High Court to Rule on Whether State Bar May Spend Dues on Controversial Causes

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear an appeal from conservative attorneys and decide whether the State Bar of California may use money from mandatory dues to back controversial causes in Sacramento.

Since 1982, 21 lawyers have been fighting the bar’s use of their dues to support liberal causes such as handgun control and a nuclear weapons freeze or challenging the Victim’s Bill of Rights initiative. They contend that forcing lawyers to pay for advocacy they oppose violates their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech.

Election Stands Barred

In February, they won a partial victory from the California Supreme Court, which ruled that the state bar may not take stands in an election campaign. That decision prohibits the bar from supporting or opposing initiatives on the ballot.

However, on a 4-3 vote, the state court said that the bar may continue to lobby in Sacramento on anything that affects the “administration of justice.”

Backed by the Pacific Legal Foundation, the 21 attorneys appealed this part of the ruling. The justices will hear the case (Keller vs. State Bar of California, 88-1905) early next year.

Under California law, the state’s 110,000 lawyers are required to pay dues to the bar association. Currently, they are charged $417 a year.

Diane Yu, general counsel for the bar, said that about 80% of this money is used to consider complaints against attorneys who are accused of violating the code of ethics. The bar’s Conference of Delegates can vote to lobby for a particular piece of legislation, but this involves “a very small percentage of our budget,” she said.

But John Findley, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, said that the real issue is politics, not money.

“We think the bar should be proscribed from taking any political or ideological stands. That’s what we are seeking to accomplish in this litigation,” Findley said.

State courts in the nation have been split on whether state bar associations should be considered more akin to labor unions or to quasi-governmental agencies.

Ruling on Union Cited

In a 1977 ruling involving teachers’ unions, the high court said that teachers may not be forced to pay dues to support political causes that they oppose. Pacific Legal Foundation lawyers said that they believe this ruling should be applied to the California bar as well.

But the state Supreme Court concluded that the bar association was mostly a governmental body, with the authority to spend its money to further its legal mandate.

In other California cases, the court:

--Dismissed a challenge to the crowded conditions at San Quentin Prison (Wilson vs. Deukmejian, 88-2090). In a class-action suit filed in 1981, inmates contended that the state was engaging in “cruel and unusual punishment” by putting two prisoners into a cell six feet wide and eight feet high.

They obtained an order from state Judge Beverly Savitt ordering changes at the prison. But, heeding an appeal from state officials, a state appellate court overturned that order last year. The justices on Monday rejected a final appeal from the inmates.

‘Reverse’ Bias Case

--Let stand an appeals court ruling stating that victims of “reverse discrimination” do not necessarily deserve promotions that may have been unfairly denied them.

This case (S.F. Police Officers Assn. vs. San Francisco, 88-1984) grew out of a 16-year court fight over jobs in the San Francisco Police Department. White officers contended that they were discriminated against in 1983, when city officials changed the testing rules in hopes of promoting more blacks and women.

Last year, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the white officers and forbade any further changes in the testing procedures. But the court refused to order promotions for the whites.