The Daily Signal - In Pennsylvania, a War on Charter Schools

Episode Date: November 19, 2019

Charles Mitchell, who leads the Commonwealth Foundation in Pennsylvania, is worried about children's access to charter schools in the Keystone State. "Our governor has declared war on opportunity for Pennsylvania families," Mitchell says, referring to Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf. "He's issued 11 executive orders, the plain intent of which is to put the kibosh on charter schools." We also cover the following stories: Supreme Court plaintiff Mark Janus discusses workers' rights. Two impeachment hearings will occur today. Chick-fil-a makes a notable change in its charitable giving. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet,iTunes, Pippa, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, November 19th. I'm Rachel Del Judas. And I'm Kate Trinko. First, we have an interview between Charles Mitchell, a conservative leader in the Keystone State, and our own Daniel Davis, talking about charter schools and how Pennsylvania's Democrat governor is trying to stifle them. Then we'll feature Daniel's interview with Mark Janus, who went all the way to the Supreme Court in his fight for government employees to not be forced to pay union dues. And by the way, if you are enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on iTunes and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news.

The impeachment hearings are back with four more witnesses slated to testify before House Intelligence Committee today. In the morning, the two witnesses are Jennifer Williams, who works in Vice President Mike Pence's office and focuses on Europe and Russia. And Alexander Vindman, Director for European Affairs at the next. National Security Council. In the afternoon, Kurt Volker, who is the former U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine and Timothy Morrison, who is Senior Director for Europe and Russia at the National Security Council, will also testify. All four officials previously testified in closed-door hearings. Vindman and Williams listened in on the July 25th call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky. President Trump tweeted this weekend about Williams, tell Jennifer Williams. Tell Jennifer

Williams, whoever that is, to read both transcripts of the presidential calls and see the just-release statement from Ukraine. Then she should meet with the other never-trumpers, who I don't know and mostly never even heard of, and work out a better presidential attack. Trump didn't offer any background, and news outlets have yet to uncover any never-Trump proclamations from Williams. President Donald Trump said he's open to contributing his testimony to Democratic Democrats impeachment proceedings. Trump said that he would strongly consider giving testimony tweeting Monday. Speaker of the House, nervous Nancy Pelosi, who is petrified by her radical left, knowing she will soon be gone, they in fake news media are her boss, suggested on Sundays

deface the nation that I testify about the phony impeachment witch hunt, Trump tweeted Monday morning. She also said I could do it in writing. Even though I did not. nothing wrong and don't like giving credibility to this no-do process hoax, I like the idea and will, in order to get Congress focused again, strongly consider it. We have already heard from Bill Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, George Kent, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and Marie Ivanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. The fight over President Trump's tax returns continues.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts gave a delay Monday to Trump, who, thanks to an earlier case, was facing having to turn over his financial records for several years to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday. It's unclear if this means whether the Supreme Court plans to hear the case and decide whether the House Oversight Committee's subpoena is lawful or if this is just a temporary delay. Jay Seculo, a lawyer for President Trump, had said in a statement last week. For the first time in our nation's history, Congress has subpoenaed the personal records of a sitting president from before he was in office. And for the first time in our nation's history, a court upheld a congressional subpoena to the president for his

personal papers. Those decisions are wrong and should be reversed. A shooting in Duncan, Oklahoma on Monday outside a Walmart, left at least two people dead. According to a Facebook post from the Duncan Police Department, one female and one male were deceased in the car and one male outside the car. A handgun was found on the scene. We will update as more information comes in. Another shooting at a backyard football watch party in Fresno, California over the weekend left at least four dead and six others wounded. The Hong Kong protests continue, this time centered around a university. The Wall Street Journal reports that several hundred people are still leave to be in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The journal describes a violent scene,

reporting, police on Monday afternoon fired tear gus, pepper bullets, and water cannon at dozens of black-clad protesters who jumped railings and tried to flee the campus, driving mini back in. Scuffles broke out as protesters hurled bricks while holding umbrellas for cover. Police in riot gear, including members of an elite squad known as the Raptors, made some arrests in close combat, including wrestling to the ground several demonstrators who had fought back. Chick-fil-A won't be giving any more money to two organizations, the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, that are both known for their support of traditional marriage. The fast food chain announced Monday that it is modifying the list of charitable organizations it

