Court Opinion

ID: 9714935
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:49:43.600238+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:33.787071
License: Public Domain

*406O’HERN, J.,
concurring.
I join in the opinion and judgment of the Court announced by Justice Handler. I write separately to suggest that the differences between the majority and dissent may be more rhetorical than real. My own views are perhaps oversimplified but help me to put the case in focus.
This case is not just about political bribery, although that is a legitimate concern. It is also about the rights of employers to be disassociated from the political views of their employees. I have no sense of the flavor of the controversy over this parking ordinance in the Borough of Chester. However, we are all familiar with similar heated controversies in our towns. Some citizens may consider the refusal to build an addition to a high school the most destructive decision imaginable. Others may consider the construction of the high school a serious economic loss to them. Some citizens may consider that a vote on a highrise building may destroy the character of the community and may affect their economic well being while others may not.
Those issues can become terribly controversial. The citizens in the community may divide into separate camps. One of the legal questions that we must consider is whether an elected official may hold the boss bound to the official’s political views.
The dissent faults the majority for creating “an ill-defined remedy” tied to a specific conflict of interest. Post at 434, 677 A.2d at 189. But the dissent’s remedy is also limited to “the hidden fix attempted by someone specially economically impacted by a vote and undertaken through a bribe or a threat or a retaliatory discharge.” Post at 434, 677 A.2d at 188. We can all agree that an employee of an employer “specially economically impacted by a vote” is thereby disqualified to vote. See Griggs v. Borough of Princeton, 33 N.J. 207, 220-21, 162 A.2d 862 (1960). Hence, the two remedies are conceptually alike.
A broader holding would undermine, not reinforce, democratic ideals. Ours is the oldest continuous form of democracy. It has *407survived thus far in New Jersey without a tort action for the wrongful discharge of a public officer for reasons related to the exercise of official duties. We must carefully mold any remedy that we fashion on this subject.
I believe that everyone’s politics are personal. When a public official solemnly swears, as the dissent emphasizes, “faithfully, impartially and justly [to] perform all the duties of ... [a] councilman,” post at 434, 677 A.2d at 189, that public official has no right to expect that his or her employer must at every moment remain associated with the political views expressed in the performance of those duties when those views are calamitous to the employer’s business. In a responsible democracy it is the public official who must choose between public office and his or her own private interest. I do not believe that we can require every citizen-employer to be bound to the politics of an employee.
In the long run, I believe that any more sweeping restraint on the right of employers to disassociate themselves from the politics of their employees would damage the effort to encourage citizens to participate in a democracy. Employers will necessarily hesitate to employ elected officials for fear that fair-minded employment decisions may become the subject of a lawsuit. I thus agree with the majority that a test that first inquires whether there has been a violation of the clear mandate of public policy expressed through our conflict-of-interest laws best balances the public interest in the free exercise of political rights by employers and employees.