King James/Hoeffel Stomp on County Employee's Constitutional Rights

In the race to install a new ethics policy in the Montco courthouse, methinks the two democrat county commissioners may be cruisin' for a bruisin...by the very employees they wish to control

According to an article in The Evening Bulletin, Brad Vasoli reports that "county employees (with some exceptions) would be forbidden to either seek elected governmental office or fundraise for those seeking such offices"

What boggles my mind is this...some people who run for office, especially in the courthouse, have at one time or another worked in the courthouse. For what it's worth, I'd be more apt to vote for a prothonotary who was first deputy prothonotary than some schlub who was running for shiggles.

Now, I'm not for politicking on company time, mind you, but what a person does after they lock the doors of the courthouse, on his or her own time, is protected by the first amendment of the Constitution as free speech. To bar anybody from their right to exercise free speech is in itself egregious and more than likely, a violation of their civil liberties.

Look for the lawsuits, folks...there's a lot of talent in the wings waiting for their turn to run for office, whether it be a local political office like township supervisor, council, or commissioners. To say that a person can't run simply because there is a chance...a chance of inpropriety puts a bad taste in this humble blogger's mouth.

My prediction? They pass this 2-1 with Castor voting "nay". What's next? Simple. A class action lawsuit (bi-partisan, mind you) gets filed and this goes away before anybody (meaning the county) has to pay.

And, c'mon...in this era of Obamanomics, where our own democrat commissioners are doing the ol' "spend money to create stimulus and the debt will go away", why not take a page out of Mr. Baracky's playbook...I'm not hiring (or electing) anybody with political ties...unless it's in my best interests to change the rules to do so.

Brad Vasoli has written a great piece on this...click here to read the entire article.

B.




And here is the rest of it.