New York State's Governor directs the State's Division Of Human Rights to investigate reports of a fire truck in a parade displaying a Confederate flag

Learning of a fire truck in a parade displayed a Confederate flag, New York State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo said "I'm appalled by reports that a Confederate flag was flown on a Brookhaven Fire Department truck at a Patchogue parade. We have zero tolerance for symbols of racism or division, and I have directed the New York State Division of Human Rights to investigate the incident immediately."

On August 31, 2020, a newspaper, Newsday, published an article concerning the incident. The article is posted on the Internet at:

https://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/confederate-flag-brookhaven-patchogue-firetruck-1.48765917.

The Arizona State Supreme Court adopts The New Civil Liberties Alliance's proposed changes to court rules

The New Civil Liberties Alliance [NCLA], a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, announced that the Arizona Supreme Court "adopted verbatim" an NCLA-drafted amendment to the court's Judicial Review of Administrative Decisions Rules making it easier for litigants to obtain Superior Court stays of administrative decisions.

The new rule goes into effect starting January 1, 2021 and affects all appeals from the final decisions of all Arizona state agencies that are required to go to the  Arizona Superior Court.

The text of the amendment is posted on the Internet at https://nclalegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Order-R200008.pdf.

For information about NCLA click on https://nclalegal.org/about/.

Basics of federal law regulating federal, state, municipal and certain other officers and employees engaging in partisan political activities

5 U.S.C. §7321, et seq, An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities and typically referred to as the Hatch Act, was enacted by Congress to express its policy that "employees should be encouraged to exercise fully, freely, and without fear of penalty or reprisal, and to the extent not expressly prohibited by law, their right to participate or to refrain from participating in the political processes of the Nation." Recently significant attention has been focused on provisions set out in law prohibiting partisan political activities by most officers and employees serving in executive branch of the federal government. 

On April 20, 2020, the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a nonpartisan shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress, posted a publication, The Hatch Act: A Primer, on the Internet at A Guide to the Hatch Act for Federal Employees - OSC.gov .

The Hatch Act, however, also applies to state officers and employees and officers and employees of political subdivisions of a state whose principal employment is in connection with an activity which is financed, in whole or in part, by the federal government. This prohibition, however, does not apply to individuals employed by educational or research institutions that a state supports and certain religious, philanthropic and cultural organizations. For example, the  members of a public school board of education and school officers and teachers employed by a public school are not within the ambit of the Act.

The New York State Bar Association posted an article by Sung Mo Kim, Esq. on the Internet addressing the applicability of the Hatch Act to New York State municipal officers and employees at https://nysba.org/app/uploads/2020/03/HatchActKimMunicipalFall06.pdf.

In addition, public employers in New York State may prohibit its officers and employees from campaigning for, and holding, elected office subject to its action satisfying the so-called Pickering Balancing Test. See https://publicpersonnellaw.blogspot.com/2018/09/public-employers-may-prohibit-its.html.