Opinion ID: 1226864
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The letter addressed a matter of public concern.

Text: Having concluded that Garcetti does not immunize defendants' actions here, we turn to whether the protest/proposal letter addressed a matter of public concern. Whether a statement rises to the level of public concern is a question of law, and in answering this question we look to the content, form, and context of the statement. Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 147-48, 148 n. 7, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983). Then we balance the interests of the [employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees. Schad v. Jones, 415 F.3d 671, 674 (7th Cir.2005) (quoting Pickering v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563, 568, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968)). The combination of these two inquiries is called the Connick-Pickering test. Schad, 415 F.3d at 674. It is by now well established that speech protesting government waste addresses a matter of public concern and is therefore entitled to constitutional protection. See, e.g., Wainscott v. Henry, 315 F.3d 844, 849 (7th Cir.2003) (An employee's ability to highlight the misuse of public funds or breaches of public trust is a critical weapon in the fight against government corruption and inefficiency.); see also Miller v. Jones, 444 F.3d 929, 935 (7th Cir.2006). Competitive bidding for state contracts might prevent government waste by ensuring that the state is getting the most for its money. Generally speaking, when vendors compete for state dollars, taxpayers benefit. [1] Chaklos and Wist's letter protests ISP's award of a sole source contract to NFSTC on the basis that the State could save itself money by soliciting competitive bids. The matter challenged (the use of public funds) is a matter of public interest, and we find it hard to imagine the residents of Illinois would not be concerned with the State awarding a $750,000 contract for services to an out-of-state organization without shopping around. Additionally, the letter suggests that NFSTC did not have adequate experience to handle the training of the new scientists because its prior training programs always relied on outside instructors. The letter goes on to state that plaintiffs' company (MFS) could provide the training at lower cost and, thus, with substantial additional savings to the State of Illinois. Defendants seize upon this language to characterize the letter as a self-interested bid for a service contract with the State. They maintain that plaintiffs' offer to provide training services and the specifics of their proposal demonstrate that the point of the letter was not to expose wrongdoing on the part of the State but rather to further plaintiffs' purely private interest in securing the contract for their own company. See, e.g., Kokkinis v. Ivkovich, 185 F.3d 840, 844 (7th Cir. 1999). This would likely be a simpler case if the letter simply lodged a protest regarding the award of a no-bid contract without also soliciting the contract. Speech that addresses a private or personal interest, as opposed to a community one, does not satisfy the standards for First Amendment protection. Spiegla v. Hull, 371 F.3d 928, 935 (7th Cir.2004). However, we must look at the content of the speech as a whole, Gazarkiewicz v. Town of Kingsford Heights, Indiana, 359 F.3d 933, 942-43 (7th Cir.2004), and in doing so, we conclude that this letter addresses a matter of public concern. It protests inefficient spending of public funds on a service contract and contends that the State could save itself money by soliciting competitive bids. By itself, plaintiffs' proposal may not address a matter of public concern, but we do not agree with defendants that this aspect of the letter nullifies the remainder of the letter which does address a matter of public concern. See, e.g., Connick, 461 U.S. at 149, 103 S.Ct. 1684 (speech addressed a matter of public concern where only one question out of fourteen related to a matter of public concern). Furthermore, the details of the proposal demonstrate just how wasteful the decision to award the contract without soliciting competitive bids would bethe letter indicates plaintiffs would save the State of Illinois roughly $200,000. Defendants also argue that plaintiffs' self-serving motives outweigh the public importance of the speech. As an initial matter, we note that content remains the most important factor in determining whether speech addresses a matter of public concern. See Cliff v. Bd. of Sch. Comm'rs of City of Indianapolis, Ind., 42 F.3d 403, 410 (7th Cir.1994) (cautioning against using a speaker's motive as an absolute litmus test [to] supplant content in terms of overall importance to the public concern inquiry.). Although we consider the motive of the speaker as part of the context in which the speech was made, see Miller, 444 F.3d at 937, we have emphasized that speech of public importance is only transformed into a matter of private concern when it is motivated solely by the speaker's personal interests. Gazarkiewicz, 359 F.3d at 942 (emphasis in original). That is not the case here. Plaintiffs may have been motivated in part by some personal interest but they also were concerned that the State was wasting money and that NFSTC did not have adequate experience to handle the training. [2] Recall that NFSTC was supposed to remedy ISP's lack of forensic scientists so it could begin to process its DNA backlog. Given that ISP had decided to grant the contract to an organization that (according to plaintiffs) was not equipped to deal with a problem that had attracted significant public attention, we find that the circumstances in which Chaklos and Wist protested the no-bid award demonstrate that the speech was not based on a purely personal interest. For these reasons, we find plaintiffs' letter addressed a matter of public concern and was not motivated solely by personal interests.