The Florida Times-Union
jacksonville.com
An assistant state attorney in Live Oak was fired Monday
after she refused to stop speaking to tea party rallies and
other groups, her boss said.
Prosecutor KrisAnne Hall asked a federal judge Friday
for a ruling that would have allowed her to keep speaking
and prevented her boss, State Attorney Skip Jarvis, from
following through on threats to fire her if she didn’t stop.
Courtroom arguments on that request hadn’t been scheduled
by Monday afternoon, when Jarvis said he fired Hall shortly
after receiving a copy of her federal complaint.
Click here
to view a pdf of the complaint filed by Hall
He called her a good prosecutor, who crossed an ethical line
with her speeches and radio appearances.
“You can’t take a job advocating for the state and go out and
take a position against the state,” Jarvis said.
“I advised her from my first learning of her activity that she was
free to say and do whatever she desired within the law, but she
could not do so while assistant counsel for the state.”
Hall, 40, said she spoke about the original intent of the
U.S. Constitution, smaller government, budget deficits and
Florida’s lawsuit against health care reform.
Describing herself as a disabled Army veteran, she said all
are federal issues she’s passionate about.
“I never said anything bad about the state.
I never said anything bad about Mr. Jarvis,” said Hall.
“I love being an assistant state attorney, [but] I’m not
ready to give up on my constitutional rights.”
Now instead of an injunction, she and her lawyer plan to
amend their complaint to sue Jarvis for retaliatory conduct.
“To fire someone over their political views doesn’t set well
with most folks,” said her attorney, Gary Edinger of Gainesville.
Jarvis said he first learned of Hall’s activities last month from a
constituent after she spoke at tea party gatherings in North Florida
and on a Lake City radio station.
“They were confronting me about my office being used to legitimize
what they consider to be a fringe right-wing group,”
Jarvis wrote in an e-mail attached to Hall’s lawsuit.
“I hate to do this, but I have to ask you to disassociate
yourself from these folks.”
Hall responded that she was speaking on her own time and
was careful not to be introduced as an assistant state attorney.
She said she spoke in response to a request to help educate
people about the Constitution.
Nevertheless, Jarvis responded that she was identified as an
assistant state attorney and had to stop. After several more
e-mail exchanges, she replied that he was being unfair.
“Even when I was in the military, restrictions on my constitutional
rights were never so unreasonable,” she said. “...
I fought for these rights in the military, and as a sworn officer,
I am sworn to defend them.”
The e-mails were followed by a letter from Edinger to Jarvis,
warning about a potential lawsuit and challenging the state
attorney’s view that Hall’s activities were in any way disruptive
to the State Attorney’s Office.
Jarvis responded by letter, also attached to the lawsuit,
noting that his assistants serve as appointed representatives
of the state and do so knowing their outside activities have boundaries.
“She has been given a directive and now must decide whether her
desire to speak outweighs her desire to retain my appointment,”
Jarvis wrote May 10. “It is her decision.”
The issue balances free speech rights and a public employer’s
desire to protect the integrity of the workplace, according to labor
and First Amendment lawyers contacted by the Times-Union.
Lawyer Ed Birk said an elected state attorney can weigh whether
an assistant’s comments impair the public’s perception of the office.
“There’s a legitimate interest of the state attorney to operate the office
in a way that instills public confidence, so there are limitations he or
she can put on the assistants,” said Birk, who has several media clients.
“The rule is generally does the employee’s public conduct interfere with
the proper operation of the office.”
In a small community, Birk said, prosecutors often are easily recognizable,
and people will naturally associate an assistant state attorney’s public
comments with the office she works for.
But labor lawyer Tad Delegal said Hall has a legitimate First Amendment
claim if she was speaking on her own time and her expressed viewpoints
weren’t associated with her official duties.
HERE IS KRISANNE HALL'S SPEECH AT GAINSVILLE TEA PARTY
We The People Must Inform Ourselves
By KrisAnne Hall
I would like to speak to you today on the subject of:
INFORMING OURSELVES.