gives to with Tim Tasapoulos, the president and chief operating officer of Chick-fil-A saying in a statement that no organization will be excluded from future consideration, faith-based or non-faith-based. Next up, we'll feature Janiel's interview with Charles Mitchell about charter schools in Pennsylvania. If you're tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger and bigger government, it's time to partner with the most impactful conservative organization in America. We're the Heritage Foundation, and we're committed to solving the issues America faces. Together, we'll fight back against the rising tide of homegrown socialism, and we'll fight

for conservative solutions that are making families more free and more prosperous. But we can't do it without you. Please join us at heritage.org. Well, I'm joined now by Charles Mitchell. He is the CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation, a free market think tank in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Charles, thanks for your time today. Great to be with you. Thanks for having me.

So in Pennsylvania and in many states across the country, charter schools have become really the main school of choice for a lot of parents. They see it as better quality. These are better performing schools for their kids. But your governor, Tom Wolfe, who is a Democrat, is trying to stamp out these schools in Pennsylvania. Fill us in on what the charter school fight looks like right now in Pennsylvania. Very simply, it's a fight for opportunity. and unfortunately our governor has declared war on opportunity for Pennsylvania families. He's issued 11 executive orders, the plain intent of which is to put the kibosh on charter schools,

just as you said. And the other fact of the matter is, you know, there's more to opportunity for families than charter schools. We believe in all kinds of school choice at the Commonwealth Foundation. I happen to have put my money where my mouth is, and my wife and I started a school earlier this year. But there's lots of different options that work for individual kids, for individual families, families, we have to grow all of those options for all kids, obviously across Pennsylvania, but all across America. And not just with our governor, but with other governors, presidential candidates, all that kind of stuff, there is a war on. And it's not against charter schools.

It's not against school choice. It's not against conservative organizations. It's against the opportunity for kids. So specifically in Pennsylvania, what's the governor doing to try to stop charter schools from growing? Well, nothing much. I mean, he's just breaking the law and trying to prevent people from making the choice that they want to make to benefit their children. That's it. I mean, there's nothing real big. I don't really get why you're doing a news story. No. The core of what our governor is trying to do, and this is all totally illegal. You remember the Obama approach? You know, I don't need Congress. I got a pen and a phone. That's what this is, okay? Responsible people like the Commonwealth Foundation have been working

with our legislature for years to update our charter law in common sense ways. It was passed in the 90s, Okay. What the governor has done with these executive orders, they're very complicated, but the short of it is this. He wants to put a ceiling on how many kids can go to these schools. And how do kids go to these schools? Their parents choose. That's immoral. I mean, it's illegal, but it's immoral to come between these parents and their kids and what's going to help them.

And let's be real here, okay? You know, I went to public schools. I went to good public schools. I grew up in the suburbs. my family was very fortunate to be able to do that for me. My parents moved to a district for me and my brother. The kids that are trying to go to these charter schools, they do not have that option. Their schools, you would never send your kids to.

Governor Wolf would never send his kids to. Elizabeth Warren would never send her kids to. You're talking about environments where children are not learning. You're talking about deeply, deeply, deeply problematic situations. These kids have an escape route. and the governor is trying to shut off the door to that escape route. So I understand that charter schools in Pennsylvania actually have to pay money to get funding from the government. What is that about?

Look, here's how it works. Imagine you want to start a Wendy's. You would have to call all the McDonald's and the Burger Kings in the neighborhood and ask them for permission to start your Wendy's. That's how it works in Pennsylvania. Charter schools have to get permission from the local school board. board in order to open up. And not only that, you know, some of the money does follow the child when the child chooses, where the parents choose to send the child, it's about 70 cents on the dollar. So bottom line, big picture, you know, what are we dealing with is charter schools

are doing more with less. They're getting better results for less money. And for some reason that I can't understand, I'll give you my theories if you want, our governor has decided that's a bad thing. We have to stop that. Is this really just about control that the governor wants to control what's happening in the school, control how schools operate? I mean, I have trouble understanding why he would be against good quality schools. He's made it very clear. I don't have to speak for him. I don't have to have ESP.

