Court Opinion

ID: 9483766
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:30:55.283181+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:49.649170
License: Public Domain

ESCHBACH, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
As the majority has pointed out in its opinion, the facts of this case differ from *88those in Upton v. Thompson, 930 F.2d 1209, 1216 (7th Cir.1991). The majority holds that this distinction is inapposite because Upton holds that “under the First Amendment as interpreted ... a sheriff may use political considerations when determining who will serve as deputy sheriff.” Id. at 1218. In this case, Dimmig’s complaint alleges that he was discharged for his refusal to actively campaign for the incumbent sheriff. Pls.Compl. at 119-10. The majority includes such a refusal to campaign within the boundaries of appropriate political considerations that can lead to discharge. In this way, the majority’s decision in this case carries the holding in Upton too far. A sheriff may now use Upton as a tool to compel speech in the form of political activity from his deputies. A result that permits speech to be compelled is strongly repugnant to First Amendment jurisprudence.1 For this reason, I respectfully dissent.

. E.g., Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U.S. 705, 714, 97 S.Ct. 1428, 1435, 51 L.Ed.2d 752 (1977) ("We begin with the proposition that the right of freedom of thought protected by the First Amendment against state action includes both the right to speak freely and the right to refrain from speaking at all.") (emphasis added); West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 633, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 1183, 87 L.Ed. 1628 (1943) (“It would seem that involuntary affirmation could be commanded only on even more immediate and urgent grounds than silence.”); Id. at 642, 63 S.Ct. at 1187 ("If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”).