As argument commenced at the Supreme Court last Monday, most eyes were on Justice Antonin Scalia. While still the Court’s conservative paterfamilias, union supporters were looking to Scalia as a potential swing vote in their favor in the case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. He had endorsed Abood, the precedent now under scrutiny, in a 1991 case, and strongly defended state and municipal employers’ right to limit employee speech in other contexts. However, as his questioning began, union supporters lost hope. Scalia seemed skeptical of public-sector employers’ interests in a strong union representing workers, implying that a state would be equally well off bargaining with a weak union with fewer resources…