Court Opinion

ID: 9492924
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:53:29.952468+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:33.384445
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
This is certainly a case of first impression, illustrating the confusion attendant on increasingly complex elaborations of the First Amendment rights of government employees. To somehow allay confusion, we must go back to first principles in search of an answer to the puzzle.
In that spirit I concur wholeheartedly with the majority that Mr. Bonds’s comments at the ill-fated Community Brainstorming Conference addressed a subject of public concern and that therefore the analysis set forth in Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968), is appropriate. See also Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983). That Bonds was a public employee and that he spoke on a subject within his purview as a policy analyst working for the City does not impair his rights as a citizen, so long as he expressed his own opinion on a subject that was of intense public interest. He was not complaining about the quality of the water in the office water cooler or some other “inside” matter pertaining to his working conditions, his relations with other employees or some other topic not of interest to the public at large. It may be symptomatic of the confusion that seems increasingly to be plaguing Pickering-type cases that the issue of public concern could even be raised here. Going back to first principles may mean looking at the Pickering case itself, where a high school teacher wrote a letter to the local newspaper highly critical of the way the Board of Education had handled certain bond issue proposals and its subsequent allocation of financial resources between the schools’ educational and athletic programs. See Pickering, 391 U.S. at 565-67, 575-78, 88 S.Ct. 1731. In many respects, including the tone of the letter as compared with the tone of Mr. Bonds’s public remarks, Pick*984ering sounds very much like the present case.
Before wrestling with the thorny legal issues, it would be helpful to put the Brainstorming Conference, at which Mr. Bonds spoke, in some perspective. This will help not only in evaluating Mr. Bonds’s conduct, but also in weighing the importance to the public of protecting his right to speak. Mr. Bonds’s speech dealt with a highly controversial issue with millions of dollars of public funds at stake. Holding a doctoral degree in Urban Studies (and having written his dissertation on the historical distribution of Community Development Block Grant funds in Milwaukee from 1975 to 1997), he is a foremost expert on the Community Development Block Grant process and he obviously felt deeply about it. He was therefore highly qualified to provide the public with information about this important subject, which was right at the center of public concern. The testimony of Vel Phillips' — who was Milwaukee’s first black and first female aider-man, later Wisconsin Secretary of State and a national figure — -and of Reuben Har-pole — long associated with higher education through the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee — indicate the importance of Mr. Bonds’s speech. These were the only trial witnesses who were actually present at the forum where Mr. Bonds spoke, and when asked to describe Mr. Bonds’s demeanor at the forum, Mr. Harpole answered, “[His demeanor was] [ajlmost essentially like he acted today [at the trial]. I’ve known Mr. Bond [sic] for about ten years and he’s always been even tempered, just... but he doesn’t bite his tongue on the truth.” Tr. at 138. See also id. at 137 (Harpole characterizing Bonds’s comments as “[s]mooth, nonthreatening, but speaking the truth”).
Ms. Phillips’s response to a question about what actions Mr. Bonds had advocated at the forum is instructive. She said, “I was very aware at that point and he was not advocating anything. He was being very ... He’s a soft spoken man just by his general demeanor and he was not in any way excited or ... well, he was just being very logical, very professional in his responses.” Tr. at 143. According to these witnesses, Mr. Bonds’s allegedly inflammatory remarks about recalling the Mayor and so on were not volunteered. They were offered in response to questions from the audience about what steps citizens could take if they disagreed with decisions about the Neighborhood Strategic Planning Process. See, e.g., Tr. at 143 (Phillips explaining that “someone asked the question what are some of the options if you think you’re not getting your fair share.... And [Bonds] was going through various things that you could do ...”).
