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January 26, 2011 07:18 PM UTC

You Were Saying? Hatch Act Edition

  • 7 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Back in 2005 and 2006, we wrote a couple of times about alleged violations of the federal Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity, involving then-CD-7 GOP candidate Rick O’Donnell and cabinet-level officials under President George W. Bush who headlined attended O’Donnell campaign events. At the time, there was lots of discussion about the Hatch Act’s full interpretation–and commenters coming out of the woodwork to tell your hosts that we were totally wrong about it as it applied to these events. A favorite:

Coloradopols obviously doesn’t understand the Hatch Act.

Well folks, only about five years later, the Colorado Independent reports:

A report released yesterday by the Office of Special Counsel indicates that the George W. Bush White House violated the Hatch Act by spending taxpayer money to send a cabinet level official to Colorado to campaign for Rick O’Donnell in his 2006 run against Ed Perlmutter for what was then an open congressional seat.

The report, “Investigation of Political Activities by White House and Federal Agency Officials During the 2006 Midterm Elections,” found that “White House Office of Political Affairs (OPA) employees, as well as high-level agency political appointees, violated the Hatch Act through a number of practices that were prevalent during the months leading up to the 2006 midterm elections.”

The Hatch Act prohibits the use of government resources for campaign purposes.

The report found that the OPA, under the direction of Karl Rove, repeatedly violated the Hatch Act.

It would have been nice to see this a little sooner than 2011, but we do accept belated apologies.

Comments

7 thoughts on “You Were Saying? Hatch Act Edition

  1. How many cases were there, I wonder, in which the  candidate illegally receiving federal money did win? And now, I suppose, they will all get to keep their ill gotten seats.  Great. Oh but an apology; that would make it all just peachy. Right.

  2. http://www.comcast.net/article

    The 10 agencies that used federal funds to pay for political appointees to travel to events supporting Republican candidates in 2006 were the departments of Transportation, Interior, Housing and Urban Development, Education, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Energy, the Veterans Administration, the Small Business Administration and the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

    *

    From 2007:

    http://reason.com/blog/2007/07

    Rep. Henry Waxman seems to have found some damning emails indicating that members of the Office of National Drug Control Policy were sent across the country to announce grants and make public appearances in congressional districts where Republican congressional candidates needed a boost.

  3. I’ve always thought that United Public Workers v. Mitchell 330 U. S. 75 (1947) was wrongly decided. [I’m no lawyer nor do I play one]. But just read the dissent by William O. Douglas and the majority opinion by Justice Reed and see which one more clearly describes American values. The shennigans described in the article make it less likely that the SCOTUS would overturn Mitchell.

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