Solicitor General Recommends Supreme Court Hear Challenge to State Financial Accountability Acts

"State Financial Accountability Acts" prohibit public or private employers from using state funds "to assist, deter, or promote" union organizing. See, e.g., Cal. Gov’t Code §§ 16645-16649 (forbidding California employers who receive state grants or funds in excess of $10,000 from using such funding to “assist, promote, or deter union organizing").

Such laws have been recently found not to be preempted by the NLRA by the en banc Ninth Circuit in Chamber of Commerce v. Lockyer, 463 F.3d 1076 (9th Cir. 2006) (en banc), petition for cert. filed, 75 U.S.L.W. 3369 (U.S. Jan. 5, 2007) (No. 06-939), and the Second Circuit in Healthcare Ass'n of N.Y. State, Inc. v. Pataki, 471 F.3d 87 (2d Cir. 2006).

These laws help in preventing employee captive audience meetings (something I written about in a forthcoming piece in the Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal) and related activities, but they are also suspect not only because of labor preemption concerns, but because they potentially prevents speech as opposed to just prohibiting attendance at mandatory workplace meetings.

Now comes word from SCOTUSblog that the Solicitor General has recommended that the Court review the Ninth Circuit case, now called Chamber of Commerce v. Brown:

The recommendation, filed [last] Friday in support of a Chamber of Commerce petition, argues that the National Labor Relations Act preempts the California statute, and that an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit created a circuit split in holding otherwise. Click here to read the government brief, and the following links to read the petition, brief in opposition, and reply. 

Look for the Court to grant cert. and overturn the Ninth Circuit. This decision could also have a detrimental impact on pending Worker Freedom Act legislation.

PS