He has said he thinks that everybody should go to not just government schools, not just public schools, because charter schools are public schools. all our public schools, but to standard public schools. He said when our organization and others have come forward with various types of school choice, I don't think that's the solution. I think the solution is traditional public schools. That is a one-size-fits-all, totally counterproductive mindset. That's not what we do in any other aspect of our economy. And look, again, you know, I'm not going to try and read the governor's mind, but I can read

his campaign finance disclosures. happens to be the case that far and away, his biggest donors are the public sector unions who have a vested interest in making sure that their dues revenue is maximized from traditional public schools. It seems to me that the governor's plain language, his own words, and his campaign finance disclosures, probably tell us something. So Pennsylvania actually has a Republican House and Senate. are they taking any action to try to stand up to the governor, kind of block what he's doing? Well, you know, the first thing I'll say about that is this isn't a partisan issue.

You are correct. We do have divided government in Pennsylvania. We've gotten some great things done through divided government. By the way, the same way Heritage did in the 90s, for example, with welfare reform. And there are legislators in both parties who are standing up to the governor. And I personally don't think that he's going to get very far with these attacks. because they're legally challenged. They're going to be legally, I think, challenged. They're not legally sound.

They're also immoral, as we talked about. There is opposition to them in the legislature. But we have to take this seriously. This is part of a national trend. You know, you look at what Elizabeth Warren's saying. You look at what Governor Whitmer is doing in Michigan. There's been a temperature change that's very evident in the last few years around this issue. And also when you look at the behavior of the public sector unions in Washington and in our state capitals, they are cracking down.

They have declared war, not just on charter schools, but on all types of school choice. The temperature of their language has gone up, and they're cracking down on the people that they think they helped get elected to try and deny these opportunities to kids. We have to stop it. We are stopping in Pennsylvania, by the way. We got a massive increase in school choice this year, in spite of what our governors trying to. to do. But part of why I'm so happy to talk with you today is we have to sound the alarm about this across this country. We cannot just let this attack happen. And by the way, we don't have to. We can beat these people. We're beating them in Pennsylvania. We can beat them across the country.

And we have to because we owe it to these kids. So you mentioned that you and your wife actually started a private school. I want to ask you about that. What led you to start a school? Well, you could argue I need my head examined because, you know, my day job fighting for these kids all across Pennsylvania and working on all sorts of other public policy issues is, you know, it's a little busy. But, you know, we came to believe that there wasn't the kind of educational environment in our community that we wanted for our kids. You know, I do know a thing or two about starting and running and scaling nonprofits. That's what I do. And my wife and I decided we wanted to really put our money where our mouth was and make an opportunity, make a school,

in our community that would work for other children who want to learn at their own pace, who want to be entrepreneurial, who my kids are working right now. They're starting their own businesses. It's Halloween season, you know, so I understand one of my kids is going to try and monetize her candy, which I support. I'd much rather have her do that than eat it. But we just felt we needed this option for our kids, but also for our community. And it's a natural extension of what we believe and what we fight for every day.

Well, you mentioned the power of the unions in Pennsylvania, and I want to pivot to that issue because Pennsylvania historically and up to the present day is a huge union state, both in the public and private sectors. And until fairly recently, public sector employees found themselves having to pay fees to their union, even if they weren't a member. Of course, these were the fair share fees that were struck down in the landmark Janus ruling from the Supreme Court in 2017. putting an end to it, at least in theory. So just refresh for our audience, what did the Janus ruling actually do and what effect is it having in Pennsylvania right now? The Janus case in plain English said,

you can't be forced to pay money to a public sector union in order to keep your job. That's what it said. That's a huge paradigm shift in this country. However, public sector unions did not make themselves the kingmakers of politics in this country overnight and they're not stupid. And we knew at the Commonwealth Foundation, they were not going to roll over.

They were not just going to let people do what they want with their money. They have a pretty clear track record of not doing that for 50 years. And in Pennsylvania, what they've done in particular is really two things. One, they either don't tell people about their rights or they lie to them. They certainly are not going out of their way to tell them about the Janus case. And when they do go out of their way, they say things. And we have them in writing saying this, like, you will be fired if you don't pay money to the union, or you'll lose your benefits, or you'll lose your pension, or all sorts of

nightmare scenarios like that. That is all false. That is complete baloney. But they have credibility. They've been in these workplaces for decades, and they're saying it. We have them in writing, by the way. And secondly, they're relying upon these very restrictive windows we have that are legal in Pennsylvania to essentially say, yeah, you can leave your union, but you can only leave in a two-week period every three to five years. So just imagine, right, this is how my friend Mark Janice puts it this way. Imagine if somebody said to you about your First Amendment rights, you can have them two weeks out of 50, right? Or two weeks out of every five years. I mean, that's what they were going to, that's what they've been trying to do in Pennsylvania. Now, the good news is,

