On Sunday mornings I post puzzles with political overtones as a service to the DKos community. Today I have a real-life puzzle with political overtones which I hope the DKos community can help me with.
I am looking for information about a situation which may involve race discrimination. If you have experience with or knowledge of the civil service system, or if you have friends with that experience or knowledge, I hope you will take a few minutes to read this diary and, if you can, answer a few questions I have about how a particular aspect of civil service law is implemented in your state or locality.
One question I'm trying to find answers to regards changes that have occurred in the civil service as a result of a 2005 court decision. Join me below the fold and I'll explain what the case was about, what the decision said, and what I'm trying to find out.
Any help DK folks can give me with this will be very much appreciated!
Here, in brief, is the situation. A (black) Tennessee state trooper of many years service notified his superiors he intended to run for sheriff, which is a non-partisan office in the county where he resides. He was told that if he ran, he would have to be temporarily re-assigned to work in a different county from the one where he lives.
As far as he knows, no other Tennessee state trooper has ever been requested to do this. And he is aware of at least one case, from some years back, in which a (white) trooper was permitted to run for sheriff while working as a trooper in the same county in which he ran for office.
There is no written policy in Tennessee which forbids a state trooper running in an election from working in the county in which they are running. The trooper's superior officers have said this is an unwritten policy, presumably of fairly recent vintage.
On the surface it would appear a clear-cut case of differential treatment. But life is not always clear-cut.
When the trooper complained to his superior officers regarding this matter, he received a letter in reply which makes vague reference to the case of McEntee vs US Merit Systems Protection Board. This is a relatively recent case specifically involving civil servants running for non-partisan office, and it dramatically changed the understanding of what a non-partisan election is.
The events underlying the McEntee case occurred in 2001; a ruling came down (against McEntee) in 2003; McEntee appealed the decision to Federal court, and a decision (denying his appeal) was issued in April 2005. If the policy of temporarily relocating troopers running for office is based on McEntee, as the letter from the trooper's superior seems to imply, then the policy likely would be the result of discussions in 2005 or 2006. It is possible the treatment of this state trooper is not a case of race discrimination and that he simply happens to be the first person affected by a new -- unwritten -- policy.
Included with the reply his superior officer sent the trooper was a copy of OSC (Office of Special Counsel) guidelines. Unfortunately I have not been able to obtain a copy of the guidelines they sent in order to see if this does or does not provide a plausible reason for the unwritten transfer policy. I have looked online, but can find nothing which would indicate that transferring a trooper to a different county is required by or justified by the McEntee decision.
So that's what I'm trying to find out in this diary: what effect the McEntee decision has had in other parts of the country, and whether the policy of asking a trooper to relocate when running for non-partisan office is something which is or is not being implemented in other parts of the country.
McEntee vs US Merit Protection Services Board -- an explanation
In August 2001 Mike McEntee, an air traffic control specialists, declared himself as a candidate for mayor of Albuquerque NM. Prior to this he had consulted with the FAA's ethics counselor and their regional counsel to make sure civil service regulations did not bar him from running. Since candidates in this election ran without party affiliation on the ballot, this was considered a non-partisan election and he was told there was no problem with his being a candidate.
McEntee campaigned as a conservative Republican. One official campaign leaflet, for instance, stated, "Mike McEntee – the ONLY CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN in the race for Mayor", and went on to say, "[f]inally, Republicans have a chance to elect a Conservative to lead our city..." Two other campaign leaflets described McEntee as "The ONLY Conservative Republican" in the race. And a campaign fund-raising letter said things such as "In two months, we can FINALLY elect a REPUBLICAN MAYOR to lead this city!... We need your financial support now so Mike McEntee can put his Conservative Republican message in the mail, on TV and on radio.
On August 31st an OSC attorney informed McEntee that because his campaign was partisan his candidacy was a violation of the Hatch Act and offered McEntee the options of either resigning his candidacy or resigning his federal position. McEntee disputed that he was in violation of the Hatch Act and chose not to resign either from his candidacy or from his job. (McEntee lost the election.)
In November 2001 the OSC charged McEntee with violating the Hatch Act and asked that he be removed from his job. The Merit Systems Protection Board ruled that McEntee was indeed in violation and suspended him for 120 days as a penalty.
McEntee appealed the ruling. On April 15, 2005 the Federal Circuit appeals court upheld the board's ruling. (A pdf of appeals court decision is available here.)
This decision appears to have caused a major shift in general understanding of what a non-partisan election is. The fact that no party affiliation appears on a ballot is not sufficient to make an election non-partisan; the manner in which a candidate conducts their campaign is now a more significant factor.
I can see this causing government agencies to revise policies regarding civil service employees who choose to run for office. What I don't see yet is why or how this would lead to a policy requiring an employee to be relocated to a different county during an election. Indeed, everything I've seen so far seems to indicate just the opposite: that if something about a candidacy or a campaign is in violation of the Hatch Act, relocating to a different area has no effect on it being a violation.
But I am not a lawyer, nor am I experienced in civil service matters. So I am trying to find out, from people who do have experience, whether the policy the Tennessee trooper experienced seems reasonable or unreasonable in light of what is being done elsewhere in the country.
Here are the questions I am seeking answers to. The simplest and most basic one is this:
- If you are a civil service employee and were to announce your candidacy for a non-partisan office, would you be requested to relocate to a different county?
It's likely that even those of you who are civil service employees won't know the answer to that off-hand. But if anyone who is a civil service employee would be willing to ask a supervison that, as a hypothetical question, and post the answer in this diary when you receive a reply, I would be grateful. (I'll be keeping an eye on this diary for responses, so there is no hurry; whenever you find out the information and are able to post it here is fine.)
Other, related questions I am curious about, and would be grateful for whatever people can tell me, include:
- Have government agencies in your area made any changes in policy in light of the McEntee decision? If so, what changes were made (and when and how were they implemented)?
- Have any civil service employees in your area run for non-partisan office between 2006 and now? If so, what conditions or restrictions were put on them during the time they were running?
- Under what circumstances might a civil service employee be requested to temporarily relocate? How extraordinary (or how commonplace) would such a request be?
I am posting this diary at a time when, I hope, it will not push diaries of more immediate importance off the front page. But I hope to make brief mentions of this diary elsewhere on the site, over the next few days, in hopes of bringing it to attention of people who don't see it tonight. If you know of anyone here who is a civil servant -- especially a state trooper -- I would be very grateful if you could mention this diary to them and ask them to give it a glance.
Thank you in advance to anyone who is able to shed any light on this subject for me -- either through comments posted now, through comments posted days from now, or (if you prefer more privacy in your responses) through e-mails to me. (You can find my e-mail address in my user profile.)