Elrod v. Burns

427 U.S. 347, 96 S. Ct. 2673, 49 L. Ed. 2d 547, 1976 U.S. LEXIS 109, 1 I.E.R. Cas. (BNA) 60

Opinions

Mr. Justice Brennan

announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion in which Mr. Justice White and Mr. Justice Marshall joined.

This case presents the question whether public employees who allege that they were discharged or threatened with discharge solely because of their partisan political affiliation or nonaffiliation state a claim for deprivation of constitutional rights secured by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

I

Respondents brought this- suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against petitioners, Richard J. Elrod, Richard J. Daley, the Democratic Organization of Cook County, and the Democratic County Central Committee of Cook County. Their complaint alleged that they were discharged or threatened with discharge solely for the reason that they were not affiliated with or sponsored by the Democratic Party. They sought declaratory, injunctive, and other relief for violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments and 42 U. S. C. §§ 1983, 1985, 1986, 1988. Finding that the respondents failed to make an adequate showing of irreparable injury, the District Court denied their motion for a preliminary injunction and ultimately dismissed their complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, relying on Illinois State Employees Union v. Lewis, 473 F. 2d 561 (CA7 1972), reversed and remanded, holding that respondents’ complaint stated a legally cognizable claim. The Court of Appeals instructed the District Court to enter appropriate preliminary injunctive relief. 509 F. 2d 1133 (1975). We granted certiorari. 423 U. S. 821. We affirm.¹

II

In December 1970, the Sheriff of Cook County, a Republican, was replaced by Richard Elrod, a Democrat. At that time, respondents, all Republicans, were employees of the Cook County Sheriff’s Office. They were non-civil-service employees and, therefore, not covered by any statute, ordinance, or regulation protecting them from arbitrary discharge. One respondent, John Bums, was Chief Deputy of the Process Division and supervised all departments of the Sheriff’s Office working on the seventh floor of the building housing that office. Frank Yargas was a bailiff and security guard at the Juvenile Court of Cook County. Fred L. Buckley was employed as a process server in the office. Joseph Dennard was an employee in the office.

It has been the practice of the Sheriff of Cook County, when he assumes office from a Sheriff of a different political party, to replace non-civil-service employees of the Sheriff’s Office with members of his own party when the existing employees lack or fail to obtain requisite support from, or fail to affiliate with, that party. Consequently, subsequent to Sheriff Elrod’s assumption of office, respondents, with the exception of Buckley, were discharged from their employment solely because they did not support and were not members of the Democratic Party and had failed to obtain the sponsorship of one of its leaders. Buckley is in imminent danger of being discharged solely for the same reasons. Respondents allege that the discharges were ordered by Sheriff Elrod under the direction of the codefendants in this suit.

Ill

At the outset, we are met with objections to our consideration of this case based on the political-question doctrine and the principle of separation of powers. These objections need not long detain us.

A question presented to this Court for decision is properly deemed political when its resolution is committed by the Constitution to a branch of the Federal Government other than this Court. Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 217 (1962). Thus, “it is the relationship between the judiciary and the coordinate branches of the Federal Government, and not the federal judiciary’s relationship to the States, which gives rise to the 'political question.’ ” Id., at 210. That matters related to a State’s, or even the Federal Government’s, elective process are implicated by this Court's resolution of a question is not sufficient to ¡ justify our withholding decision of the question. In particular, in this case., we are asked only to determine whether the politically motivated discharge of employees of the Cook County Sheriff’s Office comports with the limitations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. j.This involves solely a question of constitutional interpretation, a function ultimately the responsibility of this Court. Id., at 211. See Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486, 618-549 (1969). Petitioners do not, and could not, argue that a' decision as to the constitutionality of the Sheriff’s practices should be left to Congress or the President. The political-question doctrine, therefore, is no obstacle to judicial review in this case. See Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23, 28 (1968).

Petitioners also object that our review of this case will offend the principle of separation. of powers, for the executive’s responsibility to insure that the laws be faithfully executed requires the power of appointment or removal at will, unimpaired by any judicial oversight. They cite Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52 (1926), in support of their argument. The short answer to this (argument is that the separation-of-powers principle, like the political-question doctrine, has no applicability to the federal judiciary’s relationship to the States. The matter in Myers itself was limited to the permissibility of restraints imposed by Congress on the President concerning the removal of the executive officers. More fundamentally, however, the answer to petitioners’ ob-Ejection is that there can be no impairment of executive power, whether on the state or federal level, where actions pursuant to that power are impermissible under the Con-|_stitution. Where there is no power, there can be no impairment of power. And our determination of the limits on state executive power contained in the Constitution is in proper keeping with our primary responsibility of interpreting that document. It is to such a determination that we now turn.

