[delecti]

Non-compete (and non-association) clauses aren't government regulation, it's agreements you make when accepting the job. Your first amendment rights aren't infringed by work dress codes either. You aren't at risk of criminal penalty, just whatever civil penalty is specified in the contract.

Not that that means they're necessarily okay, it's just unrelated.

[anonymouskimmer]

This is why I wasn't citing the first amendment. It is not the only such law that exists. Even if it was I wouldn't have cited it because of the US Constitution's contracts clause. Some contract terms are unenforceable though, at least under certain circumstances. I just wonder how these things balance out in edge cases.

[memefrog]

I don't know about the law of the United States, but here in New Zealand a contract purporting to interfere with the right of a citizen to stand for election to Parliament would be void as contrary to public policy (Peters v Collinge [1993] 2 NZLR 554), and there are various common law precedents on similar matters going all the way back to 1785. I would guess that a contract that purported to bind one of the parties not to vote in an election would be void in the United States, right? And probably one requiring the person not to stand for election too. Whether that extends all the way to a contract preventing someone from working in a politics-adjacent area like lobbying is questionable, of course, but it's worth bearing in mind...