Opinion ID: 745479
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Relationship between Pickering and Elrod

Text: 19 Two lines of Supreme Court decisions define the parameters of a public employer's right to take adverse action against an employee for the exercise of First Amendment rights. The first set of cases, which includes Pickering, Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983), and Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378, 107 S.Ct. 2891, 97 L.Ed.2d 315 (1987), generally governs a public employee's right to speak out on matters of public concern. The second set of cases, which includes Elrod, Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507, 100 S.Ct. 1287, 63 L.Ed.2d 574 (1980), and Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois, 497 U.S. 62, 110 S.Ct. 2729, 111 L.Ed.2d 52 (1990), generally governs a public employee's right to political affiliation or association. See generally Craig D. Singer, Comment, Conduct and Belief: Public Employees' First Amendment Rights to Free Expression and Political Association, 59 U. Chi. L.Rev. 897 (1992). 20 In Pickering, the Supreme Court established a balancing test for determining when a public employer may dismiss an employee for exercising the right to free expression. Although a citizen does not lose the right to speak on matters of public concern by accepting public employment, the Court recognized that the state, as an employer, has a strong interest in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees. 391 U.S. at 568, 88 S.Ct. at 1735. In each case, the ultimate question is whether the employee's right to speak is outweighed by the public employer's interest in the effective operation of the workplace. Specifically, a court must assess the extent of the disruption caused by the employee's speech on workplace discipline, harmony among co-workers, working relationships, and the employee's job performance, and determine whether the disruption justifies the employer's attempt to stifle the employee's expressive activity. Id. at 569-73, 88 S.Ct. at 1735-37. In Rankin, the Court added another factor to this balancing: 21 [S]ome attention must be paid to the responsibilities of the employee within the agency. The burden of caution employees bear with respect to the words they speak will vary with the extent of authority and public accountability the employee's role entails. 22 483 U.S. at 390, 107 S.Ct. at 2900. If the harmful effects of the expression to the public workplace outweigh its benefits to the speaker-employee, then the employer is justified in taking adverse action against the employee in order to mitigate the negative effects. 3 Because of the infinite variety of factual circumstances in which such conflicts might arise, the Court has not announced a general standard in this area, but has instead relied upon an identification and weighing of competing interests on a case-by-case basis. James Kimmell, Jr., Note, Politics and the Non-Civil Service Public Employee: A Categorical Approach to First Amendment Protection, 85 Colum. L.Rev. 558, 560 (1985). 23 In contrast to the ad hoc balancing employed in the Pickering free speech analysis, the Supreme Court has employed in the Elrod line of cases a categorical approach for determining the parameters of a public employer's right to take adverse action against an employee on the basis of the employee's political affiliation or association. See id. at 560-62. The Court has ruled that the First Amendment prohibits so-called patronage dismissals of most low-level employees, but permits such dismissals for policymakers, those for whose positions the employer can establish that party affiliation is an appropriate requirement for the effective performance of the public office involved. Branti, 445 U.S. at 518, 100 S.Ct. at 1295. This policymaker exception to the general prohibition against affiliation-motivated adverse actions was originally established in Elrod, in which the Court acknowledged that public employers have a legitimate need for political loyalty of employees, not to the end that effectiveness and efficiency be ensured, but to the end that representative government not be undercut by tactics obstructing the implementation of policies of the new administration, policies presumably sanctioned by the electorate. 427 U.S. at 367, 96 S.Ct. at 2687. However, because this governmental end can be sufficiently served by [l]imiting patronage dismissals to policymaking positions, the Court also ruled that a public employer cannot rely upon its preference for politically loyal employees to justify the discharge of non-policymaking employees. Id. 24 The policymaker exception was subsequently refined by Branti, which ruled that the ultimate inquiry is not whether the label 'policymaker' or 'confidential' fits a particular position; rather the question is whether the hiring authority can demonstrate that party affiliation is an appropriate requirement for the effective performance of the public office involved. 