Johnson v. State, Civil Service Dept., 40750

• Decision Date: 29 March 1968
• Docket Number: No. 40750,40750
• Citation: 157 N.W.2d 747,280 Minn. 61
• Parties: Charles J. JOHNSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Minnesota, CIVIL SERVICE DEPARTMENT, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 747

157 N.W.2d 747

280 Minn. 61

Charles J. JOHNSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Minnesota, CIVIL SERVICE DEPARTMENT, Respondent.

No. 40750.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

March 29, 1968.

Syllabus by the Court

The concluding paragraph of Minn.St.1965, § 43.28, prohibiting a state employee in the classified civil service from filing as a candidate for a compensated public office is not an unconstitutional infringement upon an employee's First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and association or a denial of equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

David W. Thurston, St. Paul, for appellant.

Douglas M. Head, Atty. Gen., James A. Anderson, Spec. Asst. Atty. Gen., St. Paul, for respondent.

OPINION

ROGOSHESKE, Justice.

This appeal challenges the constitutionality of the concluding paragraph of Minn.St.1965, § 43.28, of the State Civil Service Act prohibiting political activities of employees in the classified service of the state. It provides:

'Except as herein provided any officer or employee in the state classified service shall resign from the service upon filing as a candidate for public office. Officers or employees in the state classified service may be candidates for and occupy a village, township, or school district office if the office is one for which no compensation is provided.' ¹

From July 18, 1956, to August 2, 1966, petitioner-appellant was a permanent employee of the state working full-time in a position classified as Clerk II in the Motor Vehicle Division of the secretary of state's office in St. Paul. His salary was $356 per month. Aware of the restriction against filing as a candidate for public office and intending to challenge its validity, petitioner filed for the office of clerk of district court of Wabasha County on July 17, 1966. At this time his duties consisted of giving automobile title information to state and local law-enforcement agencies. Upon his failure to resign, his employment was terminated by a latter of dismissal from his appointing authority, the secretary of state. He appealed to the State Civil Service Board, and after a hearing the board affirmed his dismissal. Upon his petition for review to the district court, the decision of the board was affirmed.

Petitioner contends that he is entitled to reinstatement and back wages because the provision as applied to him violates the Federal Constitution in that it too broadly and without the required justification deprives him of his First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and association, and because the exclusion of specified noncompensated offices is arbitrary and discriminatory in violation of his right to equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Summarizing his arguments, he urges that the First Amendment (binding upon the states through the Fourteenth Amendment) protects his right to file for public office as a form of his rights of freedom of expression and association, and that these rights are being unreasonably restricted without the state's showing a compelling need to protect a clear public interest which is directly and substantially threatened by the proscribed activity. He further argues the supposed evils sought to be prohibited are not present in his case, since the public office for which he filed is located 100 miles from his place of employment and is nonpartisan. He points out that none of his fellow employees is a voter in Wabasha County and that his state duties involve no policy-making function. He insists that his candidacy would be neither disruptive of the performance of his duties nor affect the efficiency, integrity, and impartiality of the competitive classified service of the state. Finally, he asserts that the provision unreasonably excludes from the sanction of dismissal certain noncompensated local offices, the filing for which could produce the same evils sought to be prohibited, and that the statute thus denies equal protection of the laws by laying an uneven hand upon employees for engaging in the same type of prohibited conduct.

It should be borne in mind that, unlike similar civil-service restrictive statutes recently declared invalid in California and Oregon, the challenged provision of Minn.St.1965, § 43.28, was intended neither as a sweeping prohibition against an officer or employee taking 'any part in political management or affairs in any political campaign or election * * * other than to cast his vote or to privately express his opinion' nor as an absolute prohibition against his filing as a candidate for all Federal, state, and local public offices. Nor does a violation result in a forfeiture of 'all right to the public office for which he is a candidate.' Ore.Rev.Stat. 241.990(3). On the contrary, § 43.28, read as a whole, prohibits specific practices generally accepted as most likely to interfere with the efficient and impartial discharge of the duties of all meritsystem officers and employees. Briefly, it proscribes solicitation and receipt of funds for any political purpose or for any political party; serving as a delegate or alternate to a political convention; ² the use of authority or official influence to compel membership in any organization or to compel contributions to, or participation in, any political activity; and, finally, filing as a candidate for a public office other than those specifically excepted.

However, even though an employee is not expressly prohibited from seeking public office, the requirement that he resign upon filing as a candidate--and, by implication, that he be dismissed upon a failure to do so--does have the effect of infringing upon the First Amendment rights of employees to the extent that it prohibits an employee from running for certain public offices as one means of political expression. It does so, however, only to the extent of forbidding unbridled political expression and activity when an employee files for a compensated public office. It otherwise leaves untouched full participation by employees in the discussion and decision of political questions. Thus, the focal impact of the restriction is not so much an intrusion upon an employee's First Amendment rights of free speech as a limitation upon his running for public office in furtherance of his own political career or in furtherance of his own political views as a candidate during the campaign.

An understanding of this sensitive area in which the individual's freedom ends and the state's power begins requires acceptance of the threshold principle that the right to run for public office when employed as a means of expressing an individual's political view is protected against infringement by the First Amendment. ³ We may concede, as a matter of argument, that the provision challenged by petitioner is undesirably restrictive--as is likely indicated by the changes made by the last legislature. ⁴ Nevertheless, we are not persuaded that the more restrictive regulation, here resulting in petitioner's dismissal, was constitutionally repugnant.

It is fundamental that there exists no constitutional right to government employment (Adler v. Board of Education, 342 U.S. 485, 72 S.Ct. 380, 96 L.Ed. 517, 27 A.L.R.2d 472), and a state may, as a condition of employment, require compliance with any reasonable and nondiscriminatory restrict upon the activities of its restriction upon the activities of its which state employees as citizens might otherwise be constitutionally entitled. United Public Workers, etc. v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 67 S.Ct. 556, 91 L.Ed. 754; Slochower v. Board of Higher Education, 350 U.S. 551, 76 S.Ct. 637, 100 L.Ed. 692. The numerous cases which have considered the problem indicate that to meet the requirements of reasonableness it must be shown not only that the restriction is not arbitrary or discriminatory but also that it serves a manifest public interest by protecting against a clear, substantial, and direct threat to the efficiency, integrity, morale, and discipline of state employees and the merit system under which they are recruited, their performance evaluated, and their tenure assured. In applying this test, we are mindful that the First Amendment rights are preferred rights. Thus, any provision of law restricting such rights does not bear the usual presumption of constitutionality normally accorded to legislative enactments. The burden rests upon the state to show a compelling public need to protect a substantial public interest. See, Thornhill v. State of Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 60 S.Ct. 736, 84 L.Ed. 1093. ⁵

Applying these principles, we are satisfied that a sufficient showing has been made to justify holding the provision under attack constitutionally permissible. The provision had its inception with the adoption of a civil-service merit system for state employees in 1939. Its basic objective was to establish merit as the paramount consideration for the recruitment, advancement, and discipline of persons employed by ...