Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois Frech/Opinion of the Court

To the victor belong only those spoils that may be constitutionally obtained. Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976), and Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507, 100 S.Ct. 1287, 63 L.Ed.2d 574 (1980), decided that the First Amendment forbids government officials to discharge or threaten to discharge public employees solely for not being supporters of the political party in power, unless party affiliation is an appropriate requirement for the position involved. Today we are asked to decide the constitutionality of several related political patronage practices-whether promotion, transfer, recall, and hiring decisions involving low-level public employees may be constitutionally based on party affiliation and support. We hold that they may not.

* The petition and cross-petition before us arise from a lawsuit protesting certain employment policies and practices instituted by Governor James Thompson of Illinois. On November 12, 1980, the Governor issued an executive order proclaiming a hiring freeze for every agency, bureau, board, or commission subject to his control. The order prohibits state officials from hiring any employee, filling any vacancy, creating any new position, or taking any similar action. It affects approximately 60,000 state positions. More than 5,000 of these become available each year as a result of resignations, retirements, deaths, expansions, and reorganizations. The order proclaims that "no exceptions" are permitted without the Governor's "express permission after submission of appropriate requests to [his] office." Governor's Executive Order No. 5 (Nov. 12, 1980), Brief for Petitioners and Cross-Respondents 11 (emphasis added).

Requests for the Governor's "express permission" have allegedly become routine. Permission has been granted or withheld through an agency expressly created for this purpose, the Governor's Office of Personnel (Governor's Office). Agencies have been screening applicants under Illinois' civil service system, making their personnel choices, and submitting them as requests to be approved or disapproved by the Governor's Office. Among the employment decisions for which approvals have been required are new hires, promotions, transfers, and recalls after layoffs.

By means of the freeze, according to petitioners and cross-respondents, the Governor has been using the Governor's Office to operate a political patronage system to limit state employment and beneficial employment-related decisions to those who are supported by the Republican Party. In reviewing an agency's request that a particular applicant be approved for a particular position, the Governor's Office has looked at whether the applicant voted in Republican primaries in past election years, whether the applicant has provided financial or other support to the Republican Party and its candidates, whether the applicant has promised to join and work for the Republican Party in the future, and whether the applicant has the support of Republican Party officials at state or local levels.

Five people (including the three petitioners) brought suit against various Illinois and Republican Party officials in the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. They alleged that they had suffered discrimination with respect to state employment because they had not been supporters of the State's Republican Party and that this discrimination violates the First Amendment. Cynthia B. Rutan has been working for the State since 1974 as a rehabilitation counselor. She claims that since 1981 she has been repeatedly denied promotions to supervisory positions for which she was qualified because she had not worked for or supported the Republican Party. Franklin Taylor, who operates road equipment for the Illinois Department of Transportation, claims that he was denied a promotion in 1983 because he did not have the support of the local Republican Party. Taylor also maintains that he was denied a transfer to an office nearer to his home because of opposition from the Republican Party chairmen in the counties in which he worked and to which he requested a transfer. James W. Moore claims that he has been repeatedly denied state employment as a prison guard because he did not have the support of Republican Party officials.

The two other plaintiffs, before the Court as cross-respondents, allege that they were not recalled after layoffs because they lacked Republican credentials. Ricky Standefer was a state garage worker who claims that he was not recalled, although his fellow employees were, because he had voted in a Democratic primary and did not have the support of the Republican Party. Dan O'Brien, formerly a dietary manager with the mental health department, contends that he was not recalled after a layoff because of his party affiliation and that he later obtained a lower paying position with the corrections department only after receiving support from the chairman of the local Republican Party.

The District Court dismissed the complaint with prejudice, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. 641 F.Supp. 249 (1986). The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit initially issued a panel opinion, 848 F.2d 1396 (1988), but then reheard the appeal en banc. The court affirmed the District Court's decision in part and reversed in part. 868 F.2d 943 (1989). Noting that this Court had previously determined that the patronage practice of discharging public employees on the basis of their political affiliation violates the First Amendment, the Court of Appeals held that other patronage practices violate the First Amendment only when they are the "substantial equivalent of a dismissal." Id., at 955. The court explained that an employment decision is equivalent to a dismissal when it is one that would lead a reasonable person to resign. Ibid. The court affirmed the dismissal of Moore's claim because it found that basing hiring decisions on political affiliation does not violate the First Amendment, but remanded the remaining claims for further proceedings.