Thomas Jefferson warned
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of
civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
We have enjoyed the benefits left to us by previous generations.
America has had the greatest medical system, the greatest
technologies, the strongest military, the greatest economy.
However, as our nation has prospered we have become distracted
by our luxuries, busied by our labors and lazy toward our liberties.
We have allowed the enemies of freedom to worm their way into
positions of power and influence.
The Heritage Foundation says it like this,
“There is widespread ignorance of American history…
We face an education system that upholds mediocrity in the name
of relativism; an ever-expanding and centralized government, unmoored
from constitutional limits; judges openly making laws and shaping society
based on pop-philosophy rather than serious jurisprudence…
At the root of all these problems is a pervasive ignorance about the core
principles that define America and ought to inform our politics and policy.”
Unfortunately, I would agree with them.
That’s why the tea-party movement is so important and so encouraging.
I am actually encouraged that the Tea-Party is not a party at all;
it is We the People.
We the People founded this nation and I believe –
We the People will take it back!
But We the People must Inform Ourselves if we wish to take back
our nation for ourselves and our children. Notice I did not say that
we need to be informed, rather we need to inform OURSELVES.
Truth is Power and it is up to us to search out and secure the Truth.
The Bible says, “…ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”
If we arm ourselves with truth and act on that truth we can be free from
the bondage that ideological tyrants would desire to enslave us with.
Patrick Henry said in his famous speech from St. Johns Church in 1775.
“I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of
experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past."
Patrick Henry’s experience with a heavy handed government illuminated
his understanding of the future… And if American Liberty is to continue,
we must inform ourselves and arm ourselves with the collective experience
of those that have come before. I want to mention four things as briefly as
I can on the subject of Informing Ourselves.
First, We the People must inform ourselves on our Core Principles.
A principle can be defined as a standard based upon truth and experience,
and which serves as a foundation upon which thought and action are built.
A primary principle upon which this nation rests is Constitutionalism –
which is an understanding that the operation of our government and the
security of our liberty are to be guided by our founding documents,
interpreted according to the framer’s intent.
The Declaration and the Constitution have been relentlessly attacked
in modern times. Our own President has implied that our Constitution’s
ideas are flawed. The professors in our law schools deride its relevance.
Progressives would have it be as malleable as silly putty.
But We the People recognize that the Declaration and Constitution
have served as the bedrock of our freedom for hundreds of years.
The genius with which our founding fathers laid down the principles
in these precious documents, I believe, can only be attributed to the
providence of God. And we have a solemn duty to ourselves and
our posterity to become informed in the Core principles contained
in our founding documents.
Get a copy of the Declaration and Constitution; study them.
Research the history of how they came to be.
Acquaint yourselves with men like John Leland and the
Baptist Union of Virginia, without whom there would be no Bill of Rights.
Read the wisdom of George Washington in his farewell address and
be grounded by the experience of one our nation greatest heroes.
–We the People must Know our core principles-
Become not only grounded in them, but become their champions.
For, freedom of speech has no voice of its own, but it waits in
silence for you to plead its case. The right to assemble will sit
alone until you, its champions, gather in the face of despotism.
Our forefathers cry out through the pages of history, but unheard
until you give the written word – voice and life.
When our history is lost either through revision or apathy,
then our liberty is lost as well.
–We the People must Know our Core principles
and stand for them without wavering…for they are our liberty.
The words of Patrick Henry still ring true 235 years later,
“Why stand we here idle?,” he said, “What is it that gentlemen wish?
What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be
purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!
I know not what course others may take; but as for me,
give me liberty or give me death!”
Secondly,
We the People must not only inform ourselves on our Core Principles,
must inform ourselves about Contrary Principles. If our core principles
serve to secure and maintain the liberty we wish to enjoy, then it stands
to reason that there are contrary principles that threaten that same liberty,
and we must be able to identify these enemies of our liberty.
