SoS facility employees "shall" take leave to campaign for elected office?

[kaleagal]

A friend over in Crawford County posted about this at our DownstateILDemocrats yahoo group and subsequently has been emailing me with updates.

The following is the story she told.
"A candidate for county office is presently employed at the SOS facility and has been told that they have to either take a leave of absence from the SOS position while they run for office or to withdraw from the race. The new rule was put out by the SOS office dated in May and received by the candidate in June of this year. The candidate filed to run for office last December under the previous rule, which stated that a person "may" take a leave of absence while they are running for an elected office. The new rule states that they "shall" take a leave. We have been informed that this rule applies to anyone who is employed by the state and is running for elected office."

In a following email she wrote this.
"It does affect a lot of people who are in the union, and as I understand it, a lot of angry emails have been going to S'field. Supposedly this all came about from employees working on campaign stuff while they are on state time. We heard that several people have already taken a leave or withdrawn from their races, but I will believe that when I see it. .....our candidate has a week to 10 days
at the most before she will be forced to withdraw."

And then again this.
"This case concerned a candidate for county sheriff who was forced to take a leave of absence to run for office. I think it would apply to the problem we are having, except that it is the state who is violating the individual's rights, instead of the county.

http://www.ag.state.il.us/opinions/1997/97-023.html
It is a well settled rule that State law may recognize liberty interests more extensive than those independently protected by the Federal Constitution. (Mills v. Rogers (1982), 457 U.S. 291, 300; Sherman v. Four County Counseling Center (7th Cir. 1993), 987 F.2d 397, 407.) The General Assembly has done so in this Act. Sections 5 and 10 of the Act prohibit units of local government from making or enforcing any rule or ordinance that inhibits or prohibits an employee from exercising his or her political rights, which includes, without limitation, the right to seek public office. As Wilbur v. Mahan makes clear, a mandatory unpaid leave rule unquestionably has the effect of inhibiting an employee from seeking public office. (Wilbur v. Mahan (7th Cir. 1993), 3 F.3d 214, 215.) Therefore, although the Macon County Merit Commission rule in question may not abridge a candidate's first amendment right of free speech, it is in irreconcilable conflict with the Local Governmental Employees Political Rights Act, which can and does provide more expansive guarantees than those granted under the United States Constitution."

Now me again.---Does anyone know enough about the Secretary of State to understand why he would create this rule without so much as a grandfather clause for those already on the ballot before he sent it out? If not, it occurs to me that maybe Lisa Madigan might be one person to write to about this. Beyond her and the letters to Springfield that they are sending, does anyone in here have any ideas on how to go after this problem quickly?---Karen

[kevsand]

1. The "Local Governmental Employees Political Rights Act"

does not apply to state employees, only to local ones (i.e., county, township, municipal, or taxing districts). There may be other acts somewhere which do apply to state employees, but this one does not, and is unfortunately therefore legally irrelevant.

[kevsand]

2. I just finished reviewing

the "State Officials and Employees Ethics Act" (5 ILCS 430/) -- and yes, I'm bored.

I don't see anything in there which would prohibit a state employee from running for political office on their own time, i.e., when they're not on the state clock. On the other hand, there does not appear to be any specific right to do so, either.

In fact, I have not yet found the right for state employees to run for and/or hold public office to be specifically delineated anywhere. Rather, it appears to be inferred or implied by extension from the rights to free speech and to vote which are contained in both the U.S. and Illinois Constitutions.

Lisa Madigan is clearly the office to contact. Writing is good, because it creates the paper trail, but it also is really slow, and may not generate a response in a timely fashion. In addition to writing, I would also generate some phone calls to the State AG's offices. (I wish I'd known about this a week ago; we could have asked her in person. Oh well...)

[mopinko]

3. make them give it to her in writing.

you would be surprised how many people fold them when you insist that they show them. tell her to insist that they produce a copy of the rules and regulations to which they refer. chapter and verse. including the when they were changed, by whom, at what meeting, of what body, in what room of what building right now.
best of luck. this cannot possibly be legal.

[kaleagal]

4. Thank you!

I guess, we'll see how this goes.

[kaleagal]

5. Update later in the day

I called a local AG office and was made to realize that typically the Sec. of State would have run the rule by the AG to make sure he was on solid legal ground before putting it in place. So, the AFSCME Union has to find out how many people are affected by it to see if there is enough support to hire a lawyer(or lawyers) to challenge the rule. If that happens and she signed off on it in the first place, then she'll be defending the SoS.

[kaleagal]

6. The final word...for now

The candidate had to drop out of the race, because she couldn't afford to take unpaid leave or afford legal help in fighting the rule. From what I understand, the few others that were affected were given a verbal heads up in advance and either took themselves off the ballot or took unpaid leave before the official word went out. So, there didn't seem to be enough of a group to work on challenging it together. Because of this rule, Crawford County lost at least that one Democrat on their ballot. I don't know how many others who dropped out were Dems. But, I hope we can all keep this in mind for future reference, in case there is something that can be done to avoid the same discrimination from happening in the future, regardless of political party affiliation.
Karen

[mopinko]

7. so, is jesse white taking a leave, then?

this is crazy.

[kaleagal]

8. Just employees, not elected officials(him)

I know what you mean, though. My friend signed off in her last email with "Standing around and shooting each other, as usual." I assumed she was talking about the friendly fire coming from a Democrat unnecessarily keeping another Democrat out of a race.

[mopinko]

9. did you ask the dnc?

maybe they could help?

[kaleagal]

10. Too late for now, but, agree, DNC needs to know, too.

I think the focus has been more on AFSCME. Anyway, it's too late to do anything about it in this election, because the candidate already dropped out of the race. But, I'll mention your idea, about taking the complaint to the DNC, to my friend.
Thanks,
Karen

[beclar]

11. County Races

Hi everyone,

I'm the Crawford County person--we had an unexpected turn of events in this situation. The union rep finally contacted the candidate (he had been on vacation) and told her to hold off on withdrawing or signing anything. Apparently, he is negotiating with the SOS office about them giving her a waiver, since she informed them about her candidacy in January per their request, and she was evidently the only person in the whole state to not be informed about the new rule months ago. This information is current as of yesterday. I will post more when I know something.

Becky

[beclar]

12. County Races

Latest update--

Yay!!! She got the waiver!!! We aren't sure why, but we think it is because she could prove she sent in her letter, even tho they said they didn't have (lost) it and/or they wanted to avoid a lawsuit. Seems the union rep did some good. Happy ending this time. Now we can work on winning that election!!!

Becky

[kaleagal]

13. Yippeetayayeah!

AFSCME to the rescue! I hope your friend kicks arse in the election!