WASHINGTON, March 14 (UPI) -- A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer has won the right to keep both his job and his seat on a local city council.
Officer Jaime Ramirez was told by his bosses at the agency last December to leave either his job or his unpaid, elected position on the city council in Presidio, Texas, a town of 6000 people.
He had been given permission by his local management in 2004 to run for office and was returned unopposed in 2006, but when the agency changed its policy and moved the decision-making about such issues to Washington, Ramirez was told to resign his seat or quit his job.
This week his union, the National Treasury Employees Union, or NTEU, successfully obtained a preliminary injunction in the U.S. District Court in Washington, preventing the agency from firing him.
Judge Gladys Kessler said in her decision that the agency's effort "could have far-reaching implications for the First Amendment freedoms of government employees throughout the country to participate in a wide range of local, non-partisan community activities," according to an NTEU statement.
Kessler said the government is "seeking to bar what the Supreme Court has referred to as core First Amendment activity, namely, his participation in the political process and the civic life of his community."
The judge was critical of Customs and Border Protection for having reversed its position on Ramirez's participation on the city council without explanation, noting that "for a period of at least two years (and probably a lot longer), defendants had no objection whatsoever to employees serving their community in unpaid, non-partisan political positions."