445 U.S. at 518, 100 S.Ct. at 1295. This Circuit has interpreted Branti 's version of the policymaker exception to mean that political affiliation is an appropriate requirement when there is a rational connection between shared ideology and job performance. Savage v. Gorski, 850 F.2d 64, 68 (2d Cir.1988). In the instant opinion, we will use policymaker as a convenient shorthand for a person occupying a position calling for party loyalty within the meaning of the Elrod line of cases. See Regan v. Boogertman, 984 F.2d 577, 580 (2d Cir.1993). 4 25 The pending case presents two distinct issues arising out of the relationship between the Pickering and the Elrod lines of cases. As the following discussion demonstrates, neither issue was clearly settled at the time of McEvoy's two demotions. 26 (a) Does Elrod Insulate an Employer Motivated Both by the Political Affiliation and the Speech Activities of an Employee? 27 The first issue--relevant to McEvoy's demotion from Commissioner to Deputy Chief--arises when adverse action is taken against a policymaking employee both because of political affiliation and speech. The narrow issue posed by that circumstance is whether adverse action that Elrod permits on the ground of political affiliation is precluded because the action was also motivated by speech that Pickering arguably protects. 5 This is a variant of the dual motivation problem that occasionally arises in cases involving activity protected by the First Amendment, see Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 287, 97 S.Ct. 568, 576, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977); Title VII, see Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228, 240-41, 109 S.Ct. 1775, 104 L.Ed.2d 268 (1989) (plurality opinion); the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, see Ostrowski v. Atlantic Mutual Insurance Cos., 968 F.2d 171, 180 (2d Cir.1992); or the National Labor Relations Act, see Holo-Krome Co. v. NLRB, 954 F.2d 108, 110 (2d Cir.1992). In the typical dual motivation case, however, a defendant accused of acting for an impermissible reason asserts, as an affirmative defense, that it would have taken the same action for a permissible reason. In the pending case, the defendants are accused of acting against a policymaking employee for both a permissible reason (political association unprotected by Elrod ) and an impermissible reason (speech arguably protected under Pickering ). In this context, where the lines between political association and speech are often blurred, we conclude that adverse action may be taken against a policymaker because of political affiliation, even if the employer was also motivated in part by speech protected under Pickering. The employer need not persuade the trier that it would have acted against the policymaker solely because of political affiliation. If it in fact acted, at least in part, for that reason, the adverse action is lawful under Elrod. 28 We have found no previous decision that has fully considered this question. Moreover, we acknowledge some unease about our conclusion that an employer is not liable when both a permissible consideration (the employee's political affiliation) and an impermissible consideration (the employee's speech) motivated its decision. In the Title VII context, for instance, it is well established that where the employee proves that his employer took adverse action against him for both a legitimate reason (the employee's chronic tardiness, for instance) and an illegitimate reason (the employee's race, for instance), the employer is liable, at least for some relief. See, e.g., Fields v. New York State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, 115 F.3d 116, 120 (2d Cir.1997) (plaintiff may prevail by proving that an impermissible reason, even though not the only reason for an adverse employment decision, was a 'substantial' or 'motivating' factor, or 'made a difference' in the decision). This rule--that an employer motivated to act by a combination of permissible and impermissible reasons is liable to the employee--appears in other contexts as well. See, e.g., Cronin v. Aetna Life Insurance Co., 46 F.3d 196, 203 (2d Cir.1995) (ADEA) ([T]he plaintiff is not required to show that the employer's proffered reasons were false or played no role in the employment decision, but only that they were not the only reasons and that the prohibited factor was at least one of the 'motivating' factors.) (citing Price Waterhouse, 490 U.S. at 247, 109 S.Ct. at 1788-89 (plurality opinion)). 29 Nonetheless, we deem this general rule inappropriate to the context of politically motivated actions because of the special concerns present in situations in which a policymaking employee, whose political beliefs alone subject him to dismissal, creates additional basis for concern by his employer by speaking out on controversial matters. In Branti, the Supreme Court noted that if an employee's private political beliefs would interfere with the discharge of his public duties, his First Amendment rights may be required to yield to the State's vital interest in maintaining governmental effectiveness and efficiency. 