Oregon Supreme Court PERS ruling opens gaping hole in state budget... eventually

Thursday's announcement that the Oregon Supreme Court had overturned a series of Public Employees Retirement System changes approved in 2013 cast a pall on a Capitol that had otherwise been focused on an intensifying legislative session.


That's because, in time for the state's 2017-19 budget, the Oregon Legislature will need to find hundreds of millions of dollars that lawmakers had thought they'd saved when cutting cost-of-living raises for current state retirees.


Read more at Oregon Live Read More......

Court: Public union can't make nonmembers pay fees

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court says public sector unions can't collect fees from home health care workers who object to being affiliated with a union. The justices on Monday said collecting the fees violates the First Amendment rights of workers who are not union members. The ruling is a financial blow to labor unions that have bolstered their ranks in Illinois and other states by signing up hundreds of thousands of home health care workers. The case was brought by a group of Illinois in-home care workers who said they didn't want to pay fees related to collective bargaining. They claimed the "fair share fees" violate their constitutional rights by compelling them to associate with the union. Lower courts had thrown out the lawsuit.

Read more at the Associated Press Read More......

Justices: Can't make employers cover contraception

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court says corporations can hold religious objections that allow them to opt out of the new health law requirement that they cover contraceptives for women.

Read more at the Associated Press Read More......

IBD: No Place for Gov't

IBD EDITORIAL, 9/14/2011 - Health Care: Another federal judge has ruled that ObamaCare's individual mandate is unconstitutional. It's hard to see how a court could possibly decide any other way. ✧ Presiding in Harrisburg, Pa., district court Judge Christopher Conner ruled Tuesday that the law's individual mandate that requires those who don't have health care insurance to buy it "cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny." Read more at Investors Business Daily... Read More......