Cite as: 518 U. S. 668 (1996)
Scalia, J., dissenting
J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part) (Pickering requires "case-by-case application"); Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U. S. 378, 388-392 (1987); Connick v. Myers, 461 U. S. 138, 150-154 (1983); Pickering v. Board of Ed. of Township High School Dist. 205, Will Cty., 391 U. S. 563, 568-573 (1968). It is clear that this is what the Court's opinion in Umbehr anticipates: "a fact-sensitive and deferential weighing of the government's legitimate interests," ante, at 677 (emphasis added), which accords "[d]eference . . . to the government's reasonable assessments of its interests as contractor," ante, at 678 (emphasis deleted). "[S]uch a nuanced approach," Umbehr says, "which recognizes the variety of interests that may arise in independent contractor cases, is superior to a bright-line rule." Ibid.
What the Court sets down in Umbehr, however, it rips up in O'Hare. In Part III of that latter opinion, where the Court makes its application of the First Amendment to the facts of the case, there is to be found not a single reference to Pickering. See post, at 720-726. Indeed, what is quite astonishing, the Court concludes that it "need not inquire" into any government interests that patronage contracting may serve—even generally, much less in the particular case at hand—"for Elrod and Branti establish that patronage does not justify the coercion of a person's political beliefs and associations." Post, at 718. Leaving aside that there is no coercion here,7 the assertion obviously contradicts the need for "balancing" announced in the companion Umbehr decision. This rejection of "balancing" is evident elsewhere in O'Hare—as when the Court rejects as irrelevant the Seventh
7 As the dissenters in Rutan v. Republican Party of Ill., 497 U. S. 62 (1990), agreed: "[I]t greatly exaggerates [the constraints entailed by patronage] to call them 'coercion' at all, since we generally make a distinction between inducement and compulsion. The public official offered a bribe is not 'coerced' to violate the law, and the private citizen offered a patronage job is not 'coerced' to work for the party." Id., at 109-110 (Scalia, J., dissenting).
703
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