DeSantis: I’d Fire State Dept. Employees Complaining About Supporting Israel, They Have No Right to Contradict Policy

Breitbart ^ | 1 Nov 2023 | IAN HANCHETT

[cowboyusa]

State is a nest of vipers . Those who critize policy will try to stop the policy from being implemented. Trump should fire them all, and start over!

[SoConPubbie]

State is a nest of vipers . Those who critize policy will try to stop the policy from being implemented. Trump should fire them all, and start over!

Don't disagree, however, pretending you can fire fed employees because you don't like what they say is childess.

[SoConPubbie]

State is a nest of vipers . Those who critize policy will try to stop the policy from being implemented. Trump should fire them all, and start over!

Don't disagree, however, pretending you can fire fed employees because you don't like what they say is childess childish.

[mmichaels1970]

Nevermind what he is proposing is blatantly anti 1st Amendment

That's not true at all. You can get bounced from the military for saying all sorts of things. When you are serving in an official capacity there ARE things you can't say without consequences.

If your speech is determined to "disrupt your employer's interest in an efficient workplace", it is not 1A protected.

This is far from blatant. I honestly don't know how a court would rule. But there is something called the Pickering Balancing Test that is normally considered.

The Pickering test is a balancing inquiry pitting “the interests of the [public employee], as a citizen” against “the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.”[81] While employees have a substantial interest in “speak[ing] out freely . . . without fear of retaliatory dismissal,”[82] this interest must be weighed against the government’s interest in “effective and efficient fulfillment of its responsibilities to the public.”

My interpretation of the test is that this speech is NOT protected as it goes against “effective and efficient fulfillment of its responsibilities to the public.”

[wild74]

Good job DeSantis, stay in the race and the nomination will be yours and MAGA will join you to forge a great victory in 2024. Rump with his small hands will probably be locked up by that time...Funny Rump locked up and Hillary running free.The worm has turned it would seem

[SoConPubbie]

It would be his State Department. He could do as he wished.

You don't know much about the civil service do you!?!?!

[SoConPubbie]

Many people at some time in their life are told - usually by a smug boss - that they can be lawfully fired at any time, without notice, for any reason or no reason. This is not exactly true, but it is not exactly untrue either. The truth is, most employees in the private sector can be fired at will, but the failure to identify a compelling reason opens the employer up to a variety of civil rights claims.

Government employment is a totally different story. Most government employees - including most state and local employees - have a right to due process, and can only be fired for cause. For example, in Mississippi the legislature created a Statewide Personnel System which protects all employees of state departments, agencies and institutions as defined herein, with only certain specific exceptions. Miss. Code § 25-9-107. The purpose is to ensure that hiring and firing are based on sound methods of personnel administration and to build a career service in government which will attract, select and retain the best persons. Miss. Code § 25-9-101; see also § 25-9-103. As a result, termination is only for cause. Miss. Code § 25-9-127. Similar civil service protections apply to most other civil servants as well, from the municipality, Miss. Code § 21-31-23; Miss. Code § 21-31-71, to the federal government, 5 U.S.C. § 7513.

In the rare case where a government employee is at will, the statute typically says so explicitly and in no uncertain terms, e.g.: However, any employee which the county administrator is authorized to employ may be terminated at the will and pleasure of the administrator. Miss. Code § 19-2-9(1). As the Fifth Circuit observed, the statutes are usually quite explicit about this: Many Mississippi statutes governing the employment practices of public employers expressly prescribe either a ‘terminable at will’ or a ‘for cause’ standard. Conley v. Board of Trustees of Grenada County Hosp., 707 F. 2d 175, 179 (5th Cir. 1983). At will termination is clearly the exception rather than the rule.

And for good reason. Robust civil service protections are perhaps the key weapon in the ongoing war against corruption and patronage, as a review of our history shows.