IV

The Cook County Sheriff’s practice of dismissing employees on a partisan basis is but one form of the general practice of political patronage.² The practice also includes placing loyal supporters in government jobs that may or may not have been made available by political discharges. Nonofficeholders may be the beneficiaries of lucrative government contracts for highway construction, buildings, and supplies. Favored wards may receive improved public services. Members of the judiciary may even engage in the practice through the appointment of receiverships, trusteeships, and refereeships. Although political patronage comprises a broad range of activities, we are here concerned only with the constitutionality of dismissing public employees for partisan reasons.

Patronage practice is not new to American politics. It has existed at the federal level at least since the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson,³ although its popularization and legitimation primarily occurred later, in the Presidency of Andrew Jackson.⁴ The practice is not unique to American politics. It has been used in many European countries,⁵ and in darker times, it played a significant role in the Nazi rise to power in Germany and other totalitarian states.⁶ More recent times have witnessed a strong decline in its use, particularly with respect to public employment. Indeed, only a few decades after Andrew Jackson's administration, strong discontent with the corruption and inefficiency of the patronage system of public employment eventuated in the Pendleton Act,⁷ the foundation of modern civil service. And on the state and local levels, merit systems have increasingly displaced the practice.⁸ This trend led the Court to observe in CSC v. Letter Carriers, 413 U. S. 548, 564 (1973), that “the judgment of Congress, the Executive, and the country appears to have been that partisan political activities by federal employees must be limited if the Government is to operate effectively and fairly, elections are to play their proper part in representative government, and employees themselves are to be sufficiently free from improper influences.”

The decline of patronage employment is not, of course, relevant to the question of its constitutionality. It is the practice itself, not the magnitude of its occurrence, the constitutionality of which must be determined. Nor for that matter does any unacceptability of the practice signified by its decline indicate its unconstitutionality. Our inquiry does not begin with the judgment of history, though the actual operation of a practice viewed in retrospect may help to assess its workings with respect to constitutional limitations. Compare Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954), with Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 637 (1896). Rather, inquiry must commence with identification of the constitutional limitations implicated by a challenged governmental practice.⁹

Y

The cost of the practice of patronage is the restraint it places on freedoms of belief and association. In order to maintain their jobs, respondents were required to pledge their political allegiance to the Democratic Party, work for the election of other candidates of the Democratic Party, contribute a portion of their wages to the Party, or obtain the sponsorship of a member of the Party, usually at the price of one of the first three alternatives. Regardless of the incumbent party's identity, Democratic or otherwise, the consequences for association and belief are the same. An individual who is a member of the out-party maintains affiliation with his own party at the risk of losing his job. He works for the election of his party's candidates and espouses its policies at the same risk. The financial and campaign assistance that he is induced to provide to another party furthers the advancement of that party’s policies to the detriment of his party's views and ultimately his own beliefs, and any assessment of his salary is tantamount to coerced belief. See Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 19 (1976). Even a pledge of allegiance to another party, however ostensible, only serves to compromise the individual’s true beliefs. Since the average public employee is hardly in the financial position to support his party and another, or to lend his time to two parties, the individual’s ability to act according to his beliefs and to associate with others of his political persuasion is constrained, and support for his party is diminished.

It is not only belief and association which are restricted where political patronage is the practice. The free functioning of the electoral process also suffers. Conditioning public employment on partisan support prevents support of competing political interests. Existing employees are deterred from such support, as well as the multitude seeking jobs. As government employment, state or federal, becomes more pervasive, the greater the dependence on it becomes, and therefore the greater becomes the power to starve political opposition by commanding partisan support, financial and otherwise. Patronage thus tips the electoral process in favor of the incumbent party, and where the practice’s scope is substantial relative to the size of the electorate, the impact on the process can be significant.

Our concern with the impact of patronage on political belief and association does not occur in the abstract, for political belief and association constitute the core of those activities protected by the First Amendment.¹⁰ Regardless of the nature of the inducement, whether it be by the denial of public employment or, as in Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624 (1943), by the influence of a teacher over students, “[ijf there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” Id., at 642. And, though freedom of belief is central, “[t]he First Amendment protects political association as well as political expression.” Buckley v. Valeo, supra, at 15. “There can no longer be any doubt that freedom to associate with others for the common advancement of political beliefs and ideas is a form of 'orderly group activity’ protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 430; Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U. S. 516, 522-523; NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449, 460-461. The right to associate with the political party of one’s choice is an integral part of this basic constitutional freedom.” Kusper v. Pontikes, 414 U. S. 51, 56-57 (1973).

