Keen Umbehr was in the trash collection business. He had an exclusive contract with Wabaunsee County and six of the county’s seven cities to collect the trash from 1985 to
1991. Throughout his term as the primary trash collector, he publicly criticized the county board and many of its policies, successfully sued the board for violating the state open meetings law, and tried, unsuccessfully, to be elected to the board. The board’s members retaliated against Umbehr by voting to terminate his contract with the county. Umbehr, however, successfully negotiated new agreements with five of the six cities whose trash he had previously collected. In 1992, Umbehr sued the two county board members who had voted to terminate his contract. He alleged that his discharge/nonrenewal was in retaliation for having exercised his right to freedom of speech. The U.S. District Court ruled that only public employees were protected by the First Amendment from retaliatory discharge. The U.S. Court of Appeals disagreed and reversed. Should independent contractors who have government contracts be protected by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause from retaliatory contract discharges resulting from a contractor’s exercise of speech? Should the well-known system of patronage, a practice followed by politicians of all stripes by which they reward their supporters with contracts and discharge those who are their political adversaries or who criticize their policies, take precedence over First Amendment considerations?