Sun Tzu says in his Art of War,
“Know thine enemy as thyself.”
We must always remember that our enemies are not people or parties,
but the freedom-destroying principles that they espouse.
We must inform ourselves on the principles of progressivism, socialism,
communism; and the mechanisms these philosophies use such as
redistribution of wealth, centralization of power, progressive taxation, and
restrictions on free speech.
Once we are informed on these principles we will then recognize them.
And we must oppose them regardless of the party or personality
attempting to employ them.
I say again,
We must not give a free pass because of personality or party affiliation.
It is ironic that Teddy Roosevelt is heralded as a great hero of the
Republican Party, when in fact history testifies that he was the leader
of the anti-constitutional progressives in 1912. It was also under the
Republican Party that the refundable tax credit was enacted, allowing
progressives to engage in redistribution of wealth and enslave citizens
with the tax refund.
Am I anti-Republican? No;
but these enemies of our liberty entered in because we put party over principle.
The president recently suggested that his program of socialized medicine
was okay because Republican Mitt Romney proposed the same program.
It is not wrong because of who proposed it;
it’s wrong because it is based on
principles that are contrary to Liberty.
You would not allow anyone to feed your child rat poison whether the
giver was Satan or Santa Claus. Progressivism, however, does not
come in a bottle with skull and crossbones. It shows up as something
or someone who wants to “help” and it will have a cute little name like acorn.
It will talk about fairness and recovery; aide and stimulus;
always sounding positive, but underneath – a deadly poison.
Again we must be grounded in our Core principles,
but we must also be guarded against these Contrary principles
which poison our freedom and destroy our future.
We the People must not only inform ourselves about Contrary Principles,
but we must also inform ourselves about Candidates.
We should now realize that a charismatic personality,
eloquent speechmaking, and catchy slogans do not a leader make.
We must identify candidates who hold true to the right principles
and who will not sacrifice those principles for politics or power.
Some would say you must compromise if you hope to accomplish anything.
Surely, cooperation and negotiation are essential in government,
but a principle by its very definition is a foundational and guiding rule,
and so compromising a principle damages the very foundation.
If sound principles cause me to be opposed to a proposal,
then an offer of money or jobs for my state should not change my position.
Let’s inform ourselves about candidates and issues and make an informed vote.
Lastly, and I close, We the People must inform ourselves about Current Events.
It’s encouraging to see the awakening going on around the country, but the
cynic in me says this – “only someone who was sleeping needs an awakening.”
Thomas Jefferson said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
We cannot take time off. We cannot stick our head in the sand.
We cannot slumber even for a moment.
The Tea-Party movement can’t simply be an awakening.
Once we have reclaimed our nation from the forces that
would steer us away from our Core principles, we must
establish a lifestyle of vigilance.
We must stay informed and stay involved.
First step – the 2010 elections;
Next step – the 2012 elections;
THEN we reach The Beginning…
The beginning of a revitalized and reconnected CITIZEN government.
Our cry must be this
“We the People have awakened.
We the People have informed ourselves; and
We the People will never sleep again!!!”
Thank you and God bless you.
_________________________________________________
(You may contact KrisAnne at cla07@windstream.net.
Please do not publicly distribute or use KrisAnne’s work
without asking her permission first.)
Woman Fired for Participation in Local Tea Party
Woman Sues For Being Fired
News 4 Jaxsonville
We have created a new website in order to post all the information pertinent
to our First Amendment battle here in North Florida. It is up and running and
we will be adding links very shortly. We will have links to the tax day speech,
Mr. Jarvis’ emails, the Lt. Governor and Attorney General’s statements,
as well as the request for injunction, videos, interviews, updates etc.
No one should have to trade their Constitutional rights for a paycheck.
I hope you’ll stand with me and help get the word out so that we may
inspire people to stand up for our country before it’s too late!
