Opinion ID: 2611215
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Good cause from the standpoint of public interest.

Text: [5] The state has a vital interest in having as its employees, and as employees of its political subdivisions, only those who conscientiously can take the loyalty oath prescribed in article XX, section 3, of the Constitution of California. Indeed, it has been upon consideration of avoiding at least the substantial evil of public insecurity that the loyalty oath has been sustained as a condition to public employment, Garner v. Board of Public Works, 341 U.S. 716 [71 S.Ct. 909, 95 L.Ed. 1317], Adler v. Board of Education of The City of New York, 342 U.S. 485 [72 S.Ct. 380, 96 L.Ed. 517, 27 A.L.R.2d 472], Steinmetz v. California State Board of Education, 44 Cal.2d 816 [285 P.2d 617], Pockman v. Leonard, 39 Cal.2d 676 [249 P.2d 267], Hirschman v. County of Los Angeles, 39 Cal.2d 698 [249 P.2d 287, 250 P.2d 145], Steiner v. Darby, 88 Cal. App.2d 481 [199 P.2d 429], or as a condition to candidacy for public office, Gerende v. Election Board, 341 U.S. 56 [71 S.Ct. 565, 95 L.Ed. 745], or as a condition for receiving benefits by a labor union under the Labor Relations Act, when officials' actions might imperil interstate commerce. ( American Communications Ass'n v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382 [70 S.Ct. 674, 94 L.Ed. 925].) There is no possible misuse of trust by one who because of his convictions or his conscientious doubts, declines to apply for government employment. It has been held that a certificate, showing that an applicant for public housing did not belong to certain organizations, could not be required, even under the existing federal statute which forbade public housing to members of such organizations (the `Gwinn Amendment,' Public Law 455, 82d Cong., 66 Stat. 403, 42 U.S.C.A. § 1411c), where there was no threatened evil relevant to the purposes of public housing, comparable to the suppressing of first amendment freedoms. ( Lawson v. Housing Authority of City of Milwaukee, 70 N.W.2d 605, cert. den. 350 U.S. 882 [76 S.Ct. 135, 100 L.Ed. 778]; to the same effect, see Housing Authority v. Cordova, 130 Cal. App.2d Supp. 883 [279 P.2d 215].) [6] In the case before us, there is not a mere irrelevancy. There is a very real possibility that the oath requirement as a condition for unemployment insurance would work at cross-purposes with the constitutional plan for the employing by government of persons whose consciences justify their taking the loyalty oath. The pressure put on an unemployed person to take the oath or to go without benefits, perhaps when he is in desperate circumstances, may lead to the taking of the oath with reservations, or with actual falsehood. It would seem, from the Constitution of California, article XX, section 3, that government employment is to be reserved for those who find no conflict between their basic political ideas and associations and the declarations contained in the prescribed oath. It would seem to be `good cause,' from the standpoint of the state, for an unemployed person to decline to take a grudging and dubious pledge of fealty when the privilege of public service is offered to him. We conclude that there is good cause, under section 1257 of the Unemployment Insurance Code, from the standpoint of the public interest, for an applicant for benefits to refuse to take an oath to which he cannot conscientiously subscribe, and it is immaterial whether or not his motives took into consideration the public interest.