With this indication of how the actual witnesses may have seen the speech, it is easier to strike the Pickering balance in a realistic way and without the credulity displayed by the majority. For, in the majority’s analysis, County officials are being allowed to speculate about Bonds’s future suitability for County employment with neither logic nor evidence to support their speculations. The first paradox is that Bonds was retained by the City which he supposedly grossly offended by his remarks. Neither his loyalty nor his ability to work cooperatively with his fellows has been questioned by the City. Yet the County, which he has not offended in any way, can wring its hands over Bonds’s supposed disloyalty and disruptiveness. After the withdrawal of County employment, the City did not discipline or reprimand (let alone fire) Mr. Bonds. Instead, the City continued to employ him. He went on providing critical analysis for the City, and ultimately the Community Development Policy Committee and the full council accepted his concerns and modified the Neighborhood Strategic Planning Process. See Tr. at 18-19, 93-95, 221. Mr. Bonds was later promoted, receiving a $9,000 pay raise, and praised by City officials. See Tr. at 41^42, 45, 48, 222. His views were essentially vindicated but at the cost of a County job. On the other side of the scale, the majority says very little about the interest of Mr. Bonds, as a citizen, in being able to speak honestly in *985public about a significant matter of public concern or about the public’s interest in being informed by him about a difficult matter of major importance to the public. See Pickering, 391 U.S. at 571-72, 88 S.Ct. 1731.
Perhaps, on this occasion Bonds’s passionate belief in his point of view caused him to speak too boldly and imprudently, but there is no showing that this has been Mr. Bonds’s habit as an employee of the City or that it would be his practice at the County, where he had been specifically instructed that analysts assume a low profile. There is nothing to indicate that the City ever issued similar instructions, and, in fact, Bonds’s boss, Alderman Gordon, directed him to participate in the forum. See Tr. at 27-28. Later on, the Alderman claimed in a deposition that he had received numerous telephone calls of protest at Bonds’s remarks, and the findings of fact submitted by the defendants, and adopted without change by the district court, translated this as “substantial disruption” for the City. See Defendant’s Proposed Findings of Fact ¶ 13; Tr. of Decision at 5 (adopting findings). There we real so findings about apologies requested or delivered. See Findings of Fact ¶¶ 11,12. Whether there were “apologies” requested or delivered seems of only marginal relevance. If Bonds apologized for any misunderstandings or perceived excesses of rhetoric, it would speak well for his civility, but it says little about the propriety or legality of his being “un-hired” by the County. The best indicator of the City’s “disruption” as a result of the Bonds incident is that Bonds was not reprimanded or sanctioned by the City in any way.
The majority has in its analysis ushered the policymaking employee exception, as such, out the front door, but has let it in again by the backdoor — using it as a makeweight of undetermined heft in the Pickering analysis. Thus, the majority writes, “The special loyalty and confidentiality needed from policymaking employees like Bonds exacerbates the damage to the employment relationship and government effectiveness caused by their insubordinate, disloyal or inappropriate speech.” Maj. op., supra, at 981. Bonds’s speech here may have been “inappropriate” in part, but it was surely neither insubordinate nor disloyal. Bonds was directed by his boss to appear at the Brainstorming Conference, and pointing out the means of political action does not equate with “disloyalty.” The majority ascribes to Chairman Karen Ordinans concerns that Bonds’s “statements revealed him to be untrustworthy and disloyal.” Maj. op., supra, at 982. All of this seems to assume that after the council vote (which went against Alderman Gordon), Bonds should have changed his tune and supported a change that both he and the Alderman had opposed, or be deemed “disloyal.”
Three County supervisors — Daniel Dil-berti, Jim McGuigan and Robert Krug— expressed concern about Bonds when they read the piece in the Journal Sentinel. See Maj. op., supra, at 974-75. But, there was opposition to Bonds’s termination: five Board members sent Ordinans a letter formally opposing the termination, see Tr. at 210-11, and four supervisors testified on Bonds’s behalf at the trial, see Tr. at 97-100 (Lori A. Lutzka), 110-19 (Elizabeth Cogg-Jones), 119-130 (James Gavin White), 130-34 (Michael Mayo, Sr.). I suppose this renders Bonds “controversial” and, by the lights of some, sanctionable for his speech. However, I would guess that several (perhaps all) members of the Board of Education were upset at teacher Pickering for writing a “disruptive” letter to the newspaper. This should never be a sufficient reason for denying First Amendment protection.
