On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of the United States, stuck in a 4-4 deadlock, affirmed the lower court's decision in
Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a labor union dues case
.
The one sentence decision offered no explanation and simply stated, "The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court."
Should public employee unions be able to impose mandatory dues?
At issue in the case was a challenge to the power of public employee unions to impose mandatory dues, an issue that has been bitterly fought by both sides of the labor union debate. Tuesday's ruling allows the unions to continue to collect dues for collective bargaining costs, pursuant to a prior case from 1977 that allowed these mandatory dues, so long as the employees were not forced to pay for political or ideological activities.