first of all, we have a bill moving through the legislature that would require the government to notify people of their First Amendment rights. What a rocket science idea, right? And many workers in Pennsylvania have stood up and have worked with public interest law firms. For example, there's one that's great in Pennsylvania called the Fairness Center. There's an organization called Americans for Fair Treatment that educates workers about their rights, and they are standing up. And in fact, there have been now multiple class action lawsuits filed by these workers using law firms like the Fairness Center, a national right to work against the unions. And as a result, just in the last couple of weeks, five major unions have said, you know what, these windows that we've been

telling workers they have to use in order to exercise the First Amendment rights, we were just kidding. We're not going to do that anymore. Now, they said it had nothing to do with the lawsuits. If you believe that, I got a bridge. I can sell you. So do you think workers in Pennsylvania are coming to a greater awareness of their rights under the Janus ruling? I mean, it seems that a lot of this power that unions have, exerted over workers is that people just haven't known their rights under the ruling. I mean, it's only a two-year-old ruling. Do you see a greater awareness that they can actually stand up for their rights?

Yeah, I don't think that union members are getting more aware. I know they are. And it's, you know, it's been a really, in the scheme of things, a really short amount of time just over a year since the ruling. And we've seen many, many, many workers, first of all, vindicate their rights, just get out because that's what they want to do. but we've also seen many workers contact the legislature, ask them to pass, for example, this bill we call it the Employee Rights Notification Act. We've seen many workers stand up and file lawsuits. I mean, if you think about it, right, it takes real courage to put your name on a lawsuit against your union.

I mean, you have to be really sure that they are doing something that they shouldn't be doing. You also have to be really sure you have a good lawyer, right? But that's a very significant thing, and we're seeing a wave of these lawsuits in Pennsylvania. And we've seen from, for example, the work that the unions have done to try and force people through these restrictive windows, which, by the way, we also know what they do is during the window. They'll change the PO box that you're supposed to send the letter to so it gets returned and then you're outside the window. We know what they were going to do. We've seen them surrender on that huge advantage that they have under Pennsylvania state law that's been in there for decades. Let's be honest, right?

When you have a major precedent from the United States Supreme Court, I don't care what the issue is, it takes decades. to enforce it. So it's only been a year, but we are already seeing tremendous results in Pennsylvania, not from the Commonwealth Foundation or whatever. I mean, ultimately, that's not what I care about. What I care about is workers having the ability to do what they want to do with their money. I mean, after all, like, my grandfather was a union official in Philadelphia. I believe in the right to join a union if that's what you want to do. And everybody in Pennsylvania who wants to join a union, I say, go for it. If that's what they're going. want to do. But if that's not what they want to do, then it is just unspeakably wrong for people to take,

I mean, we're under bounds to is taking a vacation from somebody's family. About $1,000 in a lot of parts of Pennsylvania. That's a nice vacation for a family. That's what they're taking from people who don't want it. They don't want any parts of it. Yes, we are seeing those people stand up, and we're going to continue to see those people stand up as the Janus case is enforced. Well, you mentioned the governor's financial reports show that he's actually gotten a lot of money from unions. And of course, that's, you know, a long, a long-time trend. A lot of political candidates, especially Democrats, have been funded by unions. And these fair share fees were a windfall for unions. What kind of financial impact do you think the Janus ruling long-term is going to have on not just unions,

but the Democratic politicians that they support? I think this is a key thing that people who believe in freedom and liberty have to understand is if you, I don't care what issue you care about, the most significant opponents to anything ending in reform, education reform, pension reform, tax reform, you know, anything that we would all believe in is the public sector unions. And let's be real, if people were giving them in Pennsylvania, it's like, it's approximately $200 million a year. Now, if people really wanted to put up $200 million a year to stop things that polling shows 60, 70% of Americans believe in, that I would say, well, fair is fair, all right? Because we have a First Amendment and that's cool. But that's not cool.