These protections reflect our “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 270 (1964), a principle itself reflective of the fundamental understanding that “[ competition in ideas and governmental policies is at the core of our electoral process . . . Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S., at 32. Patronage, therefore, to the extent it compels or restrains belief and association, is inimical to the process which undergirds our system of government and is “at war with the deeper traditions of democracy embodied in the First Amendment.” Illinois State Employees Union v. Lewis, 473 F. 2d, at 576. As such, the practice unavoidably confronts decisions by this Court either invalidating or recognizing as invalid government action that inhibits belief and association through the conditioning of public employment on political faith.

The Court recognized in United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, 100 (1947), that “Congress may not 'enact a regulation providing that no Republican, Jew or Negro shall be appointed to federal office ....’” This principle was reaffirmed in Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U. S. 183 (1952), which held that a State could not require its employees to establish their loyalty by extracting an oath denying past affiliation with Communists. And in Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U. S. 886, 898 (1961), the Court recognized again that the government could not deny employment because of previous membership in a particular party.¹¹

Particularly pertinent to the constitutionality of the practice of patronage dismissals are Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U. S. 589 (1967), and Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 593 (1972). In Keyishian, the Court invalidated New York statutes barring employment merely on the basis of membership in “subversive” organizations. Keyishian squarely held that political association alone could not, consistently with the First Amendment, constitute an adequate ground for denying public employment.¹² In Perry, the Court broadly rejected the validity of limitations on First Amendment rights as a condition to the receipt of a governmental benefit, stating that the government "may not deny a benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected interests — especially, his interest in freedom of speech. For if the government could deny a benefit to a person because of his constitutionally protected speech or associations, his exercise of those freedoms would in effect be penalized and inhibited. This would allow the government to ‘produce a result which [it] could not command directly.’ Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 526. Such interference with constitutional rights is impermissible.” 408 U. S., at 597.

Patronage practice falls squarely within the prohibitions of Keyishian and Perry. Under that practice, public employees hold their jobs on the condition that they provide, in some acceptable manner, support for the favored political party. The threat of dismissal for failure to provide that support unquestionably inhibits protected belief and association, and dismissal for failure to provide support only penalizes its exercise. The belief and association which government may not ordain directly are achieved by indirection.¹³ And regardless of how evenhandedly these restraints may operate in the long run, after political office has changed hands several times, protected interests are still infringed and thus the violation remains.

VI

Although the practice of patronage dismissals clearly infringes First Amendment interests, our inquiry is not at an end, for the prohibition on encroachment of First Amendment protections is not an absolute. Restraints are permitted for appropriate reasons. Keyishian and Perry, however, not only serve to establish a presumptive prohibition on infringement, but also serve to dispose of one suggested by petitioners’ reference to this Court’s af-firmance by an equally divided court in Bailey v. Richardson, 341 U. S. 918 (1951), aff’g 86 U. S. App. D. C. 248, 182 F. 2d 46 (1950).¹⁴ That is the notion that because there is no right to a government benefit, such as public employment, the benefit may be denied for any reason. Perry, however, emphasized that “[f]or at least a quarter-century, this Court has made clear that even though a person has no Tight’ to a valuable governmental benefit and even though the government may deny him the benefit for any number of reasons, there are some reasons upon which the government may not rely.” 408 U. S., at 597. Perry and Keyishian properly recognize one such impermissible reason: The denial of a public benefit may not be used by the government for the purpose of creating an incentive enabling it to achieve what it may not command directly. “ ‘[T]he theory that public employment which may be denied altogether may be subjected to any conditions, regardless of how unreasonable, has been uniformly rejected/ ” Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U. S., at 605-606. “It is too late in the day to doubt that the liberties of religion and expression may be infringed by the denial of or placing of conditions upon a benefit or privilege.” Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398, 404 (1963). “ '[T]his Court now has rejected the concept that constitutional rights turn upon whether a governmental benefit is characterized as a “right” or as a “privilege.” ’ ” Sugarman v. Dougall, 413 U. S. 634, 644 (1973) (quoting Graham v. Richardson, 403 U. S. 365, 374 (1971)).¹⁵