Rutan, Taylor, and Moore petitioned this Court to review the constitutional standard set forth by the Seventh Circuit and the dismissal of Moore's claim. Respondents cross-petitioned this Court, contending that the Seventh Circuit's remand of four of the five claims was improper because the employment decisions alleged here do not, as a matter of law, violate the First Amendment. We granted certiorari, 493 U.S. 807, 110 S.Ct. 48, 107 L.Ed.2d 17 (1989), to decide the important question whether the First Amendment's proscription of patronage dismissals recognized in Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976), and Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507, 100 S.Ct. 1287, 63 L.Ed.2d 574 (1980), extends to promotion, transfer, recall, or hiring decisions involving public employment positions for which party affiliation is not an appropriate requirement.

In Elrod, supra, we decided that a newly elected Democratic sheriff could not constitutionally engage in the patronage practice of replacing certain office staff with members of his own party "when the existing employees lack or fail to obtain requisite support from, or fail to affiliate with, that party." Id., 427 U.S., at 351, 373, 96 S.Ct., at 2679, 2689 (plurality opinion), and 375, 96 S.Ct., at 2690 (Stewart, J., joined by BLACKMUN, J., concurring in judgment). The plurality explained that conditioning public employment on the provision of support for the favored political party "unquestionably inhibits protected belief and association." Id., at 359, 96 S.Ct., at 2683. It reasoned that conditioning employment on political activity pressures employees to pledge political allegiance to a party with which they prefer not to associate, to work for the election of political candidates they do not support, and to contribute money to be used to further policies with which they do not agree. The latter, the plurality noted, had been recognized by this Court as "tantamount to coerced belief." Id., 427 U.S., at 355, 96 S.Ct., at 2681 (citing Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 19, 96 S.Ct. 612, 634-635, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976)). At the same time, employees are constrained from joining, working for or contributing to the political party and candidates of their own choice. Elrod, supra, 427 U.S., at 355-356, 96 S.Ct., at 2681. "[P]olitical belief and association constitute the core of those activities protected by the First Amendment," the plurality emphasized. 427 U.S., at 356, 96 S.Ct., at 2681. Both the plurality and the concurrence drew support from Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972), in which this Court held that the State's refusal to renew a teacher's contract because he had been publicly critical of its policies imposed an unconstitutional condition on the receipt of a public benefit. See Elrod, supra, 427 U.S., at 359, 96 S.Ct., at 2682 (plurality opinion) and 375, 96 S.Ct., at 2690 (Stewart, J., concurring in judgment); see also Branti, supra, 445 U.S., at 514-516, 100 S.Ct., at 1292-1293.

The Court then decided that the government interests generally asserted in support of patronage fail to justify this burden on First Amendment rights because patronage dismissals are not the least restrictive means for fostering those interests. See Elrod, supra, 427 U.S., at 372-373, 96 S.Ct., at 2689 (plurality opinion) and 375, 96 S.Ct., at 2690 (Stewart, J., concurring in judgment). The plurality acknowledged that a government has a significant interest in ensuring that it has effective and efficient employees. It expressed doubt, however, that "mere difference of political persuasion motivates poor performance" and concluded that, in any case, the government can ensure employee effectiveness and efficiency through the less drastic means of discharging staff members whose work is inadequate. 427 U.S., at 365-366, 96 S.Ct., at 2685-2686. The plurality also found that a government can meet its need for politically loyal employees to implement its policies by the less intrusive measure of dismissing, on political grounds, only those employees in policymaking positions. Id., at 367, 96 S.Ct., at 2686-2687. Finally, although the plurality recognized that preservation of the democratic process "may in some instances justify limitations on First Amendment freedoms," it concluded that the "process functions as well without the practice, perhaps even better." Patronage, it explained, "can result in the entrenchment of one or a few parties to the exclusion of others" and "is a very effective impediment to the associational and speech freedoms which are essential to a meaningful system of democratic government." Id., at 368-370, 96 S.Ct., at 2688.

