Fact Sheet: New Guidance Weakens Law That Prevents Partisan Politics from Infecting the Federal Workforce

On Friday, April 25, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) took yet another step to politicize the career civil service, reversing key policies related to its enforcement of the Hatch Act, a nearly-century old federal law designed to reduce politicization of the federal workforce.

Passed in 1939, the Hatch Act limits the political activities of federal employees, primarily by restricting their partisan activities while on duty or in the federal workplace. As explained by OSC, which enforces the Hatch Act, its “purposes are to ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion, to protect federal employees from political coercion in the workplace, and to ensure that federal employees are advanced based on merit and not based on political affiliation.” OSC’s new guidance, however, runs counter to those purposes by changing two OSC policies put in place during the Biden Administration.

First, OSC announced that, with respect to alleged Hatch Act violations committed by White House officials, it will no longer pursue disciplinary actions before the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), but instead will simply refer those alleged violations to the President. But as former Special Counsel Dellinger explained when he determined that OSC should treat White House officials the same way as every other federal employee, “This distinction creates separate and not automatically equal systems of accountability for violators, one where an independent adjudicator (the MSPB) can impose sanctions and another where it is left to the president to dole out—or not—any consequences.” Under OSC’s new guidance, however, this distinction is once again in place—and given President Trump’s disdain for any legal requirements that limit political loyalty, it seems clear that White House officials can now disregard the Hatch Act with no consequences.

Second, OSC reversed a prohibition that restricted federal employees from having items related to the campaigns of “current or contemporaneous political figures” in the federal workplace. While the prohibition on campaign material of current candidates for political office remains in place, this change means that federal employees can now display, with no limits or consequences, campaign materials associated with President Trump.

Both of these changes represent a further erosion of the safeguards that protect and preserve a nonpartisan, merit-based, career civil service.