Rutan was a suit against Illinois Governor James Thompson who issued an executive order freezing hiring for all agencies, bureaus, boards, and commissions under his control. No one was allowed to hire, fill any vacancy, or create any new position unless it had Governor Thompson’s express permission. That permission could only be granted if an applicant was a Republican operative. This could be shown by voting in Republican primaries, giving financial or other support to the Republican Party and its candidates, joining and working for the Republican Party, and having recommendations from officials of the Republican Party.

The Supreme Court majority struck down this spoils system.

Scalia wrote the dissent. He was joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Kennedy and O’Connor.

The stunning irony of all this is that in the recent case of Garcetti v. Ceballos, the majority held that an employee who blows the whistle on misconduct enters a free fire zone. An employee who deceives the public to curry favor with her boss gets rewarded.

A political friend is married to a high profile state employee who was encouraged by her superiors to not voice any public political views. She told her husband that she was not permitted to put campaign signs out on the lawn, but her husband felt that was infringing on his rights.

So, they split up the “ownership” of the lawn: she owns the backyard and he’s in possession of the front yard. This arrangement is well known by her superiors, political parties and the press. In hotly contested races, sometimes they even put a ribbon across the property to show the his/her territories.

I searched the Coloradoan archives for assessor and came up with a primary advance including a brief mention of the race and a story about the race published in mid-July.

However, there are letters to the editor about this race virtually every day. That’s an instance where it seems the reporting and editing staff should be asking themselves what’s going on in that race, and write more stories about it.

Of course, primary coverage has been relatively scant in my own local newspaper (the Daily Camera). Each race appears to deserve a single story and maybe a short q&a on issues. There’s no link to a separate election coverage section from the home page, tho there’s a small one if you scroll down the main news page. There isn’t any additional info on the Web, at this point, where, let’s face it, you have all the room in the world to provide more info about candidates, from audio to video and message boards.

It appears to riff off of this post from Friday since it mentions and interviews the same staffers that I pointed out in my piece. Alas, no attribution to Colorado Confidential for breaking the story.