Do public employees who are former union members possess the First Amendment right to refuse to contribute to union political campaign funds?

QUESTIONS PRESENTED For nearly fifty years, this Court has held that public sector labor unions can fund political speech only through “charges, dues, or assessments paid by employees who do not object to advancing those ideas.” Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed., 431 U.S. 209, 235-36 (1977); Knox v. SEIU, Loc. 1000, 567 U.S. 298, 322 (2012); Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Mun. Employees, Council 31, 585 U.S. 878, 884886 (2018). However, unions in California and Oregon use their statutory authority to force objecting non-union public employees to contribute to political campaign funds— the exact type of political spending that could not be forced upon nonmembers even prior to Janus. The Ninth Circuit upheld this result below, reasoning that this compelled funding fails to even implicate the First Amendment because the employees previously joined the union. The questions presented are: 1. Do public employees who are former union members possess the First Amendment right to refuse to contribute to union political campaign funds? 2. Does a union act under color of law when, pursuant to state statutory authority, it takes political campaign contributions from objecting public employees’ wages? (i)