The fundamental error that I see in the majority’s analysis is in taking the expressed concerns of County officials at face value without requiring some showing that subjective concerns were supported by objective reality. Thus, the majority writes, “Bonds’s speech rightly troubled the County because it had undermined his credibili*986ty with several supervisors, and Ordinans reasonably believed that his hiring would have created workplace dissension.” Maj. op., supra, at 982. “Loss of credibility” is a pointedly subjective matter, and there are obvious problems with allowing it to vitiate constitutional rights. Freedom of speech would mean very little if one’s “credibility” with the listeners were the measure of one’s rights. And the majority inexplicably describes as “reasonable” Or-dinans’s concerns about “workplace dissension” which she based simply on what she thought Bonds’s “future behavior could be.” Tr. at 202. Potential problems may certainly figure in the Pickering analysis, but there must be some plausible link between what has happened in the real world and what might happen in the future. See Connick, 461 U.S. at 152, 103 S.Ct. 1684 (noting that although there is no need for “an employer to allow events to unfold to the extent that the disruption of the office and the destruction of working relationships is manifest ... a stronger showing may be necessary [to justify termination] if the employee’s speech more substantially involved matters of public concern”). Here we have a single episode in which a speaker may have engaged in rhetorical excesses. This may indicate a too fervent commitment to a point of view, but it is pure speculation that “workplace dissension” is anywhere in sight. The majority theorizes that the small size of the County staff would contribute to bad working relations with Mr. Bonds. This is just a wild guess based on a single speech. In fact, because Bonds’s comments were “in no way directed towards any person with whom [he] would normally be in contact in the course of his daily work” with the County, there is probably “no question of maintaining either discipline by immediate superiors or harmony among coworkers.... ” Pickering, 391 U.S. at 569-70, 88 S.Ct. 1731. Or, it might also be the case that the other County staffers would admire Bonds for his forthrightness and derive satisfaction from working with him. It is unlikely that failing to cancel Bonds’s hiring would be a “disaster,” on the theory that the County’s seven-person research staff would go out in the community and conduct themselves like Bonds or that Or-dinans’s “job would be complete chaos.” The remote possibility that other teachers might emulate Mr. Pickering in publicly critiquing Board of Education policy was no bar to First Amendment protection for him in the Pickering case. The lesson of the present incident as viewed by the majority is that staffers are to be seen and not heard and the knowledge they have acquired after many years of diligent application is not to be shared with a public eager to be informed. They will exercise their First Amendment rights at their own (high) risk.
What was totally lacking in the Bonds case was any investigation to discover exactly in what context he made his remarks, what was his relation to Alderman Gordon, whether the Alderman directed him to make remarks on the Neighborhood Strategic Planning Process and a variety of other matters that might reflect on Bonds’s alleged “insubordination” and “disruption.” Ordinans did not speak with Bonds or Alderman Gordon, see Tr. at 210, nor did she speak with anyone who was actually at the Brainstorming Conference, see Tr. at 203. An investigation would have disclosed that there was no disagreement in policy between Bonds and his boss, the Alderman. Alderman Gordon, who represents a ward in the Northside African-American community and to whom Bonds directly reported, had instructed him to write the report on the Neighborhood Strategic Planning Process and had directed him to appear and to speak in his place at the Community Brainstorming Conference. See Tr. at 14-15, 19, 27. Alderman Gordon had told Bonds to provide “blunt” analysis of the Neighborhood Strategic Planning Process. Tr. at 28. The Northside audience before whom first Gordon and then Bonds was to appear was certainly expected to be sympathetic to their views.
*987After the speech came to the attention of Ordinans, Bonds should have been given an opportunity to tell his side of the story in detail. He did have one telephone conversation with Hart, but that seems entirely inadequate under the circumstances. If Bonds were being dropped by the City, you can be sure there would have been at the very least a thorough investigation. I see no difference between the obligation to investigate of an employer where the term of employment has yet to begin and the obligation of a current employer. In fact, at the trial, Milwaukee Common Council President Kalwitz was asked what he would have done if he were concerned about Bonds’s speech. Alderman Kalwitz replied, “I would have approached Mr. Bonds and asked him under what circumstances he made those comments.” Tr. at 222. The alternative to an investigation is to give full credence to every fleeting concern and every vagrant fear felt by officials of the prospective employer when they have read a brief account of an incident in the newspaper. If nothing is required of the prospective employer beyond rampant speculation, the burden on First Amendment rights is unacceptable.
