Court Opinion

ID: 9427845
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:22:05.523547+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:08.090023
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stewart’s
opinion concurring in the judgment avoided comment on the first branch of Mr. Justice Brennan’s analysis, but expressly relied on the same passage from Perry v. Sindermann that is quoted above.
Petitioner argues that Elrod v. Burns should be read to prohibit only dismissals resulting from an employee’s failure to capitulate to political coercion. Thus, he argues that, so long as an employee is not asked to change his political affiliation or to contribute to or work for the party’s candidates, he may be dismissed with impunity — even though he would not have been dismissed if he had had the proper political sponsorship and even though the sole reason for dismissing him was to replace him with a person who did have such sponsorship. Such an interpretation would surely emasculate the principles set forth in Elrod. While it would perhaps eliminate the more blatant forms of coercion described in Elrod, it would not eliminate the coercion of belief that necessarily flows from the knowledge that one must have a sponsor in the dominant party in order to retain one’s job.11 More importantly, petitioner’s interpretation would require the Court to repudiate entirely the conclusion of both Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Stewart that the First Amend*517ment prohibits the dismissal of a public employee solely because of his private political beliefs.
In sum, there is no requirement that dismissed employees prove that they, or other employees, have been coerced into changing, either actually or ostensibly, their political allegiance. To prevail in this type of an action, it was sufficient, as Elrod holds, for respondents to prove that they were discharged “solely for the reason that they were not affiliated with or sponsored by the Democratic Party.” 427 U. S., at 350.
II
Both opinions in Elrod recognize that party affiliation may be an acceptable requirement for some types of government employment. Thus, 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. Id,, at 366. In Elrod, it was clear that the duties of the employees — the chief deputy of the process division of the sheriff’s office, a process server and another employee in that office, and a bailiff and security guard at the Jpvenile Court of Cook County — were not of that character, for they were, as Mr. Justice Stewart stated, “nonpolicy-making, nonconfidential” employees. Id., at 375.12
*518As Mr. Justice Brennan noted in Elrod, it is not always easy to determine whether a position is one in which political affiliation is a legitimate factor to be considered. Id., at 367. Under some circumstances, a position may be appropriately considered political even though it is neither confidential nor policymaking in character. As one obvious example, if a State’s election laws require that precincts be supervised by two election judges of different parties, a Republican judge could be legitimately discharged solely for changing his party registration. That conclusion would not depend on any finding that the job involved participation in policy decisions or access to confidential information. Rather, it would simply rest on the fact that party membership was essential to the discharge of the employee’s governmental responsibilities.
It is equally clear that party affiliation is not necessarily relevant to every policymaking or confidential position. The coach of a state university’s football team formulates policy, but no one could seriously claim that Republicans make better coaches than Democrats, or vice versa, no matter which party is in control of the state government. On the other hand, it is equally clear that the Governor of a State may appropriately believe that the official duties of various assistants who help him write speeches, explain his views to the press, or communicate with the legislature cannot be performed effectively unless those persons share his political beliefs and party commitments. In sum, 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.
*519Having thus framed the issue, it is manifest that the continued employment of an assistant public defender cannot properly be conditioned upon his allegiance to the political party in control of the county .government. The primary, if not the only, responsibility of an assistant public defender is to represent individual citizens in controversy with the State.13 As we recently observed in commenting on the duties of counsel appointed to represent indigent defendants in federal criminal proceedings:
“[T]he primary office performed by appointed counsel parallels the office of privately retained counsel. Although it is true that appointed counsel serves pursuant to statutory authorization and in furtherance of the federal interest in insuring effective representation of criminal defendants, his duty is not to the public at large, except in that general way. His principal responsibility is to serve the undivided interests of his client. Indeed, an indispensable element of the effective performance of his responsibilities is the ability to act independently of the government and to oppose it in adversary litigation.” Ferri v. Ackerman, 444 U. S. 193, 204.
Thus, whatever policymaking occurs in the public defender’s office must relate to the needs of individual clients and not to any partisan political interests. Similarly, although an assistant is bound to obtain access to confidential information arising out of various attorney-client relationships, that information has no bearing whatsoever on partisan political concerns. Under these circumstances, it would undermine, rather than promote, the effective performance of an assistant public *520defender’s office to make his tenure dependent on his allegiance to the dominant political party.14
Accordingly, the entry of an injunction against termination of respondents’ employment on purely political grounds was appropriate and the judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

 As MR. Justice BreNNAN pointed out in Elrod, political sponsorship is often purchased at the price of political contributions or campaign work in addition to a simple declaration of allegiance to the party. Id., at 355. Thus, an employee's realization that he must obtain a sponsor in order to retain his job is very likely to lead to the same type of coercion as that described by the plurality in Elrod. While there was apparently no overt political pressure exerted on respondents in this case, the potentially coercive effect of requiring sponsorship was demonstrated by Mr. Finkel’s change of party registration in a futile attempt to retain his position. See n. 4, supra.

 The plurality emphasized that patronage dismissals could be justified only if they advanced a governmental, rather than a partisan, interest. 427 U. S., at 362. That standard clearly was not met to the extent that employees were expected to perform extracurricular activities for the party, or were being rewarded for past services to the party. Government funds, which are collected from taxpayers of all parties on a nonpolitical basis, cannot be expended for the benefit of one political party simply because that party has control of the government. The compensation of government employees, like the distribution of other public benefits, must be justified by a governmental purpose.
The Sheriff argued that his employees’ political beliefs did have a bearing on the official duties they were required to perform because political *518loyalty was necessary to the continued efficiency of the office. But after noting the tenuous link between political loyalty and efficiency where process servers and clerks were concerned, the plurality held that any small gain in efficiency did not outweigh the employees’ First Amendment rights. Id., at 366.

 This is in contrast to the broader public responsibilities of an official such as a prosecutor. We express no opinion as to whether the deputy of such an official could be dismissed on grounds of political party affiliation or loyalty. Cf. Newcomb v. Brennan, 558 F. 2d 825 (CA7 1977), cert. denied, 434 U. S. 968 (dismissal of deputy city attorney).

 As the District Court observed at the end of its opinion, it is difficult to formulate any justification for tying either the selection or retention of an assistant public defender to his party affiliation:
“Perhaps not squarely presented in this action, but deeply disturbing nonetheless, is the question of the propriety of political considerations entering into the selection of attorneys to serve in the sensitive positions of Assistant Public Defenders. By what rationale can it even be suggested that it is legitimate to consider, in the selection process, the politics of one who is to represent indigent defendants accused of crime? No ‘compelling state interest’ can be served by insisting that those who represent such defendants publicly profess to be Democrats (or Republicans).” 457 F. Supp., at 1293, n. 13.
In his brief petitioner attempts to justify the discharges in this case on the ground that he needs to have absolute confidence in the loyalty of his subordinates. In his dissenting opinion, Mr. Justice Stewart makes the same point, relying on an “analogy to a firm of lawyers in the private sector.” Post, at 521. We cannot accept the proposition, however, that there cannot be “mutual confidence and trust” between attorneys, whether public defenders or private practitioners, unless they are both of the same political party. To the extent that petitioner lacks confidence in the assistants he has inherited from the prior administration for some reason other than their political affiliations, he is, of course, free to discharge them.