While the right-privilege distinction furnishes no ground on which to justify patronage, petitioners raise several other justifications requiring consideration. Before examining those justifications, however, it is necessary to have in mind the standards according to which their sufficiency is to be measured. It is firmly established that a significant impairment of First Amendment rights must survive exacting scrutiny. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S., at 64-65; NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449, 460-461 (1958). “This type of scrutiny is necessary even if any deterrent effect on the exercise of First Amendment rights arises, not through direct government action, but indirectly as an unintended but inevitable result of the government’s conduct . . . .” Buckley v. Valeo, supra, at 65. Thus encroachment “cannot be justified upon a mere showing of a legitimate state interest.” Kusper v. Pontikes, 414 U. S., at 58. The interest advanced must be paramount, one of vital importance, and the burden is on the government to show the existence of such an interest. Buckley v. Valeo, supra, at 94; Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S., at 31-33; NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 438, 444 (1963); Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U. S. 516, 524 (1960); NAACP v. Alabama, supra, at 464-466; Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 530 (1945). In the instant case, care must be taken not to confuse the interest of partisan organizations with governmental interests. Only the latter will suffice. Moreover, it is not enough that the means chosen in furtherance of the interest be rationally related to that end. Sherbert v. Verner, supra, at 406. The gain to the subordinating interest provided by the means must outweigh the incurred loss of protected rights, see United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S., at 96,¹⁶ and the government must “emplo[y] means closely drawn to avoid unnecessary abridgment . . . Buckley v. Valeo, supra, at 25. “[A] State may not choose means that unnecessarily restrict constitutionally protected liberty. 'Precision of regulation must be the touchstone in an area so closely touching our most precious freedoms/ If the State has open to it a less drastic way of satisfying its legitimate interests, it may not choose a legislative scheme that broadly stifles the exercise of fundamental personal liberties.” Kusper v. Pontikes, supra, at 59 (citations omitted). See United States v. Robel, 389 U. S. 258 (1967); Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479 (1960). In short, if conditioning the retention of public employment on the employee’s support of the in-party is to survive constitutional challenge, it must further some vital government end by a means that is least restrictive of freedom of belief and association in achieving that end, and the benefit gained must outweigh the loss of constitutionally protected rights.¹⁷

One interest which has been offered in justification of patronage is the need to insure effective government and the efficiency of public employees. It is argued that employees of political persuasions not the same as that of the party in control of public office will not have the incentive to work effectively and may even be motivated to subvert the incumbent administration’s efforts to govern effectively. We are not persuaded. The inefficiency resulting from the wholesale replacement of large numbers of public employees every time political office changes hands belies this justification. And the prospect of dismissal after an election in which the incumbent party has lost is only a disincentive to good work.¹⁸ Further, it is not clear that dismissal in order to make room for a patronage appointment will result in replacement by a person more qualified to do the job since appointment often occurs in exchange for the delivery of votes, or other party service, not job capability. More fundamentally, however, the argument does not succeed because it is doubtful that the mere difference of political persuasion motivates poor performance; nor do we think it legitimately may be used as a basis for imputing such behavior. The Court has consistently recognized that mere political association is an inadequate basis for imputing disposition to ill-willed conduct. See Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U. S., at 606-608; Elfbrandt v. Russell, 384 U. S. 11, 19 (1966); Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U. S., at 190-191.¹⁹ Though those cases involved affiliation with the Communist Party, we do not “consider these [respondents’] interest in freely associating with members of the [Republican] Party less worthy of protection than [other] employees’ interest in associating with Communists or former Communists.” Illinois State Employees Union v. Lewis, 473 F. 2d, at 570. At all events, less drastic means for insuring government effectiveness and employee efficiency are available to the State. Specifically, employees may always be discharged for good cause, such as insubordination or poor job performance, when those bases in fact exist.

Even if the first argument that patronage serves effectiveness and efficiency be rejected, it still may be argued that patronage serves those interests by giving the employees of an incumbent party the incentive to perform well in order to insure their party’s incumbency and thereby their jobs. Patronage, according to the argument, thus makes employees highly accountable to the public. But the ability of officials more directly accountable to the electorate to discharge employees for cause and the availability of merit systems, growth in the use of which has been quite significant, convince us that means less intrusive than patronage still exist for achieving accountability in the public work force and, thereby, effective and efficient government. The greater effectiveness of patronage over these less drastic means, if any, is at best marginal, a gain outweighed by the absence of intrusion on protected interests under the alternatives.

The lack of any justification for patronage dismissals as a means of furthering government effectiveness and efficiency distinguishes this case from CSC v. Letter Carriers, 413 U. S. 548 (1973), and United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75 (1949). In both of those cases, legislative restraints on political management and campaigning by public employees were upheld despite their encroachment on First Amendment rights because, inter alia, they did serve in a necessary manner to foster and protect efficient and effective government.²⁰ Interestingly, the activities that were restrained by the legislation involved in those cases are characteristic of patronage practices. As the Court observed in Mitchell: “The conviction that an actively partisan governmental personnel threatens good administration has deepened since [1882]. Congress recognizes danger to the service in that political rather than official effort may earn advancement and to the public in that governmental favor may be channeled through political connections.” 330 U. S., at 97-98.