We know, we know that many of those union members, they don't want their hard-earned money being spent to hurt their neighbors, which is what it boils down to. If you're, for example, turning Pennsylvania into a basket case financially so that people have to leave. I mean, that's really what's going down to, right? I mean, people's money is being taken so that their neighbors, kids have to move to another state to get a job. That's unconscionable, and that's something that people who believe in freedom and liberty, I think, have not necessarily understood. We've allowed that to be the case for about the last 40 years in Pennsylvania and many other states like it. Well, I see that changing. I see that changing because of Mark Janice's bravery, but I also see it because,

of a vigorous effort by many, many different organizations, including some of the ones we've talked about in our time together, to enforce the Janus ruling. The fact is a Supreme Court ruling isn't worth anything if it's not enforced. And the people who have been taking this money to do bad things for decades, they are not going to surrender it. My point of view is, in Pennsylvania, they're losing. Sadly, in many other places, you know, they are very,

very formidable. In many other states, they forced through laws leading up to the Janus ruling and afterwards to make it more difficult for people to leave their unions. We did a report on that recently, a 50-state labor report. But there's excellent work being done all across the country to enforce the Janus ruling, and certainly in Pennsylvania, I would say workers are winning and people who have been hurting workers for decades are losing. All right. Well, the We'll leave it there. Charles Mitchell, thanks for your time today. Thanks so much. Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues?

Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. In the Agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage Scholars on Capitol Hill are working on, what position conservatives are taking, and links to our in-depth research. The agenda also provides information on important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online, as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. I'm joined now by Mark Janice. He is a senior fellow at the Liberty Justice Center in Springfield, Illinois,

and he's best known for being the plaintiff in a recent major Supreme Court decision from 2017. That case was Janice v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. Mark, thanks for your time today. Oh, welcome. Very glad to be here. So it's widely known now as the Janus decision, the Supreme Court. It was a major win for the right-to-work movement and an outcome that unions had been fighting for many years. But before we get into some of the recent issues stemming from that

ruling, I want to ask you, how did you become the plaintiff in this case? Well, it started off back in 15 when the state of Illinois was in negotiations with AFSCME on a new contract, and the state basically was broke, literally just junk bond states. status and the union was asking for $3 billion with a B in additional wages and benefits, which the state, quite frankly, could not support because what happens is you then have to go to the taxpayers and get more tax money. So number one, I didn't agree with that. Number two, I didn't agree with a lot of the policies and the politics that they were going

with from the standpoint of they would come out and advocate, you know, know, one way or the other. And to my knowledge, they never asked me as a rank and file member or any other even full membership dues paying member what they thought of that recommendation. So it appeared to me that this was strictly a top-down, you know, type of endeavor, which I didn't agree with. I mean, after all, we're a democracy, and, you know, that's why we vote, you know, every two years, you know, for our representatives, and, of course, every four years for a president. So the fact that we weren't part of that negotiations, if you will, on who to support, I felt that was wrong. Did you find that other union members felt the same way as you?

Oh, very much so, yeah. And that was one of the reasons that I felt that something had to be done because we talk in, you know, breaks and, you know, lunchroom and just in general conversation. And I found an awful lot of people just felt the same way. but like myself at the time, they just didn't know what to do about it, how to go about it, and what they could do to fight this, one of the largest politically active organizations in the United States. So the ruling to the court case centered on these fair share payments that you had to make. Explain just for us briefly, what did the Supreme Court ruling say about these payments that you had to make to the union? Well, in order to work in state government at the time that I was working there,

I had to pay a fee to the union, which was approximately 80% of a full dues membership, but I didn't have a choice or any kind of voice as whether I paid this or not. It was mandatory. If I wanted to work for state government, I had to pay this fee. And I didn't have a choice in the matter, and I just felt that was wrong. So therefore, in my opinion, it was against my First Amendment rights on freedom of speech and freedom of association, because I was forced to support an organization for them to speak on my behalf that I didn't agree with, whether it be contract negotiations, any of their political activities they were doing, and so on.

And that's what got my dander up, if you will, and that's why I couldn't figure out what to do about it until I met an individual that pointed me in the direction of Liberty Justice Center and began some dialogue with them and discussions. and obviously the rest is history. We now have a decision that went to the Supreme Court, and we got heard, and we have a good spot now. And one of the things that I try to re-emphasize to people is, you know, I am not anti-union.

