In general, the Civil Service Commission rules set out in note 18 did allow " oluntary contributions to campaign committees and organizations." 413 U.S. In addition, the two footnotes relied on are not so clear as plaintiff makes out. But to attribute to them detailed knowledge of two footnotes in a Supreme court opinion decided the previous year, an opinion their colloquy does not even mention, and to infer from that an intention to distinguish between contributions and other types of political "activity," is fanciful. We readily acknowledge that the two Senators involved were well versed in their field. In the first place, the single word "activity" is too weak a reed to bear the weight plaintiff asks us to load upon it. We are not persuaded by this line of argument. Therefore, we are told, Senators Cannon and Stevens, when using the term "activity," could not have intended to include contributions. It is said that this list of prohibited activities did not include contributions.
21, certain activities forbidden by regulation are listed. 2d 796 (1973), in which, in two footnotes, id. National Ass'n of Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. Our attention is called to the Supreme Court's opinion in United States Civil Serv. The argument is that "activity" is a term of art, intended to include only those political activities that had previously been prohibited by federal law if engaged in by state employees whose jobs or programs received federal funds. Contributions by state employees were to be governed entirely by federal law, and since no federal law prohibits such contributions, they cannot be forbidden by a State, either. Sergeant Reeder seeks to avoid the force of this passage by emphasizing the word "activity." It was only active campaigning, such as speechmaking or service on a campaign committee, that was to be left to State regulation, he says. The preemption statute, then, is not so clear (if any statute ever is) as to preclude us from consulting the legislative history. See Brief for Appellee 11 (States retain the right to prohibit false registration, voting fraud, and theft of ballots, even with respect to federal elections). Even Reeder seems to concede that some state laws that could be characterized as coming within the preemption provision, if read literally and broadly, remain valid. The statute can also be read to refer primarily to the behavior of candidates-including, for example, the filing of reports disclosing the names and occupations of campaign contributors-and to supersede state laws on permissible contributions only to the extent that federal law expressly forbids certain kinds of contributions-those, for example, made by unions, corporations, or foreign nationals. We reverse on both these points, but remand for further proceedings on Reeder's claim that the statute deprives him of the equal protection of the laws because it applies to Kansas City police officers but no others in Missouri.Ĭertainly a law prohibiting certain people from contributing to campaigns for federal office can be considered a "law with respect to election to Federal office." But that is not the end of the matter. § 453, and that it abridged Reeder's freedom of speech in violation of that portion of the Fourteenth Amendment that applies the First Amendment to the states. In a suit filed by Reeder, the District Court held the state statute invalid on two grounds: that it was preempted by Section 301 of the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974, Pub. As a result, he was dismissed from the police force.
1 Mark Reeder, a Kansas City Police Sergeant, gave $500.00 to the campaign of John Carnes, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Representative in Congress from Missouri's Fifth District. 84.830(1), forbids officers or employees of the Kansas City Police Department to make any political contribution.
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