A second interest advanced in support of patronage is the need for political loyalty of employees, not to the end that effectiveness and efficiency be insured, but to the end that representative government not be undercut by tactics obstructing the implementation of policies of the new administration, policies presumably sanctioned by the electorate. The justification is not without force, but is nevertheless inadequate to validate patronage wholesale. Limiting patronage dismissals to policymak-ing positions is sufficient to achieve this governmental end. Nonpolicymaking individuals usually have only limited responsibility and are therefore not in a position to thwart the goals of the in-party.

No clear line can be drawn between policymaking and nonpolicymaking positions. While nonpolicymaking individuals usually have limited responsibility, that is not to say that one with a number of responsibilities is necessarily in a policymaking position. The nature of the responsibilities is critical. Employee supervisors, for example, may have many responsibilities, but those responsibilities may have only limited and well-defined objectives. An employee with responsibilities that are not well defined or are of broad scope more likely functions in a policymaking position. In determining whether an employee occupies a policymaking position, consideration should also be given to whether the employee acts as an adviser or formulates plans for the implementation of broad goals. Thus, the political loyalty “justification is a matter of proof, or at least argument, directed at particular kinds of jobs.” Illinois State Employees Union v. Lewis, 473 F. 2d, at 574. Since, as we have noted, it is the government's burden to demonstrate an overriding interest in order to validate an encroachment on protected interests, the burden of establishing this justification as to any particular respondent will rest on the petitioners on remand, cases of doubt being resolved in favor of the particular respondent.

It is argued that a third interest supporting patronage dismissals is the preservation of the democratic process. According to petitioners, “ ‘we have contrived no system for the support of party that does not place considerable reliance on patronage. The party organization makes a democratic government work and charges a price for its services.' ” ²¹ The argument is thus premised on the centrality of partisan politics to the democratic process.

Preservation of the democratic process is certainly an interest protection of which may in some instances justify limitations on First Amendment freedoms. See Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976); CSC v. Letter Carriers, supra; Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23 (1968); United Public Workers v. Mitchell, supra. But however important preservation of the two-party system or any system involving a fixed number of parties may or may not be,²² Williams v. Rhodes, supra, at 32, we are not persuaded that the elimination of patronage practice or, as is specifically involved here, the interdiction of patronage dismissals, will bring about the demise of party politics. Political parties existed in the absence of active patronage practice prior to the administration of Andrew Jackson, and they have survived substantial reduction in their patronage power through the establishment of merit systems.²³

Patronage dismissals thus are not the least restrictive alternative to achieving the contribution they may make to the democratic process.²⁴ The process functions as well without the practice, perhaps even better, for patronage dismissals clearly also retard that process. Patronage can result in the entrenchment of one or a few parties to the exclusion of others. And most indisputably, as we recognized at the outset, patronage is a very effective impediment to the associational and speech freedoms which are essential to a meaningful system of democratic government. Thus, if patronage contributes at all to the elective process, that contribution is diminished by the practice’s impairment of the same. Indeed, unlike the gain to representative government provided by the Hatch Act in CSC v. Letter Carriers, supra, and United Public Workers v. Mitchell, supra, the gain to representative government provided by the practice of patronage, if any, would be insufficient to justify its sacrifice of First Amendment rights.²⁵

To be sure, Letter Carriers and Mitchell upheld Hatch Act restraints sacrificing political campaigning and management, activities themselves protected by the First Amendment. But in those cases it was the Court’s judgment that congressional subordination of those activities was permissible to safeguard the core interests of individual belief and association.²⁶ Subordination of some First Amendment activity was permissible to protect other such activity. Today, we hold that subordination of other First Amendment activity, that is, patronage dismissals, not only is permissible, but also is mandated by the First Amendment. And since patronage dismissals fall within the category of political campaigning and management, this conclusion irresistibly flows from Mitchell and Letter Carriers. For if the First Amendment did not place individual belief and association above political campaigning and management, at least in the setting of public employment, the restraints on those latter activities could not have been judged permissible in Mitchell and Letter Carriers²⁷

It is apparent that at bottom we are required to engage in the resolution of conflicting interests under the First Amendment. The constitutional adjudication called for by this task is well within our province.²⁸ The illuminating source to which we turn in performing the task is the system of government the First Amendment was intended to protect, a democratic system whose proper functioning is indispensably dependent on the unfettered judgment of each citizen on matters of political concern. Our decision in obedience to the guidance of that source does not outlaw political parties or political campaigning and management. Parties are free to exist and their concomitant activities are free to continue. We require only that the rights of every citizen to believe as he will and to act and associate according to his beliefs be free to continue as well.

