Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel last week recommended President Trump fire an aide for “persistent, notorious and deliberate Hatch Act violations.”
Trump said no, he would not fire Kellyanne Conway, his former campaign manager, for that.
Most casual political observers probably assumed this was partisan politics as usual.
That would be incorrect, just as it would be incorrect to assume the 1939 Hatch Act — authored by Democratic Sen. Carl Hatch of Clovis — had little opposition from Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his supporters when they declared it law.
The Hatch Act has always been controversial — never embraced by political operatives of any stripe who seek to further their agendas for generation after generation; often cited as the spiritual path walked by those with political ethics.
The New York Times tells us the agency that determined Conway violated the Hatch Act is led by Special Counsel Henry Kerner, who was appointed to the post by Trump.
Many Republicans (and Democrats, of course) have been critical of Conway’s political posturing in support of her boss, often citing the Hatch Act.
But Democrats (and Republicans) have complained about the Hatch Act since before it was born.
The Act — amended many times through the years — was and is still intended to prevent federal employees from practicing partisan politics on the job.
Hatch wanted it to do far more, which caused him to get crossways with his fellow Democrats.
A 1973 article published in the New Mexico Historical Review characterized Hatch as launching “an intensive personal campaign to strike at political corruption … An idealist, he drafted legislation to prohibit the intimidation of voters.”
Critics of the Act — then and now — contend it was unconstitutional, a violation of civil liberties and free speech.
Democrats and Republicans alike initially had little concern with Hatch’s bill. They incorrectly assumed it was largely conceptual in its attempt to eliminate corruption.
But when President Roosevelt and other Democrats got around to reading the details, they realized the Hatch Act was more than a general notion — it had a target in mind.
By 1938, Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration employed 3.3 million workers, about 20 percent of the United States labor force.
Critics of the government’s “New Deal” to help boost the nation from Depression-era poverty alleged those jobs came with conditions.
Republicans and conservative Democrats — Hatch was clearly in the latter crowd — believed WPA employees were being coerced into donating large sums of money to political candidates who supported New Deal projects.
Hatch and others feared WPA employees would lose their jobs if they didn’t support the Democratic candidates who paved the way for those jobs. There were suspicions some WPA employees got those jobs because of their political party affiliations.
Originally Hatch set out to write legislation that would prevent all politicians and their appointees from politicking on the job. He caved when President Roosevelt made it clear he would not support such a measure. As a result, the Act has never applied to the president, vice-president or other high-ranking federal officials.
While the definition of “high ranking” may be disputed, no one seems to be suggesting Conway is exempt from the conditions of the Hatch Act. The argument is more about whether the Hatch Act should even be a law.
When it comes to politics and ethical standards, some things never change.
— David Stevens
Publisher