The founding fathers understood - as John Adams put it - that when the independence of the civil executive is compromised, it corrupts ‘as necessarily as rust corrupts iron, or as arsenic poisons the human body; and when the legislature is corrupted the people are undone.’ Henry Adams, Civil Service Reform, 109 The North American Review, No. 225, pp. 443-475 (Oct. 1869). The early Presidents maintained a strong but uncodified tradition of executive independence and rational administration over the first half-century or so of the nation. Id. But by the time of the Grant administration, things had definitely changed for the worse, as Adams’ great-grandson Henry observed: the executive which had originally been organized as a permanent system with a permanent and independent existence, and a temporary head, was wholly changed in its nature and as a result, civil servants were terminated for arbitrary or political reasons, resulting in profound corruption through all levels of government. Id. The evils of this system were obvious to all - particularly after President Garfield was assassinated by his own political operative, who was unhappy with the President’s decisions in awarding patronage. This resulted in his successor, President Arthur, signing into law the Pendleton Act of 1883, the first formal step toward preserving an independent corps of civil servants immune from patronage.

More at the link . . .

[bobbo666]

If protected speech occurs out of the office, he is wrong. OTOHand, if in the office or using office equipment, you are wrong.

Working for anyone is volunteering for limits to what you can say and where.

[conservative98]

“I would show them the door. “

But on a Life Liberty and Levin before Desantis was running for President, but when he was on the book tour, Levin raised that you couldn’t just fire these people. They make it very difficult and there are all kinds of laws and protections and appeals when discussing firing civil servants like Fauci and all the rest. Desantis nodded and said yeah, that’s the problem, you can’t fire them. Nice try, DeSanctus.

[SoConPubbie]

If protected speech occurs out of the office, he is wrong. OTOHand, if in the office or using office equipment, you are wrong.

No, I am not wrong.

Go get a Federal Agency job as a manager of some type and find out how almost impossible it is to fire anyone.

You get back to me, I'll wait!

[mmichaels1970]

So you’re saying the Pickering Balancing Test doesn’t exist?

Hypotheticals:

1. State Dept employee engages in speech related to abortion.
According to Pickering this speech is protected. Abortion has no correlation to performance of State Dept functions. Employee cannot be fired.

2. State Dept employee engages in speech related to Iran Nuclear Deal
According to Pickering this speech is NOT protected as this is a matter related to official diplomacy which falls under the purview of the State Dept. If the government determines that the speech undermines its ability to provide service to the public, employee CAN be fired.

[SoConPubbie]

1. State Dept employee engages in speech related to abortion. According to Pickering this speech is protected. Abortion has no correlation to performance of State Dept functions. Employee cannot be fired.

You just proved my point for me.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: For expressing an opinion?

Not for expressing an opinion. But if they refuse to help implement an administration’s policy, do they still have the right to keep their job?

Let’s put it this way — suppose the Florida Health Department under DeSantis refuses to pay for surgeries for trans children but someone responsible for budgeting releases funds for it anyway, isn’t that a firing offense?

The same principle goes in the opposite direction should a left-wing governor get elected.

[mmichaels1970]

You just proved my point for me.

You obviously didn't read past hypothetical #1. Here's hypothetical #2 one more time:

2. State Dept employee engages in speech related to Iran Nuclear Deal

According to Pickering this speech is NOT protected as this is a matter related to official diplomacy which falls under the purview of the State Dept. If the government determines that the speech undermines its ability to provide service to the public, employee CAN be fired.

This article pertains specifically to:

State Department employees who have complained about the Biden administration’s support for Israel

Which can be tied directly to the execution of diplomatic functions by the State Department and therefore better be classified under hypothetical #2.

There is no blanket 1A protection for government workers.

You can say he's lying and wouldn't. You can say he's wrong and shouldn't. But you can't say he couldn't. According to The Pickering Balancing Test, I say he can.

[mmichaels1970]

But if they refuse to help implement an administration’s policy, do they still have the right to keep their job?

They don't. Not if their speech has a direct correlation to the duties and responsibilities of the department they work for. If their department determines that their speech has hindered or was detrimental to their ability to implement policy, that is a fireable offense. If their speech is related to areas OTHER than the area they work for, or are NOT determined to hinder the services provided by their department, they are protected.

I do think that departments have been loathe to do this. But constitutionally they can. Event he ACLU admits that.