In summary, patronage dismissals severely restrict political belief and association. Though there is a vital need for government efficiency and effectiveness, such dismissals are on balance not the least restrictive means for fostering that end. There is also a need to insure that policies which the electorate has sanctioned are effectively implemented. That interest can be fully satisfied by limiting patronage dismissals to policymaking positions. Finally, patronage dismissals cannot be justified by their contribution to the proper functioning of our democratic process through their assistance to partisan politics since political parties are nurtured by other, less intrusive and equally effective methods. More fundamentally, however, any contribution of patronage dismissals to the democratic process does not suffice to override their severe encroachment on First Amendment freedoms. We hold, therefore, that the practice of patronage dismissals is unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and that respondents thus stated a valid claim for relief.

VII

There remains the question whether the issuance of a preliminary injunction was properly directed by the Court of Appeals. The District Court predicated its denial of respondents' motion for a preliminary injunction on its finding that the allegations in their complaints and affidavits did not constitute a sufficient showing of irreparable injury and that respondents had an adequate remedy at law. The Court of Appeals held, however: “Inasmuch as this case involves First Amendment rights of association which must be carefully guarded against infringement by public office holders, we judge that injunctive relief is clearly appropriate in these cases.” 509 F. 2d, at 1136. We agree.

At the time a preliminary injunction was sought in the District Court, one of the respondents was only threatened with discharge. In addition, many of the members of the class respondents were seeking to have certified prior to the dismissal of their complaint were threatened with discharge or had agreed to provide support for the Democratic Party in order to avoid discharge. It is clear therefore that First Amendment interests were either threatened or in fact being impaired at the time relief was sought. The loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury. See New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U. S. 713 (1971).²⁹ Since such injury was both threatened and occurring at the time of respondents’ motion and since respondents sufficiently demonstrated a probability of success on the merits, the Court of Appeals might properly have held that the District Court abused its discretion in denying preliminary injunctive relief. See Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U. S. 58, 67 (1963).

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice Stevens did not participate in the consideration or decision of this case.

1 For purposes of our review, all of the well-pleaded allegations of respondents’ complaint and uncontroverted affidavits filed in support of the motion for a preliminary injunction are taken as true.

²

M. Tolchin. & S. Tolchin, To the Victor 5-6 (1971).

3 Id., at 323.

4 Id., at 323-326.

5 See C. Fish, The Civil Service and the Patronage 87, 209-210 (1904); D. Rosenbloom, Federal Service and the Constitution 238-240 (1971).

6 C. Friedrich & Z. Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy 183-188 (rev. ed. 1965).

7 Act of Jan. 16, 1883, c. 27, § 2 (2) Fifth, Sixth, 22 Stat. 404.

8 See Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U. S. 601, 604-605, n. 2 (1973). Factors contributing to the declining use of patronage have not been limited to the proliferation of merit systems. New methods of political financing, the greater necessity of job expertise in public employment, growing issue orientation in the elective process, and new incentives for political campaigners have also contributed. Sorauf, The Silent Revolution In Patronage, 20 Pub. Admin. Rev. 28, 34 (1960).

9 For comprehensive commentary on the constitutionality of the practice of patronage dismissals, see Sehoen, Politics, Patronage, and the Constitution, 3 Ind. Legal Forum 35 (1969); Comment, Patronage Dismissals: Constitutional Limits and Political Justification, 41 U. Chi. L. Rev. 297 (1974).

10 “It is important to note that while it is the Fourteenth Amendment which bears directly upon the State it is the more specific limiting principles of the First Amendment that finally govern this case.” Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 639 (1943).

11 Protection of First Amendment interests has not been limited to invalidation of conditions on government employment requiring allegiance to a particular political party. This Court’s decisions have prohibited' conditions on public benefits, in the form of jobs or otherwise, which dampen the exercise generally of First Amendment rights, however slight the inducement to the individual to forsake those rights.

In Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488 (1961), decided the same day as Cafeteria Workers, the Court squarely held that a citizen could not be refused a public office for failure to declare his belief in God. More broadly, the Court has held impermissible under the First Amendment the dismissal of a high school teacher for openly criticizing the Board of Education on its allocation of school funds. Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U. S. 563 (1968). And in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963), unemployment compensation, rather than public employment, was the government benefit which could not be withheld on the condition that a person accept Saturday employment where such employment was contrary to religious faith. Similarly, the First Amendment prohibits limiting the grant of a tax exemption to only those who affirm their loyalty to the State granting the exemption. Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513 (1958).

12 Thereafter, United States v. Robel, 389 U. S. 258 (1967), similarly held that mere membership in the Communist Party could not bar a person from employment in private defense establishments important to national security.

