MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS/EMPLOYEES;

PUBLIC EMPLOYEES - POLITICAL ACTIVITY; MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES;

Federal laws/regulations; Connecticut laws/regulations;

You asked for a description of provisions regulating whether and how municipal employees can run for public office at the state and local level.

STATE LAW

State law allows municipal employees to run for and hold elective office with certain exceptions (CGS § 7-421). Although a municipal employee may be a candidate for a federal, state, or municipal elective office in a political partisan election, the law prohibits him from participating in partisan political activities while on duty. Employees can receive an unpaid leave of absence to accept a full-time elective office for as long as two consecutive terms of office or four years whichever is shorter. The town may extend the leave and its terms and conditions, at its discretion. When the leave expires, the employee must be reinstated in his most recent position, given one with equivalent pay or another position, or a rehiring preference.

A municipal employee has the right to serve on any governmental body as an elected or appointed official in the town where he lives with some restrictions. An employee cannot serve on a body that is responsible for directly supervising him in his job. The law also bans service on (1) boards of finance; (2) bodies exercising planning, zoning, or land use powers; and (3) bodies regulating inland wetlands and watercourses. However, the ban on service on a board of finance does not apply if (1) a local charter or home rule ordinance explicitly allows it or (2) the official serves only in his capacity as a member of the town’s legislative body. The prohibitions against service on the other bodies do not apply if (1) a local charter or home rule ordinance explicitly allows it, (2) the town’s legislative body adopts an ordinance permitting an employee to serve, or (3) the official serves only in his capacity as a member of the town’s legislative body.

FEDERAL RESTRICTIONS

Regulations implementing the Hatch Act prohibit a local employee from being a candidate for elective public office in a partisan election when the individual’s “principal employment is in connection with an activity which is financed in whole or in part by loans or grants made by the United States or a federal agency but does not include an individual who exercises no functions in connection with that activity” (5 CFR Secs. 151. 101 et seq. ).

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