Court Opinion

ID: 9476138
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:48:06.040215+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:08.682082
License: Public Domain

TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
For the reasons stated in my dissenting opinion in Alicea Rosado v. Carmen Sonia Zayas, 813 F.2d 1263 (1st Cir.1987) (Torradla, J., dissenting), I respectfully dissent. I cannot, however, for the sake of saving myself some work, and perhaps the reader also, leave it at that. I find it difficult to remain silent in the face of the majority’s assertion that the functions that appear in the official job description involve “policy-making, confidential, and official communicative tasks,” ante at 892-893. It is difficult for me to comprehend why the purchase of pencils, typewriters and similar matters1 would require policymaking to any important degree, would implicate the need for secrecy to any extent, or would involve the making of a speech. The same can be said of the other functions listed by the majority as including policymaking, confidential and official communicative tasks. Rather than that, in essence, they are functions exercised by any middle-echelon supervisor. Putting the title of “Re*894gional Director” on appellee does not make him any more exalted. To equate the exercise of such routine administrative functions to being a confidential policymaker is in my opinion, with all due respect, a misinterpretation of the facts, and a devaluation of the burden which appellants must carry to establish that such a position is one in which “party affiliation is an appropriate requirement for the effective performance of the public office involved.” Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507, 518, 100 S.Ct. 1287, 1295, 63 L.Ed.2d 574 (1980). See Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 362, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 2684, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976). Appellee is more like the administrative technocrat in de Choudens v. Government Development Bank of Puerto Rico, 801 F.2d 5 (1st Cir.1986) (en banc), for whom we concluded no political affiliation was required.
Lastly, I believe we are too facile in our assumption of interlocutory appellate jurisdiction. Irrespective of the outcome of the federal damage action, there remains the pendent state cause against appellant personally, see Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 105 S.Ct. 3099, 3106, 87 L.Ed.2d 114 (1985), as well as the claims for equitable relief. See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2739 n. 34, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). Thus the policy reasons for allowing an exception to the rule against interlocutory appeal are not present. See Bever v. Gilbertson, 724 F.2d 1083, 1086-1087 (4th Cir.1984); cert. denied sub. nom. Rockefeller v. Bever, 469 U.S. 948, 105 S.Ct. 349, 83 L.Ed.2d 285 (1984).
I dissent.

. "[RJeview and approve requisitions for equipment, materials and supplies needed for the operation of the regional and the different [REA] programs.” Ante, at 892.