A new report released today by People For the American Way Foundation explores how the Supreme Court’s extreme pro-corporate agenda over the years has been matched by increasingly dangerous attacks on working people.

“Corporations, Unions, and Constitutional Democracy” by PFAW Foundation Senior Fellow Jamie Raskin explores how the Roberts Court’s right-wing majority has established a precedent for privileging corporations over individuals, while at the same times twisting First Amendment doctrine to undermine the right of workers to band together to win fair treatment in the workplace.

“In recent years, we’ve seen an increasingly extreme pro-corporate agenda from the Supreme Court, most notably in Citizens United,” said Marge Baker, Executive Vice President at People For the American Way Foundation. “What hasn’t received as much attention is the Court’s relentless attacks on working people. Today, the Friedrichs case represents the most deliberate attempt yet to replace the Court's longstanding precedent with an ideological pro-corporate agenda."

As Raskin writes in the report:

“The First Amendment has become the fulcrum of major constitutional decision-making related to both corporations and unions. It is the magical source of the unprecedented new political rights and powers conferred on corporations by Citizens United. It is also the putative basis of legal and juridical attacks on unions and their right to collect agency fees from workers they represent. It will be the terrain of struggle over growing efforts to grant dissident shareholders opt-out rights and objector rebates equivalent to what union objectors enjoy today.”

Raskin, who serves as a constitutional law professor at American University Washington College of Law and a Maryland State Senator, in addition to his role as PFAW Foundation Senior Fellow, is available to discuss the report and the Supreme Court’s recent decisions. Please contact [email protected] to schedule an interview.

You can find the full text of the report at: https://www.pfaw.org/media-center/publications/corporations-unions-and-constitutional-democracy-when-it-comes-politics-ro

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