If multiple and distinct First or Fourteenth Amendment rights are involved—
either collectively or as alternative factual theories—is each right analyzed separately under its own prescribed strict
scrutiny balancing test, or are the rights
conflated and evaluated with a single balancing test? If the rights are conflated,
which test applies, what is the balancing
test for intimate association, and how
does it fit?

II.
Where Elrod/Branti applies, are judicial
employees such as associate judges policymakers or confidential employees as a
matter of law, or are there factual scenarios in which they may not be?

III. When a municipality and state officials
co-employ a worker in a position created,
funded and co-administered by the municipality under a state statute, what
minimum involvement in violations of
that worker's constitutional rights is required to hold the municipality responsible under 42 U.S.C. §1983?

Where public employees allege violations of First Amendment rights by their government employers