I admit at the outset that these are somewhat silly questions, but I’m still curious:
First, if you’re a member of Congress (or a governor, or even, I guess, president) who loses his or her bid for re-election, can you collect unemployment? This one seems reasonable and even likely to me, but I’m not exactly the cleverest Doper in the bunch.
And here’s one that’s maybe a bit trickier: if you choose not to stand for re-election, does that count as quitting your job voluntarily, hence disqualifying you for benefits? Is it theoretically possible (I realize that it’s very unlikely) that a politician might run for a term he or she doesn’t want to serve, and then lose deliberately in order to get those unemployment checks?
And silliest of all: if, somehow, you were collecting unemployment, and you got drafted by a political party’s nominating convention, and you won the general election but then refused to serve, would that count as refusing a job offer?
Looking through some unemployment pages, I don’t see anything that would rule it out. OTOH, you must be willing and able to work, you must submit job applications, and you must accept a job of it is offered. So, I’m reasonably certain you can’t collect benefits while you are running for another office, and even if you can, you may have to either drop out of the campaign to accept a job offer, or give up your benefits in order to continue the campaign if you get an job offer.
Ah! So if I’m your opponent, all I have to do is offer you a job mowing my lawn, and you have to drop out and take it! Pretty sneaky. That’s probably reason #37 of the 300 reasons nobody does this.
OTOH, I guess could see this stuff coming up once in a while for Assistant County Comptroller races and so on.