Yesterday, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court heard oral arguments in a First Amendment challenge to a South Portland ordinance that prohibited all city employees from running for, or serving in, city elected office. The lead plaintiff in the case was a part-time librarian, who served for years on the South Portland Board of Education. Many of those years, she did not even have an opponent in the election. 

The ACLU of Maine filed an amicus curiae brief with the Law Court to discuss why and how the First Amendment protects public employees like Ms. Callaghan. Cities have the ability to regulate employee activity--even when that activity is protected by the Constitution--but they cannot regulate more than is necessary to ensure that the city is able to operate in an orderly manner. That might mean preventing a city employee from running for the city council, where she could be supervising her supervisor. But, in this case there was no connection between Ms. Callaghan's employment and her service on the school board--the school board did not oversee the library, or vice versa. And, there was no history of problems for city management caused by employees who were running for office or serving in office. Cities and towns can only infringe on the First Amendment not solve real problems, not hypothetical ones.

Hopefully, the Maine Law Court will decide that South Portland's ordinance went too far. That was the conclusion that the trial court reached, and that is the conclusion that would must strongly protect the First Amendment rights at stake.