I'm, you know, if you want to go out and join a union on your own free will, you know, God bless you, if that's your choice, do it. But don't force a lot of us that don't want to support. the union or may not necessarily agree with their politics and their policies, don't force us to pay a fee or force us into a membership that we don't want. So what does some of the positive effects from your perspective of this ruling? Has it forced these unions to stop basically picking your pocket for, they would say they're defending your interest, but you disagree? Any positive outcomes so far?

Well, the biggest positive outcome is that we now have approximately 5.5 million public sector workers that do not have to pay these fees anymore across the entire country. And you now have these public sector workers across the country that can make their own choice and they have their own voice on who they want to represent them. Now, this gets into some kind of funny type of stuff when it comes to when you start looking at exclusive representation and a number of other areas. But the main thing that I think is the most positive part is that now you've got a worker freedom to make their own choices and the like. And, of course, the biggest difficulty now is you have people that now that they do have that choice and they do have that voice, they're starting to exercise it. They're saying, look, I don't necessarily agree with what is going on here with their particular union. So they try to resign, but they find that the unions are using all kinds of. kinds of tactics such as windows, maintenance of membership, and the like that is saying,

sorry, you can only resign during a two-week period of every year, for example, which is considered a window. And the difficult part of that is you're giving up your First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and association for 50 weeks out of the year. So you're only getting to exercise that two weeks out of the year? That's just plain wrong. I think if it was any other area that people would look at, I, I think they would have their dandruff up a lot more, and they would be more frustrated, and they would get very upset about it.

Well, some states like Pennsylvania haven't updated their state laws to, in accordance with the Janus ruling, meaning that some workers are not getting the full benefit of the ruling. Can you explain what's going on there? Well, what's happening in a lot of states is, of course, it's been codified and put into contract language and the like over the last, obviously, many, many years. So the problem is now trying to bring those statutes that have been put into place numbers of years ago or continuing. Or in some cases, the unions knew that this case was going to be heard at some point, whether it was my case or some predecessor cases. And so they got some of this legislation put into effect to protect their interests.

And that's all it is. They're trying to keep the monopoly, keep the membership in the fold, and keep the money flowing. So now you're seeing, now that we have this ruling, where states are looking after the ability to be able to, okay, we've got to bring ourselves into the line. But unfortunately, you now have to go through the legislature and the like, and guess what? You've now got all of these politicians that have been receiving all these donations and money from these various political organizations, such as unions. and they're afraid to vote against the union because of the cloud that the union has. So in essence, what you've got is you're negotiating with the people that gave you money across the table. And so some people would call it a conflict of interest, some people would call it ethics.

It goes by many different names. All we're saying is bring it in line with the decision, you know, let the workers decide for themselves, and go from there. Is this an issue that's going to have to sort it out state by state? I mean, if one Supreme Court ruling hasn't affected the way states behave on this, do you think you're going to need multiple court rulings in the states? Oh, I think so. Yeah, I mean, that's why Liberty Justice Center is filing litigation all across the country. We currently have received over 1,400 inquiries across the country of people that are needing help in various ways.

and what that shows to us is that we have all these people that are asking for help in areas of litigation and otherwise. But what I think we have to look at is that in the how many people are out there that have tried to resign or tried to get help and they've been stonewalled by the union and they just give up because they don't know where else to go. And it's a partnership in the fact that we just have to get the word out. And it's now become known, and I hate to say this, but it's now considered Janice rights, which are very similar to Miranda rights. In other words, we feel that every worker, when they join as a new employee, they should be given the information saying, look, you don't have to join the union. You can voluntarily join or you can not join. It's up to you and it's up to the individual worker.

However, we're still seeing unions doing a lot of pushback. I received a letter from a health care worker out in California where the union had sent her several membership applications. She never returned them, didn't want to become a member. They sent her a letter and said, if we don't hear back from you by X date, we're going to begin your removal from your job. Totally illegal, totally going against the decision, but that's to the deceit and that's the direction that'll. a lot of these unions are going to keep their membership, keep their monopoly, and keep people in the fold. Well, it's such an important issue, just for individual rights, but also for, you know, political, politicians and parties that have been benefiting from, frankly, what seems to be an injustice for all these years. So I'm sure many workers appreciate you not giving up in this.

So Mark Janus, thanks so much for your time today. Thank you. Appreciate being here. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal Podcasts, brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. And if you haven't already, please do be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify. And please leave us a review or a rating on iTunes to give us any feedback. We'll see you again tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation.

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