The Week

Two powerful postal unions in California have offered to endorse Jimmy Carter in return for his pledge to “save” the U.S. Postal Service from what they claim is a Ford-Reagan plot to make mail service so bad that the USPS can be sold to private enterprise. So that’s what it is about the post office! Vote Republican.

There are several proposals kicking around Capitol Hill—of which labor leaders had expected to be able to muscle one through the next Congress—that would force the union shop upon state and local governments. These proposals would require individual civil service employees to join the union and pay dues whether they want to or not and would require state and local governments to bargain with the unions. Comes now the Supreme Court, which ruled last month that a law imposing federal civil service standards for wages and hours upon state and local governments was unconstitutional. Writing for the majority, Justice William Rehnquist explained: “States as states stand on a quite different footing than an individual or a corporation when challenging the exercise of Congress’ power to regulate commerce. Congress may not exercise that power so as to force directly upon the states its choices as to how essential decisions regarding the conduct of integral governmental functions are to be made.” This reasoning will almost certainly prevent the passage of the union shop laws; at the least, it provides solid precedent for striking them down afterward.

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Two powerful postal unions in California have offered to endorse Jimmy Carter in return for his pledge to “save” the U.S. Postal Service from what they claim is a Ford-Reagan plot to make mail service so bad that the USPS can be sold to private enterprise. So that’s what it is about the post office! Vote Republican.

There are several proposals kicking around Capitol Hill—of which labor leaders had expected to be able to muscle one through the next Congress—that would force the union shop upon state and local governments. These proposals would require individual civil service employees to join the union and pay dues whether they want to or not and would require state and local governments to bargain with the unions. Comes now the Supreme Court, which ruled last month that a law imposing federal civil service standards for wages and hours upon state and local governments was unconstitutional. Writing for the majority, Justice William Rehnquist explained: “States as states stand on a quite different footing than an individual or a corporation when challenging the exercise of Congress’ power to regulate commerce. Congress may not exercise that power so as to force directly upon the states its choices as to how essential decisions regarding the conduct of integral governmental functions are to be made.” This reasoning will almost certainly prevent the passage of the union shop laws; at the least, it provides solid precedent for striking them down afterward.