David L. Hudson Jr.: Supreme Court to consider ‘association rights’ of public workers

  In the late 19th century, Oliver Wendell Holmes, then a jurist on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, wrote in McAuliffe v. City of New Bedford that a “petitioner may have a constitutional right to talk politics, but he has no constitutional right to be a policeman.”

  The ruling meant that police officer John McAuliffe did not have a free-speech right to engage in any politics while on the police force. This crabbed view of public employee First Amendment rights dominated the legal field for much of the 20th century.