Ysursa v. Pocatello Education Ass'n’s Empirical Analysis
555 U.S. 353 · 2009
Citation profile
81 federal appellate · 29 district · 38 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 225 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2025 · most notably Matal v. Tam (2017), Pocatello Education Ass'n v. Heideman (2009)
81 federal appellate · 29 district · 38 state decisions — followed in 10 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle · Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois · Reynolds v. Sims · Perry Education Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators' Ass'n · Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 225 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“While publicly administered payroll deductions for political purposes can enhance the unions’ exercise of First Amendment rights, Idaho is under no obligation to aid the unions in their political activities. And the State’s decision not to do so is not an abridgment of the unions’ speech; they are free to engage in such speech as they see fit. They simply are barred from enlisting the State in support of that endeavor.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“). And because the State has no constitutional duty to subsidize speech in the first place, it may restrict that assistance without triggering constitutional scrutiny. As the Chief Justice explained in Ysursa , While in some contexts the government must accommodate expression, it is not required to assist others in funding the expression of particular ideas, including political ones.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a political subdivision, 'created by a state for the better ordering of government, has no privileges or immunities under the federal constitution which it may invoke in opposition to the will of its creator'”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.