445 U.S. at 517, 100 S.Ct. at 1294. It would seem, then, that where such an employee's speech activities contributed to further interference with the discharge of his public duties, an employer should be no more constrained in acting against the employee than if the employee had remained silent. Application of the general dual motivation rule in this context, however, would lead to precisely the opposite result: a policymaker who additionally disrupts the public workplace and undermines his relationship with the employer by exercising his speech rights would be more protected than a similarly situated employee who remains silent and merely quietly, inoffensively, undemonstratively belongs to the wrong political party. Wilbur v. Mahan, 3 F.3d 214, 218 (7th Cir.1993). We therefore conclude that since a public employer is permitted to dismiss or demote a policymaking employee merely because it dislikes the employee's political affiliation, the employer should be permitted to take the same action when the employee not only belongs to a disfavored party or holds the wrong political beliefs, but additionally disrupts the workplace by speaking out. Cf. id. at 219 (It would be a strange rule that gave more job protection to policymaking employees who vociferously attack their superiors than to policymaking employees who do their best to serve those superiors faithfully but have the misfortune to belong to the wrong party. It would give policymaking employees and other sensitive employees an incentive to attack their bosses in order to retain their jobs.). 30 We caution that our decision on this point does not immunize a public employer when its adverse action against a policymaking employee was not even in part motivated by the employee's political affiliation. Where the evidence shows that the employer discharged a policymaker solely for speaking out on matters of public concern, and that the policymaker's political beliefs played no role in the employer's decision, Elrod is inapplicable and Pickering must be applied, 6 although how it should be applied remains for consideration in Part III(b), infra. Moreover, employers should understand that our decision does not immunize adverse employment actions motivated partially by the policymaking employee's political affiliation and partially by impermissible factors such as the employee's race, sex, or national origin. Where the evidence demonstrates that the employer discharged a policymaker both because he belonged to the wrong political party and because he was Black, for instance, the general dual motivation rule would apply, and the employer would be liable. In short, we limit the present ruling to situations in which the adverse action taken against a policymaking employee is motivated by both the employee's political affiliation and by the employee's speech. 7 31 (b) Is There a Policymaker Exception to the Pickering Balancing Test? 32 The second issue--relevant to McEvoy's demotion from Deputy Chief to Captain--arises when an employer takes adverse action against an employee who would qualify as a policymaker within the meaning of the Elrod line of cases, but the action is taken solely in response to the employee's exercise of his Pickering-protected speech rights. The precise issue is whether there is a policymaker exception to Pickering balancing that immunizes the employer's adverse action, or whether the employee's policymaking status is merely one factor to be considered in determining whether the employer's right to prevent disruptions in the workplace outweighs the employee's right to speak out on matters of public concern. 33 Although some courts have suggested that a dispositive policymaker exception also exists in the Pickering context, see, e.g., Wilbur, 3 F.3d at 217-19; see also Leon Friedman, New Developments in Civil Rights Litigation and Trends in Section 1983 Actions, SB24 ALI-ABA 295, 368 (1996) (New Developments ) ([S]ome courts have held that policymaking exception recognized in Elrod-Branti situations apply also when adverse action [is] taken against public employee because of exercise of free speech.), we reject such a position. As the Supreme Court has noted on several occasions, the nature of the job held by the plaintiff-employee plays a significant, but not dispositive, role in the Pickering balance. In Pickering itself, for instance, the Court, in the context of recognizing that whether the employee's statement impairs discipline, disrupts harmony among co-workers, has a detrimental impact on close working relationships, or impedes the speaker's performance of his job all play a role in the balancing test, also noted the following: 34 It is possible to conceive of some positions in public employment in which the need for confidentiality is so great ... [, or] in which the relationship between superior and subordinate is of such a personal and intimate nature[,] that certain forms of public criticism of the superior by the subordinate would seriously undermine the effectiveness of the working relationship between them.... We intimate no views as to how we would resolve any specific instance of such situations, but merely note that significantly different considerations would be involved in such cases. 