13 The increasingly pervasive nature of public employment provides officials with substantial power through conditioning jobs on partisan support, particularly in this time of high unemployment. Since the government, however, may not seek to achieve an unlawful end either directly or indirectly, the inducement afforded by placing conditions on a benefit need not be particularly great in order to find that rights have been violated. Rights are infringed both where the government fines a person a penny for being a Republican and where it withholds the grant of a penny for the same reason.

Petitioners contend that even though the government may not provide that public employees may retain their jobs only if they become affiliated with or provide support for the in-party, respondents here have waived any objection to such requirements. The difficulty with this argument is that it completely swallows the rule. Since the qualification may not be constitutionally imposed absent an appropriate justification, to accept the waiver argument is to say that the government may do what it may not do. A finding of waiver in this case, therefore, would be contrary to our view that a partisan job qualification abridges the Eirst Amendment.

14 Brief for Petitioners 12-13.

15 See also Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 571 n. 9 (1972):

“In a leading case decided many years ago, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that public employment in general was a 'privilege/ not a 'right/ and that procedural due process guarantees therefore were inapplicable. Bailey v. Richardson, 86 U. S. App. D. C. 248, 182 F. 2d 46, aff’d by an equally divided Court, 341 U. S. 918. The basis of this holding has been thoroughly undermined in the ensuing years. For, as Mr. Justice Blackmun wrote for the Court only last year, 'this Court now has rejected the concept that constitutional rights turn upon whether a governmental benefit is characterized as a “right” or as a “privilege.” ’ Graham v. Richardson, 403 U. S. 365, 374. See, e. g., Morrissey v. Brewer, ante, at 482; Bell v. Burson, [402 U. S. 535,] 539; Goldberg v. Kelly, [397 U. S. 254,] 262; Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618, 627 n. 6; Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U. S. 563, 568; Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398,404.”

16 «[T] his Court must balance the extent of the guarantees of freedom against a congressional enactment to protect a democratic society against the supposed evil of political partisanship by classified employees of government" United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S., at 96.

17 The Court’s decision in United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367 (1968), does not support petitioners. O’Brien dealt with the constitutionality of laws regulating the “nonspeech” elements of expressive conduct. No such regulation is involved here, for it is association and belief per se, not any particular form of conduct, which patronage seeks to control. Moreover, while partisanship may involve activities such as registering with a political organization, wearing a campaign button, or contributing to a campaign fund, we cannot say these activities can be equated with such conduct as destruction of a draft card which was involved in O’Brien. See Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 17 (1976). Finally, to paraphrase the Court’s observations in Buckley: “Even if the categorization of [partisan activity] as conduct were accepted, the limitations challenged here would not meet the O’Brien test because the governmental interests advanced in support of the [practice of patronage] involve ‘suppressing communication.’ ” Id., at 17. For the end to be furthered by the practice involves the compulsion of support for the incumbent political party. Indeed, unlike the legislation tested in Buckley, the practice of patronage does “focus on the ideas expressed by persons or groups subjected to [it] . . . .” Ibid. And, contrary to O’Brien’s proscription, under patronage "the alleged governmental interest in regulating conduct arises in some measure because the communication allegedly integral to the conduct is itself thought to be harmful.” 391 U. S., at 382.

18 It does not appear that efficiency and effective government were the concerns of elected officials in this case. Employees originally dismissed were reinstated after obtaining sponsorship letters, a practice hardly promotive of efficiency if the employee’s work had been less than par or if the employee had previously behaved in an insubordinate manner. App. 14. Complaints by one supervisor that too many people were being discharged too fast, without adequately trained replacements, were met with the response that the number of dismissals was to be maintained because the job openings were needed for partisan appointments. Id., at 15. One Republican employee of the Sheriff’s Office was told that his dismissal had nothing to do with the quality of his work, but that his position was needed for a Democratic replacement. Id., at 22.

19 In this regard, petitioners’ reliance on American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382 (1950), is misplaced. To be sure, that decision upheld a section of the National Labor Relations Act denying certain benefits of the Act to labor organizations which had not filed with the National Labor Relations Board affidavits that their leaders were not members of the Communist Party. The Court there deferred to a legislative determination that, with respect to labor relations, the Communist Party was unlike other parties in its use of union leadership to bring about strikes and other obstructions to commerce. The Court was careful to note in Douds, however, that the precise holding in that case would not serve as a departure point for inferences of ill conduct grounded merely on political association. Id., at 410. Indeed, the Court in Douds also carefully observed that political affiliations and beliefs “are circumstances ordinarily irrelevant to permissible subjects of government action.” Id., at 391.

