United States v. United Foods, Inc., 533 U.S. 405, 10 (2001)

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414

UNITED STATES v. UNITED FOODS, INC.

Opinion of the Court

Abood, the infringement upon First Amendment associational rights worked by a union shop arrangement was "constitutionally justified by the legislative assessment of the important contribution of the union shop to the system of labor relations established by Congress." Id., at 222. To attain the desired benefit of collective bargaining, union members and nonmembers were required to associate with one another, and the legitimate purposes of the group were furthered by the mandated association.

A similar situation obtained in Keller v. State Bar of Cal., supra. A state-mandated, integrated bar sought to ensure that "all of the lawyers who derive benefit from the unique status of being among those admitted to practice before the courts [were] called upon to pay a fair share of the cost." Id., at 12. Lawyers could be required to pay moneys in support of activities that were germane to the reason justifying the compelled association in the first place, for example, expenditures (including expenditures for speech) that related to "activities connected with disciplining members of the Bar or proposing ethical codes for the profession." Id., at 16. Those who were required to pay a subsidy for the speech of the association already were required to associate for other purposes, making the compelled contribution of moneys to pay for expressive activities a necessary incident of a larger expenditure for an otherwise proper goal requiring the cooperative activity. The central holding in Keller, moreover, was that the objecting members were not required to give speech subsidies for matters not germane to the larger regulatory purpose which justified the required association.

The situation was much the same in Glickman. As noted above, the market for tree fruit was cooperative. To proceed, the statutory scheme used marketing orders that to a large extent deprived producers of their ability to compete and replaced competition with a regime of cooperation. The mandated cooperation was judged by Congress to be necessary to maintain a stable market. Given that producers

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