The next reason to not seat Garland: he's in tight with the unions

The profile of the “moderate Supreme Court candidate” Merrick Garland just gets worse and worse. The other day we discussed how he was abjectly wrong on Second Amendment rights and would likely spell the doom of gun rights in the United States. But hey… not everyone has that as their top priority so we should probably examine Garland’s record in other areas. As it turns out, he would represent a big time gift to the Democratic Super Pacs, er… I mean, unions. He’s heard numerous cases involving union disputes and pretty much always comes down on the side of Big Labor. (The Daily Caller)

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A former top federal labor official warned Monday that Supreme Court nominee Judge Merrick Garland has a history of bias and often made rulings that advanced union power.

President Barack Obama nominated Garland, currently sitting on the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, to the highest court March 16 with supporters touting him as a moderate. Garland has served on the court of appeals where he has heard a long list of cases, including disputed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decisions. Former NLRB Member Peter Schaumber warns Garland often sided with the board to help advance union power.

“Garland certainly on NLRB issues will defer to the agency even in circumstances that push the envelope,” Schaumber told The Washington Free Beacon. “In some respects [the NLRB] seems like a narrow issue but it says lot. He came down on the wrong side.”

The NLRB is a thorn in the side of capitalism whenever it is stocked up by a Democratic president and the board serving under President Obama has been no exception. Many of their decisions wind up in court and it’s usually a tough battle there for the private sector. The last one to make the rounds was the Friedrichs case which the court heard in January. It deals with the ongoing question of whether or not the unions can force non-members in union controlled workplace settings (public schools in this case) to pay dues when the dues are used for the union’s political activities. In that hearing, it was Justice Scalia who seemed to lead the charge against this forced political speech.

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The union had hoped it might find some support from Justice Antonin Scalia, who had suggested in the past he might be responsive to its position.

But Scalia offered no such lifeline Monday.

“The problem is that everything that is collectively bargained with the government is within the political sphere, almost by definition. Should the government pay higher wages or lesser wages? Should it promote teachers on the basis of seniority? All of those questions are necessarily political questions,” he said.

Therefore, Scalia said, requiring non-union members to pay the union to take those positions is a violation of the First Amendment.

It doesn’t require much of a stretch of the imagination to see how that case would play out if, rather than simply having Scalia missing this June his vote were to be replaced by Garland’s. Anyone who has been such a reliable activist for the NLRB and the unions would probably torpedo the case in short order.

And yet I still hear the liberal media bleating about how Garland is the moderate choice which Republicans should be grateful for. If he’s the moderate I’d hate to see who Hillary Clinton nominates.

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