Michael Craine, a U.S. Army veteran and longtime Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department employee, has appealed his lawsuit against the County and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Council 36, Local 119 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

If necessary, with Freedom Foundation’s help, he will go all the way to the Supreme Court.

Like far too many California public employees, the Union representing Craine’s bargaining unit, acting through his employer’s payroll deduction system, took money from each of his paychecks without consent and spent it on politics.

To add insult to injury, AFSCME then refused to allow Craine to end his union membership.

The difference is that Craine decided to fight back.

The only document Craine ever signed with AFSCME was a 1999 payroll deduction authorization the County produced that mentioned neither union membership nor union dues. The document merely authorized the County to send AFSCME $40 per month from Craine’s paycheck.

While this authorization was treated by the Union as a membership form over the decades that followed, it contained no restriction on Craine’s ability to end his association with the Union at any time through simple written notice.

In the midst of the hysteria over COVID-19, the County proposed terminating any employee who refused vaccination. Meanwhile, AFSCME, which claims to advocate on behalf of its members, was entirely silent on the issue, even though unions ordinarily are staunch defenders of their right to bargain over changes to  employees’ wages, hours, and working conditions.

Craine decided enough was enough.

Long skeptical of AFSCME’s tendency to be more interested in supporting Democratic politicians than working for members, and having just found out about the Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling releasing public employees from forced union payments in Janus v. AFSCME, Craine submitted the required written notice to leave the Union.

But neither the County nor AFSCME took notice. Instead, Craine was forced to remain a union member against his will and the County continued to take his money on the Union’s behalf.

So, Craine took the County and Union to court.

His federal lawsuit alleges the County and AFSCME violated his constitutional rights in three primary ways.

First, by forcing him to associate with a political entity, AFSCME, against his will, the Union violated his First Amendment right to freedom of association.

Second, the County and AFSCME’s decision to continue taking his money for the Union’s politics without his consent violated his First Amendment right to freedom of speech as recognized in the Janus case. Lastly, this entire scheme violates Craine’s 14th Amendment right to procedural due process, as it provided him with no notice of what was happening and no opportunity to oppose the deductions short of going to court.

While the lower court failed to credit Craine’s allegations, it is his hope that the 9th Circuit will step in and do what courts are tasked by the Constitution to do: protect individual rights against government and government-enabled union violations.