And what are the First Amendment values that are virtually ignored by the majority opinion? As has been earlier explained, Bonds’s speech involved a highly controversial subject in which there was intense public interest — particularly on the Northside of Milwaukee. Millions of dollars were at stake, and Bonds was an expert who could supply the pressing need for information. One obvious purpose of the First Amendment is to keep the public informed on important subjects of public concern. See Pickering, 391 U.S. at 571-72, 88 S.Ct. 1731. The result reached by the majority here will put new barriers in the path of government employees who might otherwise contribute to public enlightenment. One of the ironies of the situation is that, after being rejected by the County, Bonds went on to essentially vindicate his views in his further work for the City. The employer that did not strike out in panic at the first manifestation of Bonds’s independence was thus rewarded by his further, apparently fruitful, contributions of skill and knowledge. That is why the interests both of the government employee and of the public in the employee’s right to speak freely on matters of public concern may not be circumscribed on the basis of speculative and baseless fears.
Although the majority did not apply the policymaking employee exception here because it concluded that the County did not reject Bonds because of a political disagreement, a few comments on its extended discussion of the exception may be in order. It is important to recall the origins of the exception in determining whether it ought to apply. In its origins, the exception pertained to partisan differences: Republicans should not be forced to employ Democratic policymakers. See Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 372, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976); see also Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507, 100 S.Ct. 1287, 63 L.Ed.2d 574 (1980). From there it moved on to situations of electoral confrontation: a candidate should not have to employ his or her election opponent as a policymaker. See Wilbur v. Mahan, 3 F.3d 214, 217-18 (7th Cir.1993). More recently, the exception has been extended to the taking of policy (or political) positions by a policymaker in opposition to those of his or her employer. See Warzon v. Drew, 60 F.3d 1234, 1239 (7th Cir.1995). These are thought of as political differences of sufficient consequence to undermine the employer-employee relation of trust and confidence. This doctrine, however, in its evolution rests upon the idea — not that there is a simple disagreement on an issue between employer and employee — but that the disagreement is fundamental enough to weaken the bond between the two, so as to destroy the efficiency and effectiveness of the working relationship. The policy difference can then be said to be a “political” rift between a public employer and its policymaking employee. As the majority puts it, “disagreement between the employer and the policymaking employee *988over job-related policy issues [may cause] the same failure of loyalty and shared political mission between superior and subordinate as inconsistent political affiliation or viewpoint.” Maj. op., supra, at 978. This formulation should make it clear that the disagreement, in order to implicate the policymaking employee exception, must take a form from which a failure of loyalty and fidelity can reasonably be inferred as a strong probability, not a form from which such a failure would be only a possibility — something to watch for in the future.
In the present context, the exception does not apply for several reasons in addition to the one noted by the majority. First, Mr. Bonds had no policy disagreement with his relevant superior, Alderman Gordon. They both agreed that The Neighborhood Strategic Planning Process was a bad idea. Admittedly, the Common Council acted contrary to Alderman Gordon’s wishes and contrary to Mr. Bonds’s views, but this is hardly a policy difference that is relevant to Mr. Bonds’s ability to perform his policymaking job. That Alderman Gordon was critical of Mr. Bonds’s rhetoric (as opposed to the substance of his remarks) creates no policy difference impheating the policymaking employee exception.
There is another reason why the exception fails here. The basis of the policy-making exception is the idea that political antagonism may cast a doubt over the employee’s fidelity and ability to work cooperatively and effectively in the policy-making role. If a single speech were enough to trigger the exception, the exception would completely swallow any First Amendment protection that would otherwise be available. It is not surprising that in none of our cases has a single incident of policy disagreement been held to be enough to justify the sanctioning of a policymaker. And this is certainly not the case to recognize such a possibility.
There was therefore no basis either under the policymaking employee exception or under Pickering balancing for the County to rescind Bonds’s job. I therefore respectfully dissent.