Court Opinion

ID: 9426520
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:18:12.050161+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:01.436367
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stewart,
with whom Mr. Justice Black-mun joins, concurring in the judgment.
Although I cannot join the plurality’s wide-ranging opinion, I can and do concur in its judgment.
This case does not require us to consider the broad contours of the so-called patronage system, with all its variations and permutations. In particular, it does not require us to consider the constitutional validity of a system that confines the hiring of some governmental employees to those of a particular political party, and I would intimate no views whatever on that question.
*375The single substantive question involved in this case is whether a nonpolicymaking, nonconfidential government employee can be discharged or threatened with discharge from a job that he is satisfactorily performing upon the sole ground of his political beliefs. I agree with the plurality that he cannot. See Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 593, 597-598.