The Hatch Act and restrictions on federal employee political activity

Hatch Act

What is the Hatch Act, why was it passed and why is it important?

Under the First Amendment, all citizens have the right to speak freely and engage in political activity under their right of assembly. However, there are exceptions to this rule, and one of the most controversial is the Hatch Act. "The Hatch Act of 1939 (53 Stat. 1147) restricted the ability of federal, or civil service, employees to participate in partisan political life" (Luneburg 2004). Fears of the increased bureaucratic sweep of government and the growing power of federal authority in the wake of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal inspired the Hatch Act. The idea was to try to further separate the power and influence of the civil service from partisan politics. The civil service was supposed to serve the people, not a party.

While the intention of the Act was to ensure that civil servants were objective in their evaluation of the needs of the public and above partisan considerations, the Act was controversial because of the fact that it seemed to infringe upon citizen's private activities. It also placed restrictions upon state and local government civil servant's activities if their positions were federally-funded. However, despite these First Amendment concerns, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected constitutional challenges to the Hatch Act on several occasions: in the 1947 United Public Workers of America v. Mitchell and the 1973 United States Civil Service Commission v. National Association of Letter Carriers decision (Luneburg 2004). It has also decided against challenges to specific provisions of the Hatch Act, such as the ability to run for office.

Historically, there have always been restrictions placed upon civil servants' activities in the U.S. The Civil Service Act of 1883 (Pendleton Act) limited the ability of presidents to appoint civil servants for political purposes; in 1907 employees with (classified) examination-based positions were prohibited from participating in political campaigns, and could only express their ideas privately (Luneburg 2004). The Hatch Act expanded the restrictions of previous measures to the entire civil service, with the exception of high-level cabinet positions.

In 1993, the Hatch Act was modified. The Hatch Act Reform Amendments of 1993, removed "the prohibition on participation in 'political management or political campaigns,'" but still banned civil servants from running for office and to engaging in political activities that could affect election results (Luneburg 2004). However, the Amendment did say that "is the policy of Congress that employees should be encouraged to exercise fully, freely, and without fear of penalty or reprisal, and to the extent not expressly prohibited by law, their right to participate or to refrain from participating in the political processes of the Nation" (Luneburg 2004).