Justify whether public employees should be required to take a leave of absence if they want to run for elective office and, if elected, should they be required to resign or retire.
It happens prior to every election. An employee of a local or state government agency decides to run for political office on the employee's own time only to find out that he will lose his job if he actually files to run for office. What would have been an election fight turns into an employment dispute. Some choose to withdraw their candidacy; some choose to continue their race at the expense of their day job, while some are given no choice at all. When a government employee holds or runs for elective office, there can be conflict of interest problems. The principal problem occurs when the government employee has to participate in a matter that directly or indirectly affects his or her agency or department. Whether there is a conflict depends on how direct the effect is. The covered employees are put in this position because of a federal law called the Hatch Act.
The goal of the Hatch Act, passed in 1939, was to limit partisan political activity to ensure that there are not conflicts of interest. The Hatch Act limits the political activities of local government employees who are principally employed by programs funded in whole or in part by the U.S. or a federal agency. The government employee: Cannot be a candidate for public office in a partisan election [nonpartisan elections are okay, which is good for most municipalities, but not most counties; it is also okay for an employee to be appointed to any position] Cannot use official authority or influence to interfere with or affect the results of an election or nomination Cannot directly or indirectly coerce contributions from subordinates in support of a political party or candidate. Because the penalty for a violation is serious - removal from the job or loss of federal funding - local governments often overreact and prevent employees from running for office, just in case.
States that place no restrictions on employees running for office (partisan or nonpartisan) (other than using no state resources including state time): Alabama, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming. States where an employee must resign from his job upon becoming a candidate for a partisan election, but not for a nonpartisan election: Alaska, Florida, Idaho, Ohio, and Oklahoma. States that say an employee must take a leave of absence to run for any partisan office: Connecticut, Kentucky (stipulates partisan or paid office), Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. States that say an employee must take a leave of absence upon becoming a candidate to a local partisan or nonpartisan office, and must resign upon becoming a candidate for a state or federal office: West Virginia. States that say an employee must take a leave of absence to run for any public office: Arizona (stipulates any paid public office) and Louisiana. There are exceptions: Georgia is in a class by itself. Rules in Georgia depend on the agencies involved. However, state law protects the employees’ right to run for local office as long as the office is not full time.
Some states have enacted the resign-to-run law, laws in several jurisdictions in democracies where a current office-holder cannot run for another office. Some government reform advocates don’t think that is fair to taxpayers. “You can’t claim you’re working a full-time job on behalf of the people while simultaneously running a full-time campaign on behalf of yourself,” said Eric Epstein of RockTheCapital.org.
Rationale and Advantages
• Campaigning may be time-consuming; campaigners may short-change their jobs while running for another office.
• While campaigning, office-holders may attempt to (inappropriately) use resources from their current office for the campaign. This could include the office-holders' current staff.
• An office-holder who aspires to a greater office may not work as hard in that office as they might if they actually wanted that office, and may take actions that make them attractive for the position they want.
• An office-holder who does want to run for higher office may time their run to complete their tasks in their current office. An example of this is Rodney Glassman, potential candidate for US Senator from Arizona, who delayed his formal announcement until the city's budget is completed. Disadvantages
• Those who aspire to higher office may not take the lower positions in resign-to-run areas, since the positions cannot be "stepping stones" for them.
• Office-holders who do want a higher office must work elsewhere for some amount of time before running, reducing the number of candidates for the higher office.
• Since office-holders often reward their home areas, it is advantageous to have residents of an area in the higher offices. Resign-to-run laws hinder running for those offices.
• An office-holder who wants to run for a higher office may resign to campaign for that office, whereas they otherwise would remain.

According to an article in the Lowell (MA) Sun, the Massachusetts ethics commission advised a police dispatcher who is a selectman for the town he works for that he may vote for a new town manager, even though the town manager will be involved in collective bargaining with his union. That is, the selectman may vote for someone who will have some control over his income, but only as part of a bargaining unit, not individually. This seems reasonable, since one vote for the manager's appointment would not seem enough to go easy on the entire bargaining unit. The same selectman regularly recues himself on all police department matters.
But an ethics complaint was still filed against the selectman. To some people it seemed to be a conflict, even if indirect and as part of a group.

More serious, some think, are situations where an employee is in a position to affect a supervisor's job or salary, or where an employee's party position requires him or her to publicly criticize a supervisor. This is why many frown on government employees holding any sort of party office. It puts the employee in a position to affect his or her job by the act or threat of public criticism of a supervisor. The sight of an employee publicly castigating a supervisor, such as an elected mayor, especially when the job is safe, can be very ugly.

REFRENCES
Donovan, Sandra (2004). Running for Office: A Look at Political Campaigns How government works.
U.S. Office of Personnel Management (1998). “Political Activity: Federal Employees Residing Designated Localities.”
McCarthy, Kevin, E. (2004). OLR Research Report: Public Sector Employees Serving as Public Offices.