Free Republic

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration is fast-tracking approvals for a massive AI datacenter in Saline Township. Locals oppose the project, but few are more excited about it than Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s husband, Ryan Friedrichs. Friedrichs, vice president for billionaire Stephen Ross’ Related Companies, celebrated the project on LinkedIn. “Thank you again to all our community, state, regional, and national partners who worked tirelessly with us this year, and will into the future,” Friedrichs wrote in the post, which linked to another from Related Companies CEO Jeff Blau.

As the nation and official Washington prepared to mourn the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, watchers of the high court began to assess the immediate impact of his death on several pending cases whose decisions might have had momentous political implications. Among these is Friedrichs v. California Teacher’s Association, set to have been a landmark case regarding the mandatory collection of union dues and their use for political purposes. The ruling could have meant the death knell of collective bargaining and the political might of America’s unions. newzf After oral arguments in the case in January, The Washington Post...

On Monday, January 11 the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. The plaintiffs, teachers in California public schools, challenge the constitutionality of a rule that they must pay dues to the C.T.A. to keep their jobs, even though they don't choose to join the union and object to the way it uses money involuntarily taken from them to advance political causes they oppose. This raises First Amendment issues, since it protects not only the right to speak freely against governmental interference, but also protects the right not to be compelled to speak. By taking dues...