Thursday, February 12, 2009

You Can Be Terminated if You are a Republican!

Powers v. Richards, 549 F.3d 505 (C.A. 7, Dec. 2, 2008)

There was a bit of political maneuvering and jockeying going on in Illinois. Nearing the end of a Republican governorship, several politically-held jobholders came up with a plan to keep their jobs after the newly elected Democratic governor took office. The plan was simple - resign a few weeks ahead of the termination of the 4-year contract and then sign a new 4-year employment contract. The personnel forms were signed by the Deputy Director of the Illinois Department of Central Management Services.

The plot thickens! A few weeks after Mr. Powers resigns Republican employee contracts, he gets appointed Executive Secretary of the Illinois Civil Service Commission (which is responsible for hearing appeals of state employees on things like terminations, transfers and violations of the personnel code.)

Shortly thereafter, in 2003, after Democratic Governor Rob Blagojevich (Mr. "pay me for Obama's seat") took office, his administration began an investigation into the "no-cut employment scheme" and concluded that Powers played a key role. Powers was then terminated after he admitted to inappropriately signing personnel forms.

Powers then sued Blagojevich and other state officials under 42 U.S.C. 1983, claiming that he was fired for his political affiliation and that he was denied procedural due process due to the lack of a pre-termination hearing. The District Court (C.D. Ill.) granted summary judgment to all defendants and Powers appealed.

The Court of Appeals noted with some surprise that, on appeal, Richards did not deny that Roberts was fired for being a Republican. However, it held that given his particular job, his rights had not been violated. The First Amendment did not prohibit his termination due to party affiliation because, it said, some jobs can only be done correctly when the employee supports the administration’s ideas about policy and governing. The test was whether the position required the employee to exercise political (as opposed to professional) judgment by crafting policy.


No comments: