William Rehnquist

“ We agree that lawyers admitted to practice in the State may be required to join and pay dues to the State Bar, but disagree as to the scope of permissible dues-financed activities in which the State Bar may engage.
The State Bar is an organization created under California law to regulate the State's legal profession. [1] It is an entity commonly referred to as an "integrated bar"-an association of attorneys in which membership and dues are required as a condition of practicing law in a State. ”

“ The members of the State Bar concededly do not benefit as directly from its activities as do employees from union negotiations with management, but the position of the organized bars has generally been that they prefer a large measure of self-regulation to regulation conducted by a government body which has little or no connection with the profession. ”

“ If every citizen were to have a right to insist that no one paid by public funds express a view with which he disagreed, debate over issues of great concern to the public would be limited to those in the private sector, and the process of government as we know it radically transformed. ”

“ Justice Harlan, joined by Justice Frankfurter, similarly concluded that " [t] he Hanson case . . . decided by a unanimous Court, surely lays at rest all doubt that a State may constitutionally condition the right to practice law upon membership in an integrated bar association, a condition fully as justified by state needs as the union shop is by federal needs." Id., at 849, 81 S.Ct., at 1841 (opinion concurring in judgment) .
The Lathrop plurality emphasized, however, the limited scope of the question it was deciding: " [Lathrop's] compulsory enrollment imposes only the duty to pay dues. ”

“ But there is a difference, and that difference is illustrated by the allegations in petitioners' complaint as to the kinds of State Bar activities which the Supreme Court of California has now decided may be funded with compulsory dues.
Petitioners assert that the State Bar has engaged in, inter alia, lobbying for or against state legislation (1) prohibiting state and local agency employers from requiring employees to take polygraph tests; (2) prohibiting possession of armor-piercing handgun ammunition; (3) creating an unlimited right of action to sue anybody causing air pollution ”

“ The Court noted that just as prohibitions on making contributions to organizations for political purposes implicate fundamental First Amendment concerns, see Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 96 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976) , "compelled . . . contributions for political purposes works no less an infringement of . . . constitutional rights." Abood, supra, at 234, 97 S.Ct., at 1799. The Court acknowledged Thomas Jefferson's view that " 'to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical.' " 431 U.S., at 234-235, n. ”

“ We are not possessed of any scales which would enable us to determine that the one outweighs the other sufficiently to produce a different result here.
Abood held that a union could not expend a dissenting individual's dues for ideological activities not "germane" to the purpose for which compelled association was justified: collective bargaining. Here the compelled association and integrated bar are justified by the State's interest in regulating the legal profession and improving the quality of legalserv ices. ”

“ Under this standard, objecting employees may be compelled to pay their fair share of not only the direct costs of negotiating and administering a collective-bargaining contract and of settling grievances and disputes, but also the expenses of activities or undertakings normally or reasonably employed to implement or effectuate the duties of the union as exclusive representative of the employees in the bargaining unit. ”