About once every election cycle in Sedona and the Verde Valley, some elected official — or resident voicing discontent with their local official — argues that elected officials can choose to temporarily step down from elected office and “become” private citizens prior to saying something or doing something they really shouldn’t as elected officials.
As we head into election season, it’s good to remind elected officials that when they are invested with political power, they surrender their ability to be wholly “private,” whether they serve in Congress, on Sedona City Council or on the Sedona Oak Creek Airport Authority Board. Their actions and words in public and in private are fair game if what they say or do impugns the dignity of their office.
All in all, the current local elected officials among the boards and councils in Sedona and the Verde Valley have been pretty good about understanding what state and federal law says about elected officials and have not attempted to falsely call themselves “private citizens,” but recently the issue did come to a head in nearby Camp Verde.
There, a Camp Verde town councilman verbally attacked a resident during a council meeting. The attack prompted threats of censure from council and formal complaints from the victim, which has since spilled over to other residents coalescing into two factions and using the town’s complaint process to air long-held grievances.
One was an appointed town commissioner whose comments at a subsequent Town Council meeting prompted a complaint alleging that her fair and accurate criticism of the councilman violated the town’s code of conduct.
One resident who contacted us asked, “I guess once you volunteer to be a commissioner for the Town of Camp Verde you give up all your rights to speak as a private citizen?”
Yes. Absolutely.
From the moment a person is sworn into appointed or elected office until the moment they resign, die or reach the end of their term, they are public officials. This applies whether they are on the dais in a meeting, speaking to a local organization or getting a midnight snack from their refrigerator.
Elected and appointed office is not a hat one can take off on a whim. If it was, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer could have claimed he wasn’t an elected official when he hired a call girl in 2008. Even though he wasn’t “acting” as governor, he was still governor, and thus broke the law not just as a individual, but as an elected official, and resigned.
In a similar vein, it also makes no sense for local elected officials to leave their daises and speak to their own public body from the podium during the call to public as “private citizens.” Voters do not mysteriously forget who elected officials are in the 15 feet between dais and podium.
Sometimes local governments led by bad chairs or vice chairs allow or force this ridiculous political theater and it both insults the intelligence of voters and creates in the minds of officials the erroneous fiction that they can remove themselves from their office when they deem it fit.
Elected and appointed office doesn’t work like a light switch. Council, board and commission members have the weight of their office and their reputation when they attend non-council meetings or join clubs or associations or speak in public or to private groups.
The implication for voters at those gatherings is now they have the ear of a member of local government, even if officials vehemently deny that their attendance carries any weight. It does by the simple virtue of who they are.
That being said, the First Amendment allows elected and appointed officials to say whatever they please. They are not “banned” from speaking in public or private.
However, fellow officials or officials on a higher body may decide to penalize them or remove them from their posts if their language, actions or statements violate rules, guidelines or regulations, so officials should consider the ramifications of using their First Amendment rights to win petty fights or advocate for things their post does not permit.
Elected and appointed officials can participate in a slew of clubs and organizations, promote programs or events, meet privately with residents as they see fit and voice objections of other officials beyond the scope of their office — all of which may be legal and proper — but they must never forget that for the length of their term, they are indivisible from their office whether in public or behind closed doors.
We journalists and voters will hold them accountable whatever their choice, even if that choice is silence when they should speak out.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