Those caveats were well stated. With but three exceptions shortly after Douds, Adler v. Board of Education, 342 U. S. 485 (1952); Garner v. Los Angeles Board, 341 U. S. 716 (1951); and Gerende v. Board of Supervisors, 341 U. S. 56 (1951), the Court’s decisions have consistently rejected all inferences based merely on belief and association, and we do so today. See, e. g., Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U. S., at 606-608; Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U. S., at 188-190.

20 Legislative restraints on political management and campaigning were also upheld in Letter Carriers and Mitchell because they served to protect individual belief and association and, thereby, the political process. The distinction between this case and those cases in that respect is treated infra, this page and at 368-371.

21 Brief for Petitioners 43, quoting V. Key, Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups 369 (5th ed. 1964).

22 Partisan politics bears the imprimatur only of tradition, not the Constitution.

“It may be correct that the patronage system has been followed for 'almost two hundred years’ and therefore was in existence when the Constitution was adopted. However, the notoriety of the practice in the administration of Andrew Jackson in 1828 implies that it was not prevalent theretofore; we are not aware of any discussion of the practice during the drafting of the Constitution or the First Amendment. In any event, if the age of a pernicious practice were a sufficient reason for its continued acceptance, the constitutional attack on racial discrimination would, of course, have been doomed to failure.” Illinois State Employees Union v. Lewis, 473 F. 2d 561, 568 n. 14 (CA7 1972).

23 Sorauf, The Silent Revolution in Patronage, 20 Pub. Admin. Rev. 28, 32-33 (1960); Sorauf, Patronage and Party, 3 Midwest J. Pol. Sci. 115, 118-120 (1959).

24 See n. 8, supra.

25 The Court’s decision earlier this term in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976), is not contrary. It is true that in Buckley, as here, the interest to be served was the democratic system, and accordingly in Buckley, the infringement of some First Amendment rights was held to be tolerable. In Buckley, however, unlike here, the disclosure and contribution limitations on campaign financing, which were upheld, were essential to eliminating the grave evil of improper influence in the political process. The Court found that those provisions "constitute the Act’s primary weapons against the reality or appearance of improper influence stemming from the dependence of candidates on large campaign contributions.” Id., at 58. The Court further found that “[t]he contribution ceilings . . . serve the basic governmental interest in safeguarding the integrity of the electoral process without directly impinging upon the rights of individual citizens and candidates to engage in political debate and discussion.” Ibid. With respect to expenditure limitations, however, which were not upheld, the Court found: “These provisions place substantial and direct restrictions on the ability of candidates, citizens, and associations to engage in protected political expression, restrictions that the First Amendment cannot tolerate.” Id., at 58-59. The restrictions imposed by patronage dismissals, limiting wholesale an individual’s political beliefs, expression, and association, while perhaps less direct, are equally, if not more, substantial, and therefore also intolerable to the First Amendment. Moreover, patronage dismissals involve the evil of influence, whose very need for elimination justified the contribution and disclosure provisions in Buckley.

26 “To declare that the present supposed evils of political activity-are beyond the power of Congress to redress would leave the nation impotent to deal with what many sincere men believe is a material threat to the democratic system.” United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S., at 99. “Congress may reasonably desire to limit party activity of federal employees so as to avoid a tendency toward a one-party system.” Id., at 100.

27 The judgment that the First Amendment interests in political campaigning and management must, in the setting of public employment, give way to the First Amendment interests in individual belief and association does not necessarily extend to other contexts. Restraining political campaigning and management in the area of public employment leaves it free to continue in other settings. The consequence of no such restraint, however, is the complete restriction of individual belief and association for each public employee affected.

28 Letter Carriers did observe: “Although Congress is free to strike a different balance than it has, if it so chooses, we think the balance it has so far struck is sustainable by the obviously important interests sought to be served by the limitations on partisan political activities now contained in the Hatch Act.” 413 U. S., at 564. Though Congress may be free not to impose restraints on political campaigning and management in the public employment sector, we are not similarly free to do so where those practices, protected as they may be in other contexts, are found impermissibly to pre-empt equally, if not more, fundamental constitutional rights.

29 The timeliness of political speech is particularly important. See Carroll v. Princess Anne, 393 U. S. 175, 182 (1968); Wood v. Georgia, 370 U. S. 375, 391-392 (1962).

“[Tjhe purpose of the First Amendment includes the need ... ‘to protect parties in the free publication of matters of public concern, to secure their right to a free discussion of public events and public measures, and to enable every citizen at any time to bring the government and any person in authority to the bar of public opinion by any just criticism upon their conduct in the exercise of the authority which the people have conferred upon them.’ ” Id., at 392 (quoting 2 T. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations 885 (8th ed. 1927)).