and has direct financial incentives involved for the decision makers.

Indeed, given this understanding, it's a fair question to ask why the public employee union needs to exist at all? Yes, teachers may have an interest in advocating particular policies that they think would be beneficial (to the system or themselves). And perhaps police officers may have an interest in pushing for certain policies. But they don't need a union for that, and they certainly don't need to be able to compel workers to support their agenda.

It's important to remember that being pro-union and being pro-worker aren't necessarily the same thing. And in this case, being pro-worker means you should probably support their right to keep their own money.

If you're interested in learning more about this story, I'd encourage to check out these two articles from the Foundation for Economic Education. The first offers an in-depth background on the case, and the second gives an update on how the Supreme Court appears to be leaning after hearing the case--spoiler, they appear to poised to rule against the public unions.


The First Amendment Could Break the Grip of Government Unions


Court May Free Public Employees from Compulsory Union Dues

*Note that this argument should not necessarily hold for a private employer. In theory, private employers should have the ability to place various conditions on a prospective employee; if the employee consents to them, then there's no violation. Properly understood, the First Amendment protects your freedom of speech against the government; other restrictions that are voluntarily agreed between private parties are a different matter.