Four years later, in Branti, supra, we decided that the First Amendment prohibited a newly appointed public defender, who was a Democrat, from discharging assistant public defenders because they did not have the support of the Democratic Party. The Court rejected an attempt to distinguish the case from Elrod, deciding that it was immaterial whether the public defender had attempted to coerce employees to change political parties or had only dismissed them on the basis of their private political beliefs. We explained that conditioning continued public employment on an employee's having obtained support from a particular political party violates the First Amendment because of "the coercion of belief that necessarily flows from the knowledge that one must have a sponsor in the dominant party in order to retain one's job." 445 U.S., at 516, 100 S.Ct., at 1294. "In sum," we said, "there is no requirement that dismissed employees prove that they, or other employees, have been coerced into changing, either actually or ostensibly, their political allegiance." Id., at 517, 100 S.Ct., at 1294. To prevail, we concluded, public employees need show only that they were discharged because they were not affiliated with or sponsored by the Democratic Party. Ibid.

We first address the claims of the four current or former employees. Respondents urge us to view Elrod and Branti as inapplicable because the patronage dismissals at issue in those cases are different in kind from failure to promote, failure to transfer, and failure to recall after layoff. Respondents initially contend that the employee petitioners' and cross-respondents' First Amendment rights have not been infringed because they have no entitlement to promotion, transfer, or rehire. We rejected just such an argument in Elrod, 427 U.S., at 359-360, 96 S.Ct., at 2683 (plurality opinion) and 375, 96 S.Ct., at 2690 (Stewart, J., concurring in judgment), and Branti, 445 U.S., at 514-515, 100 S.Ct., at 1293, as both cases involved state workers who were employees at will with no legal entitlement to continued employment. In Perry, 408 U.S., at 596-598, 92 S.Ct., at 2696-2697, we held explicitly that the plaintiff teacher's lack of a contractual or tenure right to re-employment was immaterial to his First Amendment claim. We explained the viability of his First Amendment claim as follows:

"For at least a quarter-century, this Court has made     clear that even though a person has no 'right' to a valuable      governmental benefit and even though the government may deny      him the benefit for any number of reasons, there are some      reasons upon which the government may not rely.  It may not      deny a benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his      constitutionally protected interests-especially, his interest      in freedom of speech.  For if the government could deny a      benefit to a person because of his constitutionally protected      speech or associations, his exercise of those freedoms would      in effect be penalized and inhibited.  This would allow the      government to 'produce a result which [it] could not command      directly.'  Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513, 526 [78 S.Ct.      1332, 1342, 2 L.Ed.2d 1460 (1958) ].  Such interference with      constitutional rights is impermissible." Id., 408 U.S., at     597, 92 S.Ct., at 2697 (emphasis added).

Likewise, we find the assertion here that the employee petitioners and cross-respondents had no legal entitlement to promotion, transfer, or recall beside the point.

Respondents next argue that the employment decisions at issue here do not violate the First Amendment because the decisions are not punitive, do not in any way adversely affect the terms of employment, and therefore do not chill the exercise of protected belief and association by public employees. This is not credible. Employees who find themselves in dead-end positions due to their political backgrounds are adversely affected. They will feel a significant obligation to support political positions held by their superiors, and to refrain from acting on the political views they actually hold, in order to progress up the career ladder. Employees denied transfers to workplaces reasonably close to their homes until they join and work for the Republican Party will feel a daily pressure from their long commutes to do so. And employees who have been laid off may well feel compelled to engage in whatever political activity is necessary to regain regular paychecks and positions corresponding to their skill and experience.

The same First Amendment concerns that underlay our decisions in Elrod, supra, and Branti, supra, are implicated here. Employees who do not compromise their beliefs stand to lose the considerable increases in pay and job satisfaction attendant to promotions, the hours and maintenance expenses that are consumed by long daily commutes, and even their jobs if they are not rehired after a "temporary" layoff. These are significant penalties and are imposed for the exercise of rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. Unless these patronage practices are narrowly tailored to further vital government interests, we must conclude that they impermissibly encroach on First Amendment freedoms. See Elrod, supra, 427 U.S., at 362-363, 96 S.Ct., at 2684 (plurality opinion) and 375, 96 S.Ct., at 2690 (Stewart, J., concurring in judgment); Branti, supra, 445 U.S., at 515-516, 100 S.Ct., at 1293.