35 391 U.S. at 570 n. 3, 88 S.Ct. at 1735 n. 3. Nowhere in Pickering did the Court suggest that the policymaking nature of an employee's position would automatically permit the employer to take action against him in response to his exercise of free speech rights. More recently, the Court in Rankin explicitly expanded upon Pickering 's list of the relevant factors for determining the significance of the public employer's interest: 36 [I]n weighing the State's interest in discharging an employee based on any claim that the content of a statement made by the employee somehow undermines the mission of the public employer, some attention must be paid to the responsibilities of the employee within the agency. The burden of caution employees bear with respect to the words they speak will vary with the extent of authority and public accountability the employee's role entails. Where, as here, an employee serves no confidential, policymaking, or public contact role, the danger to the agency's successful functioning from that employee's private speech is minimal. 37 483 U.S. at 390-91, 107 S.Ct. at 2900 (emphases added). [T]he more the employee's job requires confidentiality, policymaking, or public contact, the greater the state's interest in firing her for expression that offends her employer. Singer, supra, at 901; see also Caruso v. DeLuca, 81 F.3d 666, 670 n. 3 (7th Cir.1996); Hall v. Ford, 856 F.2d 255, 261-64 (D.C.Cir.1988). 38 In sum, although the Supreme Court has ruled that the policymaking status of an employee is relevant to the Pickering analysis, it has never stated that the discharged employee's position in the employment hierarchy would automatically tilt the Pickering balance in the employer's favor. We therefore read Pickering and its progeny as holding that the policymaking status of the discharged or demoted employee is very significant in the Pickering balance, but not conclusive. That the nature of the employee's position is important to the free speech balancing test should not be surprising. Common sense tells us that the expressive activities of a highly placed supervisory, confidential, policymaking, or advisory employee will be more disruptive to the operation of the workplace than similar activity by a low level employee with little authority or discretion. See, e.g., Bates v. Hunt, 3 F.3d 374, 378 (11th Cir.1993) (For some categories of employees such as those in a confidential or policy-making relation to their public employer, First Amendment constitutional protection is often slight.); Kinsey v. Salado Independent School District, 950 F.2d 988, 994 (5th Cir.1992) (noting that government's interests more easily outweigh the employee's in Pickering cases that involv[e] public employees who occupy policymaker or confidential positions). Indeed, where the employee holds an extremely confidential or highly placed advisory position, it would be unlikely if the Pickering balance were to be struck in his favor. The tremendous disruption to the public workplace likely to result from the critical speech of such an employee would in most cases outweigh any First Amendment interests possessed by that employee. Cf. Kaluczky, 57 F.3d at 209. 39 A somewhat closer question is whether the lack of a policymaker exception to Pickering was clearly established at the time of McEvoy's second demotion. Kaluczky provides some indication that it settled the point by stating that there is no explicit Elrod-Branti policymaker exception to the Pickering line of cases. 57 F.3d at 210. But even this sentence left open the possibility of an implicit exception, a view supported by the Court's observation that the governmental interests recognized in both lines of cases [Elrod and Pickering ] are essentially the same. Id. Moreover, Kaluczky did not have to decide the analytical significance of a policymaker role in a case, like ours, where adverse employment action (the second demotion) is taken solely because of speech. In Kaluczky the measures allegedly taken to punish the employee for his speech were exactly the same as those allegedly taken against him as a policymaker in the administration of the rival political party. Id. Indeed, Professor Friedman has read Kaluczky as supporting a policymaker exception to Pickering. See New Developments, supra, at 368. Although we do not think Kaluczky went so far, we are persuaded that at the time of McEvoy's second demotion the issue of a policymaker exception to Pickering was not definitively settled against employers. We now rule, consistent with our understanding of Pickering and Kaluczky, that in a pure Pickering case, an employee's policymaking role does not provide an employer with complete insulation for adverse employment action, but does weigh, normally heavily, on the employer's side in the Pickering balance.