National Right to Work Committee officials are encouraging senators to oppose confirmation of Solicitor-General Elena Kagan's nomination by President Obama to the U.S. Supreme Court because she allegedly misrepresented her views on the First Amendment during testimony at her confirmation hearing.

In a letter that went to all senators, NRTW president Mark Mix noted that the Court has since its 1977 Abood v Detroit Board of Education decision upheld the right of public employees - and all Americans - not to be forced to support political activities with which they disagree.

The issue has often come up in litigation in which NRTW has defended the right of all individuals to not be forced to pay union dues that will be used to support political activities with which they disagree. The Court has agreed, saying an individual's right to spends his money on political advocacy is inseparable from the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of political speech.

In Abood, the Court held that "a state cannot constitutionally compel public employees to contribute to union political activities they oppose." That principle has been carried forward to the present via a long line of decisions, including most recently the Citizens United v Federal Election Commission case, according to Mix.

Kagan should not be confirmed because when she was asked by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-UT, about a 1996 email she wrote while serving in the Clinton administration, she falsely claimed she was merely repeating the chief executive's views, not her own.

In his letter to the senators, Mix quoted Kagan's email in which she said:

"It is unfortunately true that almost any meaningful campaign finance reform proposal raises constitutional issues. This is a result of the Supreme Court's view - which I believe to be mistaken in many cases - that money is speech and that attempts to limit the influence of money on our political system therefore raises First Amendment problems."

Kagan could not have simply been echoing somebody else's view in that email, Mix argued, because a memo later in 1996 from her and other White House staff members to then-White House chief of staff Leon Panetta "incorporated Ms. Kagan's argument that the First Amendment does not protect the right to spend money for political activities. In short, in 1996 Ms. Kagan both suggested and endorsed that crabbed view of the First Amendment."

You can read the entire Mix letter to senators here.