We find, however, that our conclusions in Elrod, supra, and Branti, supra, are equally applicable to the patronage practices at issue here. A government's interest in securing effective employees can be met by discharging, demoting, or transferring staff members whose work is deficient. A government's interest in securing employees who will loyally implement its policies can be adequately served by choosing or dismissing certain high-level employees on the basis of their political views. See Elrod, supra, 427 U.S., at 365-368, 96 S.Ct., at 2685-2687 (plurality opinion); Branti, supra, 445 U.S., at 518, and 520, n. 14, 100 S.Ct., at 1294-1295, and 1295, n. 14. Likewise, the "preservation of the democratic process" is no more furthered by the patronage promotions, transfers, and rehires at issue here than it is by patronage dismissals. First, "political parties are nurtured by other, less intrusive and equally effective methods." Elrod, supra, 427 U.S., at 372-373, 96 S.Ct., at 2689 (plurality opinion). Political parties have already survived the substantial decline in patronage employment practices in this century. See Elrod, supra, at 369, and n. 23, 96 S.Ct., at 2688, and n. 23 (plurality opinion); see also L. Sabato, Goodbye to Good-time Charlie 67 (2d ed. 1983) ("The number of patronage positions has significantly decreased in virtually every state");  Congressional Quarterly Inc., StateGovern ment, CQ's Guide to Current Issues and Activities 134 (T. Beyle ed. 1989-1990) ("Linkage[s] between political parties and government office-holding . . . have died out under the pressures of varying forces [including] the declining influence of election workers when compared to media and money-intensive campaigning, such as the distribution of form letters and advertising"); Sorauf, Patronage and Party, 3 Midwest J. Pol. Sci. 115, 118-120 (1959) (many state and local parties have thrived without a patronage system). Second, patronage decidedly impairs the elective process by discouraging free political expression by public employees. See Elrod, 427 U.S., at 372, 96 S.Ct., at 2689 (plurality opinion) (explaining that the proper functioning of a democratic system "is indispensably dependent on the unfettered judgment of each citizen on matters of political concern"). Respondents, who include the Governor of Illinois and other state officials, do not suggest any other overriding government interest in favoring Republican Party supporters for promotion, transfer, and rehire.

We therefore determine that promotions, transfers, and recalls after layoffs based on political affiliation or support are an impermissible infringement on the First Amendment rights of public employees. In doing so, we reject the Seventh Circuit's view of the appropriate constitutional standard by which to measure alleged patronage practices in government employment. The Seventh Circuit proposed that only those employment decisions that are the "substantial equivalent of a dismissal" violate a public employee's rights under the First Amendment. 868 F.2d, at 954-957. We find this test unduly restrictive because it fails to recognize that there are deprivations less harsh than dismissal that nevertheless press state employees and applicants to conform their beliefs and associations to some state-selected orthodoxy. See Elrod, supra, 427 U.S., at 356-357, 96 S.Ct., at 2681 (plurality opinion); ''West Virginia Bd. of Education v. Barnette,'' 319 U.S. 624, 642, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 1187, 87 L.Ed. 1628 (1943). The First Amendment is not a tenure provision, protecting public employees from actual or constructive discharge. The First Amendment prevents the government, except in the most compelling circumstances, from wielding its power to interfere with its employees' freedom to believe and associate, or to not believe and not associate.

Whether the four employees were in fact denied promotions, transfers, or rehires for failure to affiliate with and support the Republican Party is for the District Court to decide in the first instance. What we decide today is that such denials are irreconcilable with the Constitution and that the allegations of the four employees state claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1982 ed.) for violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Therefore, although we affirm the Seventh Circuit's judgment to reverse the District Court's dismissal of these claims and remand them for further proceedings, we do not adopt the Seventh Circuit's reasoning.

Petitioner James W. Moore presents the closely related question whether patronage hiring violates the First Amendment. Patronage hiring places burdens on free speech and association similar to those imposed by the patronage practices discussed above. A state job is valuable. Like most employment, it provides regular paychecks, health insurance, and other benefits. In addition, there may be openings with the State when business in the private sector is slow. There are also occupations for which the government is a major (or the only) source of employment, such as social workers, elementary school teachers, and prison guards. Thus, denial of a state job is a serious privation.

Nonetheless, respondents contend that the burden imposed is not of constitutional magnitude. Decades of decisions by this Court belie such a claim. We premised Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488, 81 S.Ct. 1680, 6 L.Ed.2d 982 (1961), on our understanding that loss of a job opportunity for failure to compromise one's convictions states a constitutional claim. We held that Maryland could not refuse an appointee a commission for the position of notary public on the ground that he refused to declare his belief in God, because the required oath "unconstitutionally invades the appellant's freedom of belief and religion." Id., at 496, 81 S.Ct., at 1684. In Keyishian v. Board of Regents of Univ. of New York, 385 U.S. 589, 609-610, 87 S.Ct. 675, 687, 17 L.Ed.2d 629 (1967), we held a law affecting appointment and retention of teachers invalid because it premised employment on an unconstitutional restriction of political belief and association. In Elfbrandt v. Russell, 384 U.S. 11, 19, 86 S.Ct. 1238, 1242, 16 L.Ed.2d 321 (1966), we struck down a loyalty oath which was a prerequisite for public employment.

Almost half a century ago, this Court made clear that the government "may not enact a regulation providing that no Republican . . . shall be appointed to federal office." Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 100, 67 S.Ct. 556, 569, 91 L.Ed. 754 (1947). What the First Amendment precludes the government from commanding directly, it also precludes the government from accomplishing indirectly. See Perry, 408 U.S., at 597, 92 S.Ct., at 2697 (citing Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513, 526, 78 S.Ct. 1332, 1342, 2 L.Ed.2d 1460 (1958)); see supra, at 72. Under our sustained precedent, conditioning hiring decisions on political belief and association plainly constitutes an unconstitutional condition, unless the government has a vital interest in doing so. See Elrod, 427 U.S., at 362-363, 96 S.Ct., at 2684 (plurality opinion) and 375, 96 S.Ct., at 2690 (Stewart, J., concurring in judgment); Branti, 445 U.S., at 515-516, 100 S.Ct., at 1293;  see also Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 83 S.Ct. 1790, 10 L.Ed.2d 965 (1963) (unemployment benefits); Speiser v. Randall, supra (tax exemption). We find no such government interest here, for the same reasons that we found that the government lacks justification for patronage promotions, transfers, or recalls. See supra, at 71-76.

The court below, having decided that the appropriate inquiry in patronage cases is whether the employment decision at issue is the substantial equivalent of a dismissal, affirmed the trial court's dismissal of Moore's claim. See 868 F.2d, at 954. The Court of Appeals reasoned that "rejecting an employment application does not impose a hardship upon an employee comparable to the loss of [a] job." Ibid., citing ''Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Education,'' 476 U.S. 267, 106 S.Ct. 1842, 90 L.Ed.2d 260 (1986) (plurality opinion). Just as we reject the Seventh Circuit's proffered test, see supra, at 75-76, we find the Seventh Circuit's reliance on Wygant to distinguish hiring from dismissal unavailing. The court cited a passage from the plurality opinion in Wygant explaining that school boards attempting to redress past discrimination must choose methods that broadly distribute the disadvantages imposed by affirmative-action plans among innocent parties. The plurality said that race-based layoffs placed too great a burden on individual members of the nonminority race, but suggested that discriminatory hiring was permissible, under certain circumstances, even though it burdened white applicants, because the burden was less intrusive than the loss of an existing job. 476 U.S., at 282-284, 106 S.Ct., at 1851-1852. See also id., at 294-295, 106 S.Ct., at 1857-1858 (WHITE, J., concurring in judgment).

Wygant has no application to the question at issue here. The plurality's concern in that case was identifying the least harsh means of remedying past wrongs. It did not question that some remedy was permissible when there was sufficient evidence of past discrimination. In contrast, the Governor of Illinois has not instituted a remedial undertaking. It is unnecessary here to consider whether not being hired is less burdensome than being discharged, because the government is not pressed to do either on the basis of political affiliation. The question in the patronage context is not which penalty is more acute but whether the government, without sufficient justification, is pressuring employees to discontinue the free exercise of their First Amendment rights.

If Moore's employment application was set aside because he chose not to support the Republican Party, as he asserts, then Moore's First Amendment rights have been violated. Therefore, we find that Moore's complaint was improperly dismissed.

We hold that the rule of Elrod and Branti extends to promotion, transfer, recall, and hiring decisions based on party affiliation and support and that all of the petitioners and cross-respondents have stated claims upon which relief may be granted. We affirm the Seventh Circuit insofar as it remanded Rutan's, Taylor's, Standefer's, and O'Brien's claims. However, we reverse the Seventh Circuit's decision to uphold the dismissal of